Spring 2017

Interaction Design Research


The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed.
  — William Gibson

Project Overview

In this course, you will complete a quarter-long research project. This project will be completed in groups of two.

At a high level, successful projects raise a question about human-computer interaction, and plan and execute a project for answering that question. Most projects build and evaluate a prototype system, but hacking is not strictly necessary. All projects require a study — obviously a much more thorough study will be expected of projects that do not involve system building. The goal of the project abstract draft (described below) is to help you scope your work appropriately.

To get a sense of what a good scope for a project is, here are the final papers from 2015.

For information on how the project will be evaluated, see the grading page.

Forming Groups

This project will be completed in groups of two. E-mail Ailie if you'd like a larger group. You will be subject to lengthy and brutal questioning. No teams with a single member. Project groups will be self-paired. Use Piazza to help find team members. When discussing a potential partnership with someone, you should discuss your background (e.g., programming proficiency or other skills you bring), availability (e.g., do you plan to primarily work evenings or mornings? weekdays or weekends?), and motivation level (ambition for a turing award? Or to just barely graduate?). It's important to be honest with your partner up front, and follow through on commitments you make. If you make commitments that you don't deliver on, your teammate may fire you after meeting with the teaching staff and providing email notification as to the reason to you and the teaching staff. Keep a clear, consistent line of communication open with your teammate.

At the end of class Thursday October 1st, use the online submission system to submit the name(s) of who you will be working with. (All group members should complete a submission.)

For assistance in finding a group, go to the Piazza forum to post your ideas and communicate with others. Also, take a look at the opportunities for collaboration with individuals outside of the class.

Project Ideas

An important part of your course work is to articulate a research question and make a plan to address it. To do this, you'll need to: 1) read a lot of papers in an area of interest, and 2) generate a lot of ideas. Leveraging an existing project on campus will get you to a novel idea quicker, increase your impact, and be more rewarding. Here are some possibilities:

It will take some thinking to find a project where you can ask and answer a research question inside a 10-week quarter. You'll likely iterate on your idea several times -- take care not to fixate on one idea early on.

October: Progress Meeting

Course staff will meet with each project group to provide feedback on your progress. These meetings will happen during class time. Please use this google doc to sign up for a time slot. You should be prepared to present your working system, discuss your study plan, and have pilot results. Use the online submission system to submit any materials you'd like to discuss (e.g., prototypes, data, draft writing.) Come to the meeting prepared to show and tell with preliminary results and how you plan to course-correct based on your early experimentation. How will you revise your system/design/experiment/framing so that your project really pops? What will the title of your final paper be? In other words, how will you summarize your research contribution in just a few words? This exercise will helps you focus and sharpen your efforts on what will best address your research question. This focus will be especially important as time gets tight: some things will matter more than others.

November: Study Preflight Check

What data will you gather, and how will you analyze it? Please come to this class with a written list of 3-5 things that you'll measure. For each, explain how you will measure it and what comparisons you will perform with it. Be specific - this should be the actual plan you will refer to while conducting and analyzing your study.

December: Final Presentation

At the end of the quarter, you will present your research results to the class and outside guests. We have invited a couple HCI luminaries. Feel free to invite interested friends and colleagues!

December: Final Paper

In addition to the presentation, you will present your findings in a final paper.

Page limit: Final papers should be 3-5 pages long in the two-column CHI format. While this may sound short, it is much harder to write an effective, complete short paper than it is to ramble. A good approach to writing a great short paper is to write a long one first, and then trim it down to the most vital parts. Appendices are acceptable and optional (they don't count towards the page limit), but won't be graded. Add one for materials you want an interested reader to see (for example, when we post your project on the website for next year), but don't need to be graded. Page limit includes references.

Much of the advice from above for preparing your presentation applies to the paper as well. Here are a few more suggestions for preparing your paper: