Monsoon Course on HCI 2018

Sculpture of a bull in IDC during the monsoon

IDC, IIT Bombay

Monsoon Course on HCI 2022 is now open for registration.

IDC, IIT Bombay announces a 15-day course on human-computer interaction design from May 30 to June 13, 2018. The course is an exposure to user studies, interaction design, usability evaluation and user experience metrics for working professionals.

Update on April 7, 2018: As of today, the course is full and the registration is now closed.

Dates: May 30 to June 13, 2018 | Time: 9:00 am - 5:30 pm

Venue: Jalvihar Guest House, IIT Bombay (Directions..., goolge map...).

Who should attend? | Contents and schedule | Attending | FAQs...

Who should attend?

This course is for you if you are:

A user interface designer with little formal exposure to design
A design professional with experience in another design field and now wants to move to interaction design
A software professional with experience in user interface design, but no formal training
A quality professional in the IT industry, who would like to learn about usability
A product manager responsible for the delivery of software products
An account executive responsible for client interaction in the IT industry
A faculty member in a design school or an engineering college who would like to teach a course on topics such as human-computer interaction, user studies, interaction design or usability evaluation.

The course has two main goals. Firstly, it gives participants an exposure to issues, theories, principles and concerns relating to human interaction with interactive products. Secondly, participants get to practice the process and the techniques related to user studies, interaction design and usability evaluation. After attending the course, participants should be able to conceptualise, design and evaluate interactive products. Those who are already involved in these activities should be able to improve the quality of their work, and should understand the theory behind what they do. Those responsible for the software development process should be able to make the process in their organizations more user-centered.

Interviewing

Users first. You will start with understanding user needs by learning the technique of interviewing. You will develop partnerships with the users and learn to contextualise the data as you gather it. Throughout the course, you will be working on a project with a group of other participants. Your project will start on the first day of the course with your first user interviews.

Analysis

Next, you will learn how to analyze interviews and document findings in the form of insights, problems, design ideas and work models. Your group will conduct 10-15 interviews and analyse them. You could compare the contextual interview with other techniques such as focus groups and questionnaires and apply them in more interviews.

Consolidation

So far, you were working with individual interviews. Next, you will learn to consolidate findings across users by techniques such as affinity diagrams and personas.

Presentation 1: This stage of the course will end with a round of presentations by each group so that you can also learn from the other groups.

Design

Now the fun begins - you get into design. You start with understanding some basic concepts - layers of user experience, conceptual models, user modelling techniques, design process, product goals, and scenarios. You continue to do your project work in paralllel.

Presentation 2: This is a design presentation. You can choose your style. Enact the scenarios, make cool videos, or just invite the audience to try out the interface.

Evaluation

After design comes evaluation. You will look at principles, heuristics of interaction and interface design. Then you get an exposure to usability evaluation techniques and metrics.

Presentation 3: We wrap up the course with a final presentation by each group. You will apply what you learn by planning a UT and evaluating your prototypes with real users. As usual, you also get to learn a lot from other groups.

Lectures / Case Studies / Activities

Throughout the course, we will have lectures, case studies and activities. Lecture topics are still being decided, but could be on interaction design for emergent users, typography, game design, virtual and augmented reality, information visualisation, microinteractions, UX metrics, integration with software engineering etc.

Schedule

Date	Morning	Afternoon
Wednesday, May 30	Introduction and startup, contextual interviews	Practicing a contextual interview, analysis and tips, planning and conducting interview 1
Thursday, 31	Work models, interpreting interviews	Interpreting interview 1, sharing session, conducting interview 2
Friday, June 1	Consolidation using affinity, personas, other user studies methods	Interpreting interview 2, conduction interview 3
Saturday, 2	Conducting and interpreting interviews	Conducting and interpreting interviews
Sunday, 3	Conducting and interpreting interviews	Begin the affinity
Monday, 4	Layers of user experience, conceptual models, user models	Finish the affinity, presentation 1: user studies
Tuesday, 5	Design process, goal setting, setting product goals	Interaction design scenarios
Wednesday, 6	Heuristics and principles	Interaction design case studies
Thursday, 7	Interface design and detailing	Prototyping
Friday, 8	Usability evaluation	Presentation 2: personas, scenarios, interfaces, planning usability tests
Saturday, 9	Usability tests
Sunday, 10	Usability tests
Monday, 11	Measuring user experience with metrics	Usability tests
Tuesday, 12	Integrating HCI with software development	Usability tests and redesign
Wednesday, 13	Presentation 3: findings from usability evaluations, lessons learnt, wrap up

Attending

Fees

	Industry professionals	Faculty members* and students#
Fees	₹ 86,000	₹ 43,000

* Only faculty members who are involved with teaching HCI or related topics in an educational institute full-time can avail these reduced fees. Visiting or part-time faculty members and those teaching in the industry need to pay the industry fees.

# Only students who are enrolled in an educational institute for full-time studies can avail these reduced fees. Freelancers, part-time students and those working in the industry need to pay the industry fees.

Fees include course materials and lunch and refreshments during the weekdays. The fees are inclusive of 18% GST. Fees do not include accommodation. Please note that TDS need not be deducted towards payments made to IIT Bombay. A certificate to this effect is available on request.

Registration

Update on April 7, 2018: As of today, the course is full and the registration is now closed.

From this year, we have a new process for CEP registrations. To register, please follow the following steps:

Please visit https://portal.iitb.ac.in/ceqipapp/home.jsp and click on the link "Login and Register" on the top right.
Create an account and login.
Search for the "Monsoon Course on HCI 2018" if necessary and click on the "Register" button below the course name.
Fill out the course registration form. (You may be asked to submit a photo id).
Your registration will be approved (usually within 24 hours), after which you will get an email
Login on https://portal.iitb.ac.in/ceqipapp/home.jsp again, click on "My Courses" and click on the button called "Application Submission Details".
Pay the fees. You could either use internet banking, pay by demand draft (DD) or pay through your company. (Internet banking and even DDs are faster, company payments usually slower.)
Once we receive your fees, we will send you a confirmation of your registration.

The above process is demonstrated in this Youtube video. In case you face any problems, please write to anirudha[at]iitb.ac.in.

Cancellation Policy: If you cancel till April 30, 2018, IIT Bombay will refund 85% of the fees paid. If you cancel by May 15, 2018, IIT Bombay will refund 60% of the fees paid. There will be no refunds thereafter. However, participant exchange will be allowed till May 25, 2018. For cancellations, please write to anirudha[at]iitb.ac.in.

Accommodation: Shared accomodation is available in the IIT Bombay guest house for a limited number of participants on a first-come-first-served basis. If you require accommodation, please write to anirudha[at]iitb.ac.in after your registration is confirmed. Accommodation costs are not included in the registration fee. Please do not pay the accommodation cost at the time of registration - you need to pay these at the venue.

Please do refer to the FAQs. If you need more information please contact anirudha[at]iitb.ac.in.