spring 2009

CS376: Research Topics in Human-Computer Interaction

Groups · Ideas · Project Abstract · Progress Meeting · Presentation · Paper

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 will raise an important research question, and plan and execute a methodology for answering that question. Often, this methodology will include building and evaluating 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 some examples of final papers from the last three years:

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

Forming Groups

This project will be completed in groups of two (email cs376@cs if you'd like a larger group). There will be time at the ends of classes during the first week to share ideas with others so that you can get an sense of who you would like to work with. Project groups will be self-paired.

By 7:00 am on Friday, April 10, use the online submission system to submit the name(s) of who you will be working with. (All group members should complete a submission.)

To assist in finding a group, a message board will be available on the course submission site to post your ideas and communicate with others. This will be available after the second day of class (April 3). Also, take a look at the opportunities for collaboration with individuals outside of the class.

Project Abstract (Draft and Final Versions)

A draft of your project abstract is due at 7am on Friday, April 17. Course staff will provide feedback on the draft to assist in the preparation of a final version, due at 7am on Friday, May 1. Both are submitted online.

The project abstract should cover the following topics:

Research Question: what are you trying to answer? State this as clearly as possible in one sentence.
Hypothesis: what do you think the answer to your question is, and why?
Methodology: how will you explore your hypothesis, and why is that the right approach? (This should include the design of your study.) Grounding this in methodologies that other researchers have used (e.g. by drawing from the class readings) is a good idea.
Study Recruitment Plan: how will you get participants for your study? For pilot studies, we suggest you recruit from within the class -- "trading" participation with other groups is a great way to learn about what others are doing. For larger studies (e.g. for those not building a system), you need a clear recruitment plan.
Related Work: what have others done that is similar? (You need not have related work in the draft version.)

For the draft, we expect you to cover all topics in 1-2 paragraphs--be concise but concrete in your descriptions. For the final version, you'll want to go into greater depth (approximately 2 paragraphs for each issue, with the exception of the research question, which should still be be one precise sentence).

We encourage you to iterate multiple times on this abstract. While there is only one formally defined point for receiving feedback from course staff, you should seek out more informal feedback as you work on this. E-mail us at any point if you'd like us to take a look at your current submission, or come to office hours if you'd like to discuss in person. You are free to change directions after submitting your draft, but the sooner you nail down a direction, the better your project is likely to be.

Progress Meeting

On May 25, course staff will meet individually with each project group to provide feedback on your progress. You should be prepared to present your working system (if you're building one), and discuss your study plan. (If you aren't building a system, you should have preliminary results from your larger study.)

While there is nothing specific that you need to submit for the progress meeting, you are encouraged to use the online submission system to submit any materials you'd like to discuss (video prototypes, data from preliminary studies, etc.) If you have a functional prototype (or something else that isn't amenable to online submission), bring it to the meeting.

The exact time for your meeting will be determined in the middle of May.

Final Presentation

At the end of the quarter, you will present your research results to the class and outside guests. We have invited a number of luminaries from the field of HCI; feel free to invite anyone you think may be interested as well!

The presentations will occur on Tuesday, June 9, 3:30-6:30pm in 104 Gates.

Length: Each group will have 8 total minutes for their presentation, which should be divided into roughly 6 minutes for the presentation and 2 minutes for questions. This time limit will be strictly enforced – groups should set up during the question session of the group before them.

A few thoughts on preparing your presentation:

Structure your presentation like a pyramid — begin with a one-sentence statement of your research result. This will get everyone on the same page. Then, offer a short (1 slide, 4 sentences) description of what you did and why you did it. Then, explain things in detail.
This is a short presentation – short enough that you can write out everything you want to say long-hand. Do this! This will allow you to pack the most possible into 6 minutes. Read through it enough times so that you have it basically memorized, but not so memorized that you get flustered if you skip a word or someone asks a question.
Know your audience! You can expect that everyone in the class knows everything you learned in class. So, you don't need to re-introduce the whole field of HCI. A sentence or two to situate your work in the field is good, but spend the rest of the time telling us what you did.

Final Paper

In addition to the presentation, you will present your findings in a final paper. Final papers will be due on Thursday, June 11 at 7am. Final papers should be two pages long in the UIST format.

While two pages may sound short, it is much harder to write a 2-page paper than a 10-page paper that covers the same information. 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. 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:

Find a paper that you particularly like because of how it's written, and use it as a template. This paper needn't be on the same topic, but a close mapping in terms of type of contribution (e.g. a tool paper vs. a theory paper) will give you more guidance as to how to structure your paper.
The abstract is the most important part of a paper!. After reading the abstract, the reader should know exactly what your contribution is – don't speak in generalities. For example, instead of saying "We analyze different methods for preparing cookies with interesting ingredients by running a user study.", say "We present three new recipes for chocolate chip cookies each employing a unique ingredient: jellybeans, tofu, and corn nibblets. Cookies were compared using a blind, within-subjects taste test with 30 individuals. The cookie with tofu was found to have superior mouth feel when compared with the other two, but subjects preferred the taste of the corn cookie by a 2:1 margin."

Groups who do excellent projects will be encouraged to submit their research to UIST 2009's poster session. These submissions are due Tuesday, June 30.

Project Ideas

While you are encouraged to come up with your own project ideas, we have a list opportunities for collaboration with individuals outside of the class.