Human-Computer Interaction
Designing, Studying, and Building Interactive Systems
16-week course · University of Iowa
This course introduces students to core methods in HCI: understanding people, collecting user needs, applying design principles, prototyping interfaces, evaluating systems, and building web applications.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students should be able to study users, design interfaces, evaluate systems, and build interactive prototypes.
- Design and evaluate interactive systems using core HCI concepts and methods.
- Develop controlled study and interview protocols for studying technology use.
- Analyze user needs and translate them into design goals.
- Create prototypes using sketches, storyboards, paper prototypes, and Figma.
- Build simple web applications using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and VueJS.
- Apply HCI thinking to AI-assisted technologies and their broader social impacts.
Course Schedule
Weekly schedule, learning goals, and deliverables.
| Week(s) | Topic | Goal & Skills | Deliverables |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | Course overview and introduction to HCI. | — |
| 2–5 | Understanding People |
Measure and understand interactions with
technology and AI. Controlled studies, hypothesis testing, statistics. |
Presentation 1 (Week 3) Assignment 1 (Week 5) |
| 6–8 | Collecting Needs | Interviews, surveys, thematic analysis, design goals, literature review. |
Assignment 2 (Week 7) Project Milestone 1 (Week 8) |
| — | Midterm 1 | Modules 1–3 | Exam |
| 9–10 | Design Principles | Gulf of execution/evaluation, design heuristics. | Presentation 2 (Week 10) |
| 11–12 | Prototyping | Sketching, storyboarding, paper prototyping, Figma. | Project Milestone 2 (Week 12) |
| — | Midterm 2 | Modules 4–5 | Exam |
| 13–14 | Development | Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, VueJS. |
Assignment 3 (Week 13) Assignment 4 (Week 14) |
| 15–16 | Project & Wrap Up | Final project and advanced HCI topics. | Final Project Submission |
Deliverables
A compact view of presentations, assignments, milestones, and exams.
| Week | Deliverable | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Week 3 | Presentation 1 | Topic highlighting how AI is impacting society, jobs, creativity, learning, or a related area. |
| Week 5 | Assignment 1 | Controlled study protocol for measuring how AI impacts a task of interest. |
| Week 7 | Assignment 2 | Augmented interview protocol for a potential technology. |
| Week 8 | Project Milestone 1 | Project proposal and outline. |
| After Module 3 | Midterm 1 | Covers Module 1 and Module 2. |
| Week 10 | Presentation 2 | Hall of fame/shame. |
| Week 12 | Project Milestone 2 | Mid-project update. |
| After Module 5 | Midterm 2 | Covers Module 3 and Module 4. |
| Week 13 | Assignment 3 | Develop a personal portfolio. |
| Week 14 | Assignment 4 | Develop a to-do list application with JavaScript. |
| Week 16 | Project Milestone 3 | Submit the final outcome of the project. |