6.813/6.831 introduces the principles of user interface development, focusing on the following areas:

• Design.

  We will look at how to design good user interfaces, covering important design principles (consistency, visibility, simplicity, efficiency, and graphic design) and the human capabilities that motivate them (including perception, motor skills, color vision, attention, and human error).

• Implementation.

  We will see techniques for building user interfaces, including low-fidelity prototyping, input, output, model-view-controller, and layout.

• Evaluation.

  We will learn techniques for evaluating and measuring interface usability, including heuristic evaluation, predictive evaluation, and user testing.

• Research (6.831 only).

  We will learn how to conduct empirical research involving novel user interfaces.

Prerequisites

6.005 or equivalent software engineering experience, specifically:

• substantial programming experience in Java, C#, C++, or a similar language (i.e. not just Python and Javascript);

• experience building at least one graphical user interface

• experience working in a small software development team using version control

Course Format

Class preparation. Readings will be available on the course website before each class. You will be expected to read this material in advance and be prepared for in-class discussions and quizzes on the material during the class meeting, described below.

Nanoquizzes. Each class meeting will include a short "nanoquiz" which covers the content of the current or recent classes. Every full-class meeting will have a nanoquiz, including meetings marked as "work time" on the calendar. Nanoquizzes are closed-book and closed-notes, with a 3-minute time limit. There will be approximately 25 nanoquizzes. Your lowest 5 quiz grades will be automatically dropped, and you can make up missed nanoquizzes or low grades. Makeup instructions can be found found in the Nanoquiz section below.

No other quizzes or exams. Aside from the nanoquizzes, there will be no other in-class quizzes, no midterm, and no final exam.

Participation. You are expected to participate actively in class discussions and activities.

Laptops required. In order to participate in quizzes and in-class activities, you will need to bring a laptop to all class meetings. Your web browser should have your MIT certificate loaded in it.

Group project. A major part of the course is a group project, in which you will work in small groups to design, implement, and evaluate a user interface, through an iterative design process with a series of graded milestones (GR1-GR6). Students from 6.813U and 6.831G may work in the same group.

Studio recitations. On about half the Fridays of the semester, the all-class meeting will be replaced by studio recitation sections, consisting of 5-6 project groups and a TA. In studio, the groups will make short presentations to each other and give each other feedback about their projects. Active participation in studio is expected and graded.

Programming labs. During the first week or two of the semester (see the course calendar), optional evening labs will be held for students who need an introduction to client-side web programming with HTML, CSS, Javascript, and jQuery. These labs are optional, but they may help you with the programming problem sets and the group project implementation, which are required to be done in HTML/Javascript.

Paper prototype testing. About 6 weeks into the semester (see the course calendar) is an evening session for groups to test their paper prototypes on each other. Your group is required to participate in this session.

Grading

For students in 6.813U:

• Course project (GR1-6): 7% each, 42% total

• Assignments (HW1-2, PS1-3): 6% each, 30% total

• Nanoquizzes: roughly 1% each, 24% total

• Participation (reading exercises and class activities): 2% each, 4% total

For students in 6.831G:

• Course project (GR1-6): 7% each, 42% total

• Assignments (HW1-2, PS1-3, RS1-3): 4% each, except 2% for RS2; 30% total

• Nanoquizzes: roughly 1% each, 24% total

• Participation (reading exercises and class activities): 2% each, 4% total

How to ask grading questions. Giving and getting grades is rarely fun, for anybody involved, and can impede the learning process by putting focus on numbers rather than on ideas, and by distorting the relationship between teacher and learner. Although we seek to grade this class rigorously, as you expect from an MIT class, we don't want to spend class time talking about grades, and we don't want grading issues to interfere with your relationship with your TA. As a result, questions about grades may only be asked in person, at a instructor's office hours. TAs are not empowered to discuss or resolve grading questions. Grading questions asked on Piazza or by email will be summarily referred to a instructor's office hours.

How to Get Help

Before you ask For group project questions For problem set or homework questions For grading questions For questions about lecture material To make interesting comments about user interfaces

Nanoquiz Grading

Nanoquizzes consist of multiple-choice questions with several options. Each option is worth one point. If you correctly choose the answer when it's right, then you get one point. If you correctly don't choose the answer when it's wrong, then you get one point. This scheme applies uniformly to choose-all-good-answers and choose-one-best-answer questions.

For example, consider a choose-all-good-answers question with choices A,B,C,D, of which only C and D are correct. If you answer C,D then you get 4 points. If you answer A,C then you get 2 points (since you were wrong about A, right about B, right about C, and wrong about D). If you answer A,B then you get 0 points.

For example, consider a choose-one-best-answer question with choices A,B,C of which only C is correct. If you answer C, then you get 3 points. If you answer A, then you get 1 point (since you were wrong about A, wrong about C, but right about B).

Nanoquiz Alternatives

We automatically drop the lowest 5 nanoquiz grades. If you're dissatisfied with any of your remaining nanoquiz grades, however, you can earn up to half the lost points for that quiz back, in one of two ways:

• Write a good nanoquiz question for the same lecture.

  Quiz questions must be multiple-choice ("choose one answer" or "choose all good answers"), and must indicate what you think the right answer(s) should be. Good questions should be relevant to the lecture content, straightforward to answer by someone who read the lecture notes, and hard to get full credit on otherwise. Good questions will generally come from the Knowledge, Comprehension, or Application levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. Higher levels are better. See Multiple Choice Questions based on Bloom's Taxonomy for ideas.

• Find a good example for the same lecture.

  An example consists of an image (often a screenshot of a user interface, but not necessarily) and a paragraph of text, related to a specific topic discussed in the lecture. Don't riff on the lecture's hall of fame/shame example, because that's not considered a specific topic of the lecture.

Make sure you do the right lecture. Nanoquizzes are numbered by the lectures they cover. If you don't like your grade for Nanoquiz 1, then you should be offering a question or example related to Lecture 1.

Note that these alternatives are worth only half of the lost points. If you took the nanoquiz and got 8/10, then this makeup can bring your grade up to 9/10. If you missed a nanoquiz entirely and got a 0/10, then this makeup will raise it to 5/10.

The deadline for making up a nanoquiz is one week (7 * 24 hours) after that nanoquiz's grades are posted. Makeups may not be revised or resubmitted. Only one submission per nanoquiz will be considered. Makeup submissions are reviewed roughly once a week. You will receive an email about whether your submission was accepted.

Submit your questions or examples using the nanoquiz makeup submission form.

Studio

On most Fridays, we will be meeting in studio. The purpose of studio is for you and your group to get feedback from your peers and your TA on your group project at each checkpoint. To facilitate discussion and feedback, each studio will have only five to six groups.

See the course staff directory below for studio times and locations.