Topic outline

  • General

    The course will start on Jan 20th at 16.15. 

    Teaching has been moved mainly online until further notice. In this course this applies to lectures and tutoring of group work. However, as the projects require prototyping and experiments with various electronic devices, some physical meetings with the groups will be necessary. However, if you participating to the course from aboard, it is possible to do the course fully online. The lectures will be held in Zoom and recorded.

    Introduction

    The graphical user interface (GUI) with keyboard and mouse has dominated in offices since the 1980's. For other situations the touch-screen interaction represents the current mainstream paradigm for interaction with computer systems. Although it has only been with us for about 10 years, there are already clear situations where the "app" model doesn't work. From games and entertainment, through to particular user groups, touchscreen interaction is not the only or best way to interact.  

    This course provides an overview of novel and unconventional human-computer interaction techniques. These include for example touch, tangibility,  gestures and use of various physical sensors, currently typically applied in games and 3D virtual environments. Many of these will emerge into the mainstream of interaction in the next few years, so the course provides a good head-start to start thinking about them and how they will be used. The course also focuses on how all human senses including touch, sound, taste and smell can be incorporated into computer interaction and the issues in doing so.  

    The course is largely composed of a group project, where groups of students (preferably from different disciplines) identify, develop and construct a novel user interface using physical computing (e.g. Arduino). 

    The course provides both a theoretical and practical understanding of the area of Experimental User Interaction.

    Learning objectives

    • You will be able to describe a broad selection of paradigms for unconventional user interfaces 
    • You will develop a good overview knowledge of the different modalities and technologies that can be used to develop “post-WIMP” user interfaces 
    • You will gain practical experience by developing an experimental user interface to solve a particular problem 


    Teacher:
    Dr. Sci. Mikko Kytö
    mikko.kyto@helsinki.fi