COMS W6998-11 Mobile Human-Computer Interaction

Course Information | Grading | Schedule

Course Information

Instructor Information
Kevin A. Li
email: kevinli@research.att.com
Office Hours:
TA: N/A

Course Information:
Time: Wednesday 4:10PM-6:00PM
Location: 825 MUDD
Mailing List: coms6998-11@googlegroups.com

Course Description:
This seminar will provide an introduction to contemporary research in the area of Human-Computer Interaction with a focus on mobile devices. Particular topics to be covered include: gestural interaction, surface computing, activity recognition, location-based computing, mobile search, text-entry, haptics and tactile feedback, novel interaction techniques, sustainability, health and elder-care, wearable computing, security and privacy, and accessibility.

Students will read a number of research papers on seminal topics as well as more contemporary work in the area. The course will primarily consist of discussion of reading assignments. Guests from academia and industrial research labs will be invited to facilitate discussion as appropriate. This course will focus more on class discussions and demos rather than lectures.

It is highly recommended that students have already taken a basic course in human-computer interaction.

Textbook:
None. Any assigned reading material will be provided on this website.

Grading

Students will be evaluated based on their mini project, class participation and presentation.

• Class presentation: 10%
• Paper summaries: 25%
• Participation: 15%
• Mini project: 50%

Class Presentation:
Students will be expected to make at least one presentation of the assigned readings during the course. Depending on the size of the course, this may be done either individually or in pairs. After the presentation, the presenter(s) will be expected to lead the class discussion. The presenter should have a few discussion questions prepared. Slides are encouraged but not required.

Paper Summaries:
During sessions when they do not present, students will be expected to write a summary of the assigned readings for that week. The actual writeups should be done individually although students are encouraged to discuss the papers. These are due by 4am day of class and should be emailed to the instructor. These summaries should be between 1/2page to 1 page in length (single-spaced) and include:

1. What was the research contribution?
2. What were the main strengths of the work over existing work?
3. What were the limitations of the work that future researchers could/should address?

Participation:
Since this class is structured as a reading seminar, students are expected to actively participate in the discussion.

Mini project:
The purpose of the project will be to gain active experience with an original research project in the HCI area. This should culminate in either building a prototype of a system or application, or in the design of a user study. This should be described in a 10-14 page write-up. Depending on the number of students enrolled in the class, projects will be done in groups of 2-3. A list of potential topics will be posted to the website but feel free to propose your own (in fact you're encouraged to). Ideally, some of these will turn into conference or workshop submissions.

Schedule