BSc Computer Science and Mathematics with Industrial Experience

You should not confuse this high-level overview of the domain with the knowledge you would acquire in a full three-year degree programme. We will cover the tools, techniques, and mindset necessary to competently approach your first user testing and user experience job. Designed from a practical perspective the unit will enable you to take a junior role in a user experience department or usability company. It will also provide you with the overall knowledge to communicate with others and make sensible suggestions regarding UX work while serving as a basis for future self-study within the UX domain (Further Reading and SAQs). In this case, the unit is composed of discussions through (a) the principles, tools, and techniques required; (b) These unit notes to expand on those principles and techniques; (c) the discussion topics to teach and test your ability to summarise, and then form a view based on a complex UX topic; and finally, (d) the secondary text which will hopefully teach you something about the general science of the area while also enabling you to critique areas and understand how and why your view has been formed (including the ability for people to have different views which may coexist). 
 

COMP23311 and COMP23412 are pre-requisites or a demonstrable equivalent.

You should not confuse this high-level overview of the domain with the knowledge you would acquire in a full three-year degree programme. We will cover the tools, techniques, and mindset necessary to competently approach your first user testing and user experience job. Designed from a practical perspective the unit will enable you to take a junior role in a user experience department or usability company. It will also provide you with the overall knowledge to communicate with others and make sensible suggestions regarding UX work while serving as a basis for future self-study within the UX domain (Further Reading and SAQs). In this case, the unit is composed of discussions through (a) the principles, tools, and techniques required; (b) These unit notes to expand on those principles and techniques; (c) the discussion topics to teach and test your ability to summarise, and then form a view based on a complex UX topic; and finally, (d) the secondary text which will hopefully teach you something about the general science of the area while also enabling you to critique areas and understand how and why your view has been formed (including the ability for people to have different views which may coexist). 

ILO 1: Assess a UX study scenario (related to Gathering and Modelling User Requirements, User Evaluation, & Evaluation Analysis) model, design, and plan the methodology which addresses that scenario.

ILO 2: Select and apply appropriate methods for analysing a design.

ILO 3: Analyse UX related topics and discuss, elaborate and relate them to both taught material (UX Concepts, History, and Landscape, Accessibility, Usability, Emotion, Engagement) and independently researched material.

ILO 4: Explain how UX relates to Systems and Software Development, including development principles and best practice.

ILO 5: Analyse a key topic in UX, formulate an opinion, and critique, and conduct independent research to support your position.

ILO 6: Define, describe, and explain UX terms across all sections of the Unit.

ILO 7: Describe, evaluate and discuss concepts related to the scientific method in the context of UX.

ILO 8: Explain the role and importance of Standards, Technologies, and Guidelines in the UX process.

ILO 9: Describe methods including experiment design, application, and the ethical process.

User experience (UX or UE) is often conflated with usability but some would say takes its lead from the emerging discipline of experience design (XD). In reality, this means that usability is often thought of as being within the technical domain. Often being responsible for engineering aspects of the interface or interactive behaviour by building usability paradigms directly into the system. On the other hand user experience is meant to convey a wider remit which does not just primarily focus on the interface but on other psychological aspects of the user behaviour. In some ways, its study is indivisible from that of the components which it helps to make usable, however, as we shall see, key scientific principles different from most other aspects of computer science, support and underlay the area, and by implication its practical application as UX. UX is tricky to pinpoint but ISO 9241–210 defines it as…

“a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service”

Wikipedia, says it …

“is the process of manipulating user behaviour through usability, usefulness, and desirability provided in the interaction with a product.”

Therefore, while agile development includes UX; COMP33511 does not explicitly cover front-end development, designing new interfaces, or graphic design.

COMP33511 runs as a 'flipped classroom' in that I expect you to read the notes before the lecture, and then in the lecture we discuss the topics covered in the notes as well as problems you are having etc. There are videos of our discussions to refer to afterwards. My primary expectation is that you will talk to me, interact, ask questions, and challenge me if you think I'm wrong; in general be interested. Anybody interested will be able to understand this course and only by understanding will you be able to pass.

The unit comprises twenty-one ‘revision’ sessions in that we will go through nothing new - everything is already in the notes, slides, and audio podcasts. Each seminar is a revision session (the contents of which I control) going through questions you may get on the exam, and each drop in session is a revision session (the contents of which You control) going through questions you find problematic. Students will be expect to devote further time for their own study and for the completion of their coursework. The twenty-one seminars involve one lecturer led seminar (I guide the study) and one student led seminar (you guide the study). 

The unity will cove topics such as: UX Concepts, History, and Landscape?, UXD and Visual Design, People, Practical Ethics, Gathering and Modelling User Requirements, Developing for UX, Prototyping and Rapid Application Development, Accessibility, Usability, Emotion, Engagement, User Evaluation, Human-in-the-Loop Systems and Digital Phenotyping, Evaluation Analysis, and UX IRL.  

COMP33511 runs as a 'flipped classroom' in that I expect students to read the notes and watch the videos before the seminar, and then in the seminar we discuss the topics covered in the material as well as problems you are having etc. There are videos available for asynchronous study (as part of blended learning). My primary expectation is that you will talk to me, interact, ask questions, and challenge me if you think I'm wrong; in general be interested. 

The unit comprises twenty-one teaching sessions with one extra for the covering of revision topics. Students will be expect to devote further time for their own study and for the completion of their coursework. The twenty-one seminars involve one lecturer led seminar (I guide the study) and one student led seminar (you guide the study).
 

Feedback is via face to face communications, written feedback for coursework assignments


Open Book Exam (Human Marked): 50%

Computer Marked Assessment: 20%

Written Assignment #1: 15%

Written Assignment #2: 15%

1. Pirsig, Robert M. (2004). Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: an inquiry into values. Vintage. ISBN: 9780099786405 

Links related to COMP33511

• Video titled What's User Experience?

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