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Welcome students, I look forward to working with you this semester, check this site frequently for updates and assignments.

~  JON ~

IST 331

Syllabus

Week1

Week2

Instructional Design

~ IST 331~

Week 1

Course Introduction:

Introduction: This course will be a meshing of several different fields of study.

• Psychology
  • We will study users and try to understand how they think
  • We will analyze how they work with existing programming and report the strengths and weakness's of the existing system
• Communication
  • We will look at some of the basic theories of communication and mass comm
• Instructional Design
  • We will learn the basic principals of instructional design, and instructional technologies
  • ADDIE (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate)
• IST/CIS/Technology
  • You will use the skills you have learned in prior IST course to develope and design a final project.
• English/Speech
  • You will have to write several papers and reports, This is not an english course, but you will be expected to do these papers correctly and be able to present them accordingly
• Business/Management
  • Many of the theories that we will discuss have their roots in business and management in times of crisis and worker efficancy

  MAIN TOPICS OF THIS COURSE

• User centric design (what you will learn)

  • Optimizing how people use systems requires an understanding of not only the technology that is being used but also understanding how human beings respond to the system that has been implemented.
    
    
  • Good design is knowing why and how users do what they do with the artifact.
    • Artifact: "The technology system that is being used."
      
      
  • There are not always right and wrong answers to the design of technology, there are more often different options to choose from.
    
    
  • This course will help you to be able to analyze the data and allow you to choose the best option available.
    
    
  • You need to be able to make principled decisions and to be able to support and understand the assumptions that have lead you to your conclusion.
    
    
  • You should also be able to understand others unprincipled options, and design flaws.
    
    
  • Learn techniques to predict users behavior during the deign process based on a unified theory of how perception, motor output, cognition, and social processes interact to produce behavior.
    • Preception: "the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information"
    • Cognition: "The process of thought"
      
      
  • This class is not about interface technologies, tcl/tk, java, visual basic, html, or a combination of these.
    • These are good complimentary software's to be able to assist you in your development stage of ADDIE
      • ADDIE: (Analyze, Design, Development, Implimentation, Evaluation) This is the main Instructional Design process you will learn in this course.
    • This Course is about the theory of design rather then the progams that are used during development of the artifact.
  • Technology is constantly changing, people however change far less.
    • When studying a particular interface technology the knowledge may become obsolete.
    • However understanding how to design the interface based on the "human element" (which is less likely to change) is a better use of our time.

 

*****Class 2*****

Basic Communication Power Point

CLICK HERE
speaking_and_listening_process

REF: http://www.personal.psu.edu/cwc5/blogs/coursedesign/index.html

Have you ever considered the importance of the design of an interface? The study and application of human computer interaction (HCI) and human factors is very important and can actually save lives. For example, interfaces that allow nurses to type in the digits of a drug dose are much more dangerous than the interfaces that force the nurse to dial the dose in using a wheel for each digit. When typing, a repeated digit can increase the dosage of medication by a factor of ten and can result in severe complications or even death to the patient. This mistake is not possible with the other dial-based interface.*

In 1989 in the Kegworth airplane disaster, forty-seven people lost their lives due to poor HCI and human factors work. This crash of a Boeing 737 was, in part, caused by poor cockpit and instrument design.*

The study and application of HCI and human factors can also save money. One example is the New York telephone company (Nynex) case. In the early 1990's Nynex considered upgrading their system. They believed that the new graphical user workstations could improve productivity. Just to be safe, they had an analysis done before implementing the system. The analysis found that the new system would in fact be four percent slower. That seems like a small amount, but the four percent loss in productivity was going to cost Nynex $2.4 million a year! Understanding the user is key to these issues.*

*Ritter, F. E., Churchhill, E., & Gilmore, D. (2003, Spring). Introduction to the user: the ABCs of user interface design. Unpublished manuscript.

After reading this topic, you should be able to:

• Describe the basic principles of human factors and the importance of ergonomics and anthropometrics.
• Discuss the role and importance of human factors and human computer interaction.
• Describe some basic principles of user centered interface design.
• Outline some elements of usability testing and systems evaluation.