Oborne, D. J. (1995). Ergonomics at Work (3rd Ed.) West Sussex, England: Wiley.
Norman, D (1989). The Design of Every Day Things. New York: Doubleday.
This course will provide
Your grade will be determined by your scores on: final exam, an independent project that includes an oral presentation, class project, homework assignments and participation. Students must complete all the assignments to receive a passing grade in the course.
| Exam | 30% |
| Independent Project | 30% |
| Class Project | 20% |
| Participaton | 10% |
| Homework | 10% |
There will be one exam, a final exam that will cover all material from
the lectures, assigned readings, and student presentations, The exact format
of the exams will be some combination of multiple choice, short answer,
and essay questions.
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The culminating assignment of the class will be an independent project. This project can take one of two forms:
Each student will make an oral presentation of their project. These presentations
are expected to be between 5 - 10 minutes each.
Class Project
As a class we will undertake the evaluation and redesign of some component
of the college that we have determined to warrant usability improvements.
Some of the projects will involve improving usability/accessibility for
disabled students. This activity will be conducted in teams of 4-5 students
and each team may work on different projects. This activity will allow you
to become involved in all aspects of the human factors profession from assessing
user needs to generating the design of a new product or system.
Throughout the semester, in conjunction with lecture topics and presentations there will be homework assigned. These assignments will primarily be assessments of product designs and assessment techniques. Some of the assignments will be related to the class project(s).
This course is designed to involve a significant amount of hands-on activities. Therefore active participation is essential for success in the class. In addition to the normal classroom discussions there will be activities that will require involvement. Some of these activities relate to the class project(s) while others will be related to case studies that will be discussed in class. Individual students or small groups will be responsible for leading the discussion of the case studies. It is expected that all members of the class will participate in the discussion of the case studies. The case studies are on reserve in Penfield Library.
The additional readings will also be discussed in class and student involvement in those discussions will contribute to the participation grade.
Attendance for this class is mandatory. Page 35 of the SUNY Oswego Undergraduate Catalog states Regular attendance is obligatory. An instructor may recommend that a student be dropped from a course for poor achievement due to excessive absence. A student dropped after the deadline for dropping may be assigned a grade of E.î In addition to being a university requirement, a great deal of material presented in class is not in the textbook. Therefore, if you miss class you will miss some very important information that will undoubtedly be included in the exams. Unexcused tardiness or early departures will be counted as an absence. If you must leave class early notify the instructor before class. Attendance will be taken for all classes.
Attendance is mandatory for all class presentations. Failure to attend the presentations of your classmates will result in a mandatory downgrade of your class presentation grade
Human Factors Discussion Group
A campus based computer discussion group will be established for this class. This group will allow:
This group will be used by the instructor to disseminate course information so it will be in your best interest to subscribe.
There are many very good resources on the internet for college students that provide general information, such as how to study, test taking strategies and stress management. Other sources provide information specific to human factors and psychology in general. Unlike printed media (books and journal articles), information on the net may not have been reviewed by experts in the field and may just reflect the opinions of one person. Therefore one should be aware of the sources and credibility of information obtained over the net.
Additional Reading Assignments
Available in library regular collection or *on reserve
*Baecker, R. M., Grudin, J., Buxton, W. A. S., and Greenberg, S. (1995). Human Computer Interaction: Toward the Year 2000. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufman. (Chapter 9)
*Bailey, B. (1993) Performance vs. preference. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Card, S., English, W. K., and Barr, B. (1978) Evaluation of mouse, rate controlled isometric joystick, step keys, and text keys for text selection on a CRT. Ergonomics, 21, 601-613.
*Coleman, W. D., Williges, R. C., and Wixon, D. (1985) Collecting detailed user evaluations of software interfaces. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Czaja, S.J. (1990). Aging [Special issue]. Human Factors, 32, (5).
*Dyck, J. L. and Smither, J. A. (1992). Computer anxiety and the older adult: Relationships with computer experience, gender, education and age. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Gardner-Bonneau, D.J. (1990) Assisting people with functional impairments [Special issue]. Human Factors, 32 (4).
*Gillan, D. J. and Bias, R. G. (1992). The interface between human factors and design. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Gould, J. et al. (1987) Reading is slower from CRT displays than from paper: attempts to isolate a single- variable explanation. Human Factors, 29, 269-299.
*Hodes, D. and Akagi, K. (1986). Study, development and design of a mouse. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
*Mack, R. and Lang, K. (1989) A benchmark comparison of mouse and touch interface techniques for an intelligent workstation windowing environment. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
*Matthews, M. L. and Mertins, K. (1987) The influence of color on visual search and subjective discomfort using CRT displays. The Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
*Mosier, J.N. and Smith S. L (1985) Application of guidelines for designing user interface software. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Norman, D. (1981) Categorizations of Action Slips. Psychological Review, 88, 1-15.
*Parsons, H. M. (1984). Engineering psychology. In R.J. Corsini (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology. New York: Wiley.
*Preece, J. et al. (1994) Human-Computer Interaction. Menlo Park, CA: Addison Wesley
*Robertson, G. L. and Hix, D (1994) User interface design guidelines for computer accessibility by mentally retarded adults. The Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
*Schell, D. A. (1986). Usability testing of screen design: Beyond standards, principles and guidelines. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Shneiderman, B. (1992). Designing the User Interface. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.
Simpson, C. A. et al (1985). System design for speech recognition and generation. Human Factors, 27, 115-142.
*Swierenga, S. J. (1990). Menuing and scrolling as alternative information access techniques. The Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
*Vanderheiden, G. C., Boyd, W., Mendenhall, J. H., and Ford, K. (1991). Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Gary Klatsky