Information Architecture and Web Usability

(706.041 Information Architecture and Web Usability 3VU WS 2011/2012)

Lecturer: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr. Keith Andrews
Course Web Site: http://courses.iicm.tugraz.at/iaweb/
My Web Site: http://www.iicm.tugraz.at/keith
Email: kandrews@iicm.edu
Office Hour: Mon. 11:00-12:00 during normal term
Room D.2.16, ID01054, IICM, Inffeldg. 16c, 1st floor.
Lectures: Tue 14:15-16:45 from 04 Oct 2011
Seminar Room IICM, D.1.10, Inffeldg. 16c, ground floor.
Schedule: The approximate course schedule
Lecture Notes:

http://courses.iicm.tugraz.at/iaweb/iaweb.pdf   [134 pages PDF]

[Note: The lecture notes are never in their final form, but will be updated as the course progresses.]

If you teach and would like a zip file of the corresponding lecture slides (the same material but in HTML, PNG, and JPEG), please contact me by email.

Course Books:

If you are thinking of buying some books, I highly recommend these:

Morville and Rosenfeld, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 3rd Edition Garrett, The Elements of User Experience van Dijck, Information Architecture for Designers Nielsen et al, E-Commerce User Experience
Krug, Don't Make Me Think!, 2nd Edition Field, Discovering Statistics Using SPSS, 3rd Edition Zeldman, Designing With Web Standards, 3rd Edition

Note: Amazon credit me a small referal amount, should you purchase a book after following these links.

Course Newsgroup: tu-graz.lv.iaweb

This is where I will post news and announcements and where you should ask any questions you might have.

Course Materials: materials
Aims and Objectives of Course:

First we will look at current work and results in the areas of information architecture and web usability. Students will form groups of 4 and research and present one particular factor of web usability. During the course, students will run a usability study (either a thinking aloud test or a formal experiment).

Teaching Method:

A mixture of lecture, practical, and seminar with lots of group discussion.

Prerequisites:

This course assumes knowledge of the methods of usability engineering.

You must have completed the course on Human-Computer Interaction (or an equivalent course elsewhere) and be a grad (Masters) or postgrad (PhD) student.

Experience in experimental design and statistics (psychology) would be a bonus, but is not necessary.

Registration:

This is an advanced course at postgrad (Master's) level. The number of students is limited to 20 to encourage participation and discussion.

Priority will be given to PhD and Master's students in one of the computer science degree programmes. Students in other degree programmes will be allocated places in chronological order of registration as far as places are still available (see TUGrazOnline).

Examination Method: The grade will be determined by your presentation of a research topic and the running of a web usability study.
Language Policy:

This course is taught in English and there may be some participants who do not speak German, so please give your presentations and write your reports in English. This course is a good chance to practice using English with (almost) nothing to lose. I will not be grading your English, but the content of your work.

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