Interface Design for HCI Classroom: From Learners' Perspective

TL;DR

This study investigates how students perceive and adopt HCI design principles in a classroom setting, demonstrating improved understanding and consistent application through a studio-based learning approach and a new peer feedback tool.

Contribution

It introduces a novel peer feedback tool supporting diverse applications and provides empirical insights into students' perception and application of HCI principles in education.

Findings

Students improved understanding of Golden Rules over time

High consistency in applying HCI principles among students

Students' focus was primarily on user interface and experience

Abstract

Having a good Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) design is challenging. Previous works have contributed significantly to fostering HCI, including design principle with report study from the instructor view. The questions of how and to what extent students perceive the design principles are still left open. To answer this question, this paper conducts a study of HCI adoption in the classroom. The studio-based learning method was adapted to teach 83 graduate and undergraduate students in 16 weeks long with four activities. A standalone presentation tool for instant online peer feedback during the presentation session was developed to help students justify and critique other's work. Our tool provides a sandbox, which supports multiple application types, including Web-applications, Object Detection, Web-based Virtual Reality (VR), and Augmented Reality (AR). After presenting one assignment and two projects, our results showed that students acquired a better understanding of the Golden Rules principle over time, which was demonstrated by the development of visual interface design. The Wordcloud reveals the primary focus was on the user interface and shed some light on students' interest in user experience. The inter-rater score indicates the agreement among students that they have the same level of understanding of the principles. The results show a high level of guideline compliance with HCI principles, in which we witnessed variations in visual cognitive styles. Regardless of diversity in visual preference, the students presented high consistency and a similar perspective on adopting HCI design principles. The results also elicited suggestions into the development of the HCI curriculum in the future.