Table of Contents
Advanced Topics in Human-Computer Interaction
Course overview
This course of Advanced Topics in HCI includes discussions about a set of representative papers published in the field of HCI, and creation and demonstration of interactive systems. Students lead their own capstone projects where they build interactive systems and present their demonstrations at the last class.
This course is double-listed as “3747-108: Advanced Topics in HCI” in Graduate School of Engineering and “4915100: Human Interfaces” in Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies. Students are allowed to register only to either of these two courses. Everything besides a course name is the same, so no worries about which one you should register. :)
この講義は工学系では「3747-108: ヒューマンコンピュータインタラクション特論」，情報学環・学際情報学府では「4915100: ヒューマンインタフェース」として提供されています．学生はどちらかの講義にしか登録できません．講義の名前以外はすべて同じですので，どちらかで登録していただければ結構です．:)
| Room | 92B on the ninth floor in Eng. Bld. 2 |
|---|---|
| Time | Mondays (not Thursdays), 10:25-12:10 (including a short break) |
| Instructor | Koji Yatani (koji “at-mark” iis-lab.org) |
Announcement
- Mar. 30: Old syllabi provided by Graduate School of Engineering may describe that this course occurs Thursdays. However, this is not correct. From this year, this course occurs Mondays. 工学系のシラバスには木曜日開講となっているものがありますが，それはミスです．今年度から月曜日開講となりましたのでご注意ください．
- Apr. 9: Please name your preference at this page by 12th April.
Course Design
This course has two major objectives: getting familiarized with classic and recent HCI research that well demonstrates novel interactive systems and applications, and designing an interactive system by conducting brainstorming, qualitative surveys, low-fidelity prototyping, and crafting a research proposal (and creating a prototype). To achieve them, this course offers a mixture of research discussions on HCI papers and capstone projects.
- Research discussions: We discuss a selected set of papers published at HCI and its relevant conferences, such as CHI, UIST, UbiComp, CSCW, and MobiSys. Each student will be asked to lead discussions at least once during the semester.
- Capstone projects: Students conduct a project to propose a novel interactive system. They will be asked to do a presentation at the end of the course.
Course Policy
Language
English is the official language in this course though Japanese may be used if necessary. All teaching is done in English at a class. Students are strongly recommended to deliver their presentations and demonstrations in English. You may use Japanese when you have large difficulties in communication, but you must always try your best to speak English.
Prerequisite
We do not have any explicit prerequisite for this course, but students are expected to have:
- Basic knowledge and experience on HCI research,
- Programming skills and experience, and
- English communication skills.
But, the most important is, of course, your strong passion. :)
Academic Misconduct
We have no tolerance to any type of academic misconducts, such as plagiarism, inappropriate citations, and fabrications. Examples are:
- Using others' ideas without appropriate citations and/or acknowledgements,
- Using codes and/or libraries without citing appropriately,
- Using source codes written by others without explicit permissions，and
- Making up data or system behavior for better-looking demonstration.
In case serious academic misconducts are found, we give following strong penalties depending on their significance.
- No mark for assignments where academic misconducts are found (Marked as zero. Marks are retracted if already given),
- No mark for all assignments that have been already submitted,
- No mark for all assignments that have been already submitted and prohibition to submit future assignments.
Please make sure that your reports and source codes do not cause misunderstandings.
Auditing
Auditing students are welcome to join us. But I strongly recommend you to do a discussion chair even if you are just auditing. Also participate in discussions at the class. Just don't be a free rider. :)
Evaluation
Your performance in this course will be evaluated in the following criteria.
- [40%] Paper discussion: Given to your performance in leading discussions about the paper assigned to you from the reading list.
- [40%] Capstone project: Given to the quality of your project proposal (and prototype demonstration if you have any).
- [20%] Engagement and attendance: Given to your attendance to the course and your involvement in discussions during the class.
You must both do a discussion chair at least twice and complete your capstone project to get a final mark. Otherwise, your mark will be zero.
Schedule
| Class | Date | Contents | |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 10th, April | [Introduction] | Course introduction, reading assignment |
| [Research Discussions] | Brainstorming with vision videos | ||
| #2 | 17th, April | [Research Discussions] | Sensing touch |
| #3 | 24st, April | [Research Discussions] | With my hand, on my body |
| 1st, May | (Class cancelled. Work on your reading assignment.) | ||
| #4 | 8th, May | [Research Discussions] | Crazy visions |
| #5 | 15th, May | [Research Discussions] | Turning reality to surreality |
| #6 | 22nd, May | [Research Discussions] | Feeling your force |
| #7 | 29th, May | [Research Discussions] | Tangibles and beyond |
| #8 | 5th, June | [Research Discussions] | Super DIY |
| #9 | 12th, June | [Research Discussions] | Healthy life |
| #10 | 19th, June | [Capstone Project] | How can we write a good review? / Round table presentations of your ideas |
| 21st, June | [Capstone Project] | Proposal submission due (at 23:59) | |
| #11 | 26th, June | Work on reviews individually. | |
| #12 | 3rd, July | [Research Discussions] | Mobile life |
| 3rd, July | [Capstone Project] | Reviews due | |
| 7th, July | [Capstone Project] | Meta reviews due | |
| #13 | 10th, July | [Capstone Project] | Committee meeting |
Reading List
Please submit your paper preference from this page by 12th April.
- 17th, April: Sensing touch
- Optional readings
- A research center for augmenting human intellect in 1968. (paper)
- 24th, April: With my hand, on my body
- Optional readings
- Twiddler typing: One-handed chording text entry for mobile phones in CHI 2004. (paper)
- Nomadic radio: speech and audio interaction for contextual messaging in nomadic environments in CHI 2000. (paper)
- “FingeRing”: a full-time wearable interface in CHI 1994. (paper)
- GestureWrist and GesturePad: unobtrusive wearable interaction devices in ISWC 2001. (paper)
- Epidermal electronics in Science 2011. (paper)
- 8th, May: Crazy visions
- Optional readings
- 15th, May: Turning reality to surreality
- Optional readings
- A touring machine: Prototyping 3D mobile augmented reality systems for exploring the urban environment in Personal Technologies 1997. (paper) (video lecture by Steve Feiner)
- A taxonomy of mixed reality visual displays in IEICE TRANSACTIONS 1994. (paper)
- Annotating the Real World with Knowledge-Based Graphics on a See-Through Head-Mounted Display in GI 1992. (paper)
- 22nd, May: Feeling your force
- Optional readings
- Active click: tactile feedback for touch panels in CHI EA 2001. (paper)
- Ambient touch: designing tactile interfaces for handheld devices in UIST 2002. (paper)
- Tactons: structured tactile messages for non-visual information display in AUIC 2004. (paper)
- Tactile brush: drawing on skin with a tactile grid display in CHI 2011. (paper)
- Multimodal collaborative handwriting training for visually-impaired people in CHI 2008. (paper)
- 29th, May: Tangibles and beyond
- Optional readings
- Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms in CHI 1997. (paper) (metaDesk video)
- Phidgets: easy development of physical interfaces through physical widgets in UIST 2001. (paper)
- 5th, June: Super DIY
- Optional readings
- 12th, June: Healthy life
- 19th, June: Discussions on how to write a good review. / Round table presentations about your proposals.
- 26th, June: (Koji will be out of town, but you will work on your reviews individually.)
- 3rd, July: Mobile life
- [Salort Sofiane] SmartGPA: how smartphones can assess and predict academic performance of college students in UbiComp 2015. (paper)
- [Vitor Castro] Lock n'LoL: Group-based Limiting Assistance App to Mitigate Smartphone Distractions in Group Activities in CHI 2016. (paper)
- Optional reading
- Reality mining: sensing complex social systems in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 2006. (paper)
- A survey of mobile phone sensing in IEEE Pervasive computing 2010. (paper)
- The personal audio loop: Designing a ubiquitous audio-based memory aid in UbiComp 2006. (paper)
- Hooked on smartphones: an exploratory study on smartphone overuse among college students in CHI 2014. (paper)
- CrossCheck: Toward passive sensing and detection of mental health changes in people with schizophrenia in UbiComp 2016. (paper)
Research Discussions
In research discussions, we discuss some of recently-published HCI work that demonstrates strong novelty and/or progress in this field. After the first class, please name your preferences in this page.
- Discussion chair: This person plays a central role of stimulating discussions among fellow students. You will have 20 - 25 minutes in total for your discussion slot. You must read the assigned paper carefully, and deliver a 10-minute presentation. After your presentation, you will be expected to lead discussions with fellow students. Your presentation material must be in English though you can deliver either in English or Japanese. Your presentation should cover:
- Backgrounds of the research,
- Summary of the developed system,
- Novelty and originality of the work, and
- pros and cons of the system/method.
- Discussion members: The rest of you will serve as discussion members. You must engage in discussions proactively. All of discussion members must read the papers before coming to the class. You should take notes about your impression on the papers, in particular:
- What did you like in this work? Why?
- How do you think this work can inspire your research?
- What are possible applications out of this technology?
- What are shortcomings? What improvements do you think this technology needs?
- If you were a reviewer on this paper, how would you rate and provide feedback?
- If you were a program committee member and had to pitch this paper to argue accept or reject, how would you do?
- What impressed you about the writing? What presentation techniques do you think we should learn from the paper?
Vision Videos
In Class #1 , we discuss some vision videos. If you are interested in checking more videos, use the following links to find your favorites.
Capstone Project
A capstone project aims to obtain experience of investigating potential HCI research areas and creating a project proposal. We also go through an entire process of proposal reviews, including, reviewing others' proposals, crafting meta reviews, discussing at a “PC meeting,” and making the final decisions.
(Hypothetical) Background context
We are a research funding agency that runs an annual funding program. In our program, each proposal can ask us for up to 30k USD for one-year project. Thus, our program would not cover a large project that would involve multiple researchers and institutions, but the funding would be enough for researchers to take an initial stab on their creative ideas.
We have had many applications, and made initial screening already. Now all the proposal in our pile will be accepted, but we have to determine which proposals would get full funding due to our limited budget. So, we are conducting a review process to prioritize proposals.
Overall process
The overall process of proposal submission and review will be as follows:
- 21st, June, 23:59 JST: Proposal submission due.
- 22nd, June (early morning): Koji will make review assignments, and students will get review requests.
- 3rd, July: Reviews by secondaries due.
- 7th, July: Online discussions and meta reviews by primaries due.
- 10th, July: Committee meeting
Proposal Submission
Students are asked to submit a research proposal as a capstone project. Your proposal should clearly describe:
- Title of your proposal
- Author name and contact information
- Abstract (a short summary of your proposal)
- Motivation and background (with a short discussion about related work)
- Research proposal
- Describe your idea clearly. What exactly will you implement and how? How will you evaluate your system?
- Evaluation criteria during reviews
- Novelty: How novel is your proposal? How well do you discuss the differences from prior work?
- Feasibility: How achievable is your proposal within a year?
- Clarity: How clearly does your proposal describe problems and possible solutions?
- Research execution plan
- Describe how you will execute your project from July 2017 to March 2018.
- Budget plan
- Describe how you will spend money. Use the following breakdown and describe your expense plan so that reviewers can confirm your plan is legitimate.
- Equipment (more than 2K USD)
- Consumable (less than 2K USD)
- Hiring assistants (e.g., for data analysis, or prototyping)
- Travel/Conference
- Others
Proposal format
Submission
You may submit your proposal through EasyChair (http://easychair.org/). I have already sent you the instruction of how to log in to the system. If you haven't received, please let me know immediately.
Collaboration
You are encouraged to collaborate with your fellow students and team up for capstone projects. However, your team must be up to two people. Marks for the capstone project will be given equally to all team members.
Project examples
Examples of capstone projects are as follows (but not limited to):
- Recognizing user's activities from sensor data on a smartphone
- Detecting gesture input to support a new type of interaction with computers
- Detecting user's different types of physical exercise
- Creating new visual environments for entertainment
- Enabling concepts that are shown in the vision videos we discussed at the first class