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Practical Information
Usability Engineering Course, January
2010
DTU Course 02261
Latest news:
31-12-2009: Revised version of exercise booklet uploaded to this website and to
Campusnet. Lecture notes for first three lectures (January 4, 5, and 6) uploaded
to Campusnet.
26-12-2009: A student has correctly pointed out that the
first lecture on Monday 4 can't be mandatory since it doesn't say so in the
official DTU course description. However, I strongly recommend that you attend
this lecture since it presents essential information about the course.
At this time, 91 students have signed up for
the course. There are still seats available - the maximum is 100 students. If
the DTU registration site does not accept your sign-up because the course is
fully booked, please contact the lecturer.
I can usually help you to get in anyway, because experience shows that some
students do not show up on the first day of the course.
23-12-2009: Course schedule and Exercise booklet uploaded
to this website and to Campusnet File sharing for course 02261. I recommend that you take a look at both documents before the course starts.
21-12-2009: The course will take place in auditorium 45 in
building 303N
(map).
The exam on Wednesday 21 January 09.00 wil take place in room 98 and 99 in
building 306.
22-11-2009:
Information about January 2010 course added.
New for the 2010 course:
- Three hour written exam on Wednesday 20 January 2010.
- Lecture on "Measuring usability" partly replaces lectures
on "E-commerce usability".
- More usability examples from products other than
websites.
Related pages
Introduction to the
Usability Engineering course, FAQ, etc.
Official course
description (DTU website).
Content of this page
- Important information
- Language
- Lectures
- Pass/Fail Criteria
- Textbook
- Course Website
- Exercises
- Estimated Workload
- Contact information
Important information
The first lecture
takes place on Monday
4 January 2010, building 303N, auditorium 45.
Make sure that you arrive no later than 08.30.
If you have been accepted for the course in January
2010, you should have received an email from me (Rolf Molich) before
Christmas. If you haven't, please contact me.
If you have not been accepted for the
course, show up for the first lecture anyway and contact me. There may
still be room for some more students and you may have a chance of being accepted.
Course description
Link to the
official course description.
Language
The course will be given in English. Most but not all of the slides will be in English.
You may write solutions to exercises in English or Danish. The quality of the language will be taken into consideration when evaluating the report.
Lectures
A
detailed course schedule
for the January 2010 course is available.
The first lecture will be held on Monday,
January 4, 2010, from 08.30 to 12.30 in building 303N, auditorium 45.
Map of DTU and information about
public transportation
to DTU..
The course ends on Thursday 21 January at 17.00. However,
you may want to submit revised versions of your exercise reports on Friday 22
January if the first submissions are not acceptable.
In the period from
Monday January 4 to Friday January 8 there will be
lectures every day from 08.30 to 12.30.
Additional lectures and
other activities:
-
Tuesday 12 January, lecture from 08.30 to 12.30,
- Wednesday 20 January, exam from 09.00 to 12.00 in room 98 and 99 in building
306
- Wednesday 20 January, exercise from 13.00 to 16.00
- Thursday 21 January. One hour
anytime between 08.30 and 17.00.
Attandance on
Thursday 21 January is compulsory. The remaining
lectures are not compulsory, but you may have difficulties completing the
mandatory assignments and the exam if you decide not to attend one or more lectures.
During the first lecture on January 4 I will hand out a compulsory
exercise. Plan to use 2-3 hours to complete the exercise in your team. The answer must
be e-mailed to me on January 4 before 19.00.
Admission criteria
I will admit up to 115 students instead of the 100 students that I must admit according
to the Coursebase. In return there is no waiting list.
In the unlikely case that the course is overbooked, students will be selected based on the following criteria:
1. Students who have passed course
- 02161 Software Engineering 1, or
- 02162 Software Engineering 2, or
- 02291 System integration
have priority.
2. Foreign students and continuing education students are selected by the
Student Administration office based on a draw.
3. By draw among the students who have not passed course 02161, 02162 or
02291.
Our plans are to repeat the course in January 2011. If you do
not get the course in 2010, please apply again. Please consider taking one
of the courses 02161, 02162 or 02291 since students who have taken one of these
course have priority for this course.
Pass/Fail Criteria
Students either pass or fail this course. No detailed mark is given, although I
attempt to give individual feedback for some of the exercises,
in particular exercise 3. The evaluation is based on the four compulsory exercises (plus attendance at the three compulsory
lectures) and the written exam. The evaluation of exercise 1, 2 and
4 is
quite liberal. The exercises weigh 60% and the exam weighs 40%.
I recommend that
you work in teams of two. Teams of one student or three students are also
accepted but not recommended.
Textbook
Brugervenligt webdesign by Rolf Molich, Nyt teknisk Forlag, second edition 2003, price
349 kr.,
or
Usable Web Design, by Rolf Molich, Nyt teknisk Forlag, first edition
2007, price 329 kr.
The whole book, except for chapter 7, is used in the course. The
course schedule
shows how chapters correspond to lectures.
I strongly recommend that
all students buy a copy of one of these books. The Danish version may also be borrowed
from a public library. Polyteknisk Boghandel has promised to have both books in
stock. The Danish version is also available through some of the bookstores on the web.
Previous editions of the book can not be used for this course.
In addition, you will need the following free reports:
- Sample usability test
reports from DialogDesign (English)
- Sample usability test
reports from DialogDesign (Danish)
- Usability
test report template
- Sample reports from exercise 4 from previous years.
-
Public Library
Website Prototype (in
Danish),
-
Restaurant
Review Website Prototype (in English).
- Sample texts for
letter to test participant from textbook
The slides used during the lectures will be available
in PDF-format
on Campusnet shortly before or shortly after each lecture.
Course Website
www.DialogDesign.dk/kursus2261.html
(this web page)
Exercises
It’s not enough to read about usability or to listen to an evangelist. The experience of working directly with users is an important part of this course, and you can’t get that experience just by reading.
Therefore, exercises are a major part of this course. All five exercises are compulsory.
In the period from January 4 to January 19 there will be a considerable workload from exercises and lectures.
If you have a job, you may want to tell them that you will not be available during part or all of this intensive three-week course.
Exercise 3 and 4 both require that you interview ”common people” about the usability of an existing or planned website. Each team of two students will have to interview 2 x 5 people for
30-60 minutes each.
You can interview friends, relatives, etc. but not computer science students or students from this course. You will get further details about this during the course,
but please start considering now who you might want to interview. Interviews can be in Danish or English.
Download the Exercise booklet
The version for the January 2010 course is available. The Exercise booklet also
contains a test exam so you can get an idea of what is expected of you at the
final exam.
Estimated Workload
The expected workload per student for this course is approximately 115 working hours in the
course period. Breakdown:
- Compulsory lectures 30 hours
- Preparation for lectures; reading the textbook 10 hours
- Exercises 75 hours
The above workload estimate assumes that you complete the two major exercises together with a fellow student. If you decide to do these exercises by yourself, which is permissible but not recommended,
your workload will be considerably larger, since the requirements for the exercises are the same.
As shown in the schedule, the reports from the major exercises 3 and 4 are due
on Tuesday 19 January at 19.00. Experience shows that most teams hand in their reports just before the deadline, which
is of course OK. Evaluating these exercises conscientiously is a major task for me (the lecturer). Experience shows that I will not be finished evaluating all reports
at the time when the course officially ends
on January 23. Experience also shows that some of the reports are unacceptable. I have decided to give students who hand in an unacceptable report another chance. This second chance, however, may
involve additional work even after the course has ended. Note that this is an offer - not a requirement - since DTU rules state that you are not required to do work on a course which has ended.
If for some reason you need your evaluation before the course is over, please
contact me.
The course has run in its current form since January 2002.
2002: 38 of 40 passed.
2003: 38 of 40 passed.
2004: All 40 students passed.
2005: 40 of 42 passed. The two students who didn't make it dropped out after
one week; they thought that they could combine the course with a full-time job.
2006: 34 of 36 passed.
2007: 69 students were admitted; 19 withdrew or
never showed up, 1 got ill, 3 failed, and 46 passed.
2008: 45 students were admitted, 4 withdrew before
the course started, 3 didn't show up, 4 failed and 34 passed.
2009: 100 students were admitted, 20 didn't show up,
9 withdrew during the course, 6 failed and 65 passed
As you can see, it’s not so tough after all. Most students say that the
course is definitely worthwhile - and fun.
Contact information
Lecturer:
Rolf Molich
DialogDesign
Skovkrogen 3
3660 Stenløse
dtu2010@molich.dk
www.dialogdesign.dk
Please do not contact the lecturer by phone.
Please check your DTU student e-mail inbox regularly throughout the course. Although I will attempt to send all course related messages to your preferred e-mail address, important e-mails may
be delivered to your address @student.dtu.dk
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| What Do the Users Say About
this Course? |
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Student at the January 2008
course:
"A lot of feedback from the teacher on
the exercises.
Rolf (teacher) allowed me to modify
the exercise, so that it better suited my needs.
Very short response time when
answering emails, very important in such a short course.
Rolf has the best command of English
I've encountered among DTU teachers.
Very interesting lectures with a bit
of entertainment added - never before would I wake up so early to come to DTU
for a lecture."
Another student from the January 2008 course:
"Everything went well.
- The lectures were excellent. It was amazing to see how the lectures were
literally guided by Rolf. In addition, the class participation during the
lectures was great. Comments from students struck very well with what Rolf was
expecting to hear. And that synchronization made the lectures extremely
interesting.
- The content was very nice. A good overview of what usability is was conveyed
through them. I never might have thought on such issues, until the course
happened and we did the exercises. The effect of the course has been
good, and I now understand 'usability' as tool and as a separate entity to
really
consider and think over - while using something or while developing afresh.
- The exercises were excellent. They were extremely well planned. It was
interesting to carry out the usability tests and reporting them.
- The teacher was involved in every phase of the course, which was good. We
got great feedback from Rolf, both positive and negative comments.
- Rolf is an excellent teacher. He is 'usable' in the real sense. It was
extremely
clear to understand his words, and he explained things very religiously which
was very inspiring. It was not possible to pass through his lectures without
understanding the context. Moreover, the class discussions really explained a
lot of things.
- Rolf explained about the exercises atleast 2-3 times on different lectures.
This was good, since there ofcourse were questions regarding these
exercises. He made it clear gradually through the course, what the exercises
were about and all the requirements for the report and the tasks were put
through clearly by the last occasion on which the exercises were explained."
The feedback from the January 2007 course was similar.
"I was extremely happy with this course. It is one of the few courses at DTU
where I
have felt that the assignments dealt with a large portion of what was taught
in the
course.
Because of the assignments, I feel that I have actually gained knowledge I
could apply right away, instead of only having read about something I have
never put into practice. In addition, I found the teacher to be very
knowledgeable and interested in the subject
he was teaching. I would definitely recommend this course to other students"
This section would be incomplete and not useful if I didn't admit that some
students are less satisfied. A 2007-student wrote:
"Too much supervision:
- Two mandatory lectures
- Three exercises that must be handed in on the day they are handed out
- Two major assignments that are specified in such detail that there is only
one way to solve them
The lecturer dictates precisely how things should be done and there are no
alternative ways to present or do things. Is there only one school of thought
in this area?" (translated from Danish)
Three other 2007-students voiced similar opinions.
Read the unabridged student evaluations (partly in Danish, about five pages
each)
January 2008
course
January 2007
course
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English
Dansk