Appreciating Technology and Understanding Science Through Usability Studies

计算机科学（31）本项目正在开发两门关于人机交互（HCI）的课程，一门面向普通教育受众，另一门面向计算机科学（CS）专业，学生在其中学习和实践从探索性研究到假设检验实验的严格实证研究方法。由于如此多的商业和公共政策决策是基于对实证结果的评估，因此所有学生，无论他们的专业如何，都必须了解实证工作的方法以及如何报告，以便他们更好地准备做出和评估这些决策。 该课程为学生提供了一个独特的机会，让他们在学生已经熟悉的日常生活问题的背景下学习这些方法。 学生对现有的工件进行实证研究，并学习如何严格评估其可用性。 他们还致力于设计新的工件，并开发实验来衡量他们的设计与各种替代品相比的可用性。本课程的毕业生能够理解经验方法，并欣赏精心设计的工件的可用性。

Computer Science (31)This project is developing two courses on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), one for a general-education audience and one for Computer Science (CS) majors, in which students learn about and practice methods of empirical study ranging in rigor from exploratory studies to hypothesis-testing experiments. Because so many business and public policy decisions are made based on evaluation of empirical results, it is vital that all students, no matter their major, have an understanding of the methods of empirical work and how it is reported so they are better prepared to make and evaluate such decisions. The course provides a unique opportunity for students to learn about these methods in the context of problems with which the students are already familiar from their daily lives. Students carry out empirical studies on existing artifacts and they learn ways to rigorously evaluate their usability. They also work to design new artifacts and develop experiments to measure the usability of their designs compared to various alternatives. Alumni of this course are able to understand empirical approaches and appreciate the usability of well-designed artifacts.