Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) concerns itself with the research, design, implementation, and evaluation of computer systems that people interact with. HCI has an enormous impact on the technology industry, with companies of all sizes growing their commercial success through the successful use of HCI methods to create universally usable, useful, efficient, and appealing products.

User Experience Design (UXD) is concerned with designing products, developing systems and providing services that end users will actually use. A system fails when the system does not function as users expect or if they cannot figure out how to use them. Therefore, it is important to research end-users requirements in order to make products, systems and services useful and usable for them.

This unit explores topics in HCI and UXD. This will cover different aspects such as whether the system provides sufficient functionality to meet their user needs and how the users feel and perceive of the systems such as task satisfaction, ease of learning, ease of use, accessibility and efficiency. This unit will provide students essential background, knowledge and research skills of usability and user experience design and evaluation, including how to elicit usability requirements, identify tasks that a system needs to support, design the evaluation protocol and how to collect usability data, analyse and interpret results and communicate them to wide audiences. The unit will introduce students to the different types of user experimentation methods commonly used within HCI and UXD research, and students will additionally learn the theory behind HCI and its application to a number of newly emerging technologies.

This unit provides a practical research project for students. Students will be expected to complete the individual assessments and participate in group activities and student-led presentations and discussions.