Human-Computer Interaction

Spring 2025. Way more time consuming than it is worth imo. Really good lecture. Shit load of busy work.

Do not walk into this expecting an easy class. Low brain power? Yes. Multiple things to do every week? Also yes.

If the entire course was like the first half that would be great, but once the lectures stopped the course kinda went downhill. Less busy work and this course would be awesome.

If this is the only course you are taking, then 5/5 great class. I just found it stressful to handle so much extra work because I was taking 2 classes this semester.

I thought that this was a great course that's very applicable to industry. The content was very interesting, even though it wasn't a technical course. The best part about this class were the lectures, as they were so well made. The readings were super interesting as well.

There are three phases of this class:

1. The content phase: this is where you watch the lectures and complete 4 homework assignments, which are papers you have to write by answering four questions.

2. The practice phase: this is where you do the readings, complete quizzes on the lectures and the readings, complete test 1, and do the individual project.

3. The application phase: this is where you complete the team project and complete test 2.

All in all, great course, although I missed learning more technical knowledge.

Marked the workload at 6 hr/wk but that's on average. There were weeks I spent 10 hours, and weeks I spent less than 3.

I took this as my first OMSCS course because I heard it was well-structured and a good 'medium' difficulty entry point for graduate level classes. I agree with that. There's a detailed course calendar and all lectures and homework assignments are available at the beginning of the semester. The expectations for students are clearly laid out and I was able to work a week ahead, which helped a lot when stuff in my personal life got busier. I learned a lot and found the subject material super interesting.

There's a lot of reading, so if you're a slow reader you may want to budget more time. The group project is kind of a waste of time (it's just the exact same thing as the individual project, but in a group), but I found a good group early and we did the project without any issues.

The way the course is structured, you have to learn everything, do homework, take 4 closed note quizzes, and do a solo project in the first 11 weeks of the class. This is the part of the course that took me 10 hrs/week. Then, the last 5 weeks of the course is only submitting check-ins for the group project and taking 1 (open note) test. Since I had a good group, it took me 3 hours a week max to do the work required for the group project.

This was my first course in OMSCS (Fall '25). I finished with a 96/100.

I initially came into this course assuming there would be a lot of writing involved, and I was correct. You will write A LOT and as someone who doesn't really like writing papers, the classwork was not very enjoyable for me. With that being said, as long as you follow the instructions on the HW's and projects and base everything off of the course material you will get an A on them, they're just time consuming.

The four quizzes are the hardest part of the course, but will also force you to learn the most. Each quiz consists of 5 essay questions - each with several different sub-components. They're fully proctored, no notes or outside help - just your memory. You're given two hours to complete them which is tough due to breadth of each question and the depth of your responses. It was also really difficult to digest any of the required reading material that you're quizzed on. Grading can also be somewhat inconsistent from what I experienced.

The course is front-loaded like other people have mentioned. In Week #9 we had an exam due, a quiz due, and a project check-In due. Once you've made it to this point - the rest is smooth sailing.

Exams were proctored but open-everything. They are easy if you’re okay with a B on them - which I was.

The projects (Individual & Group) are structured the same. If you follow all of the instructions and choose a good task/interface to improve you’ll be fine. The group project comes with all of the same drawbacks of any other group project.

I was able to fulfill all of my class participation points by doing all of the peer reviews and taking some surveys for other classmate's projects.

In short, the class is not inherently difficult it’s just time-consuming and requires a lot of writing. I found the material very interesting and the lectures very easy to digest. Dr. Joyner is so good at using examples to explain different concepts.

TLDR: While I finished the course with a high A, I had mixed feelings about this class. In particular, I felt like there was a significant imbalance between the course's workload (somewhat high) and the actual depth and difficulty of the work (pretty low), which I feel led to me disengaging somewhat with the material; I found myself wishing topics were explored in much more depth. I did not feel like the team project actually was able to dive deep enough into the design process to justify its existence.

This course is pretty evenly divided into thirds. For the first 1/3rd of the course (the "Content" phase), you are watching the entirety of the class's lecture content, along with completing a weekly homework assignment (Homeworks are 4x5% = 20% final grade). The course content is divided into two major units, Principles (essentially the theories behind interface design) and Methods (the design lifecycle, how to prototype and evaluate an interface). The lectures are excellent, Dr. Joyner is an exceptional presenter and brings very good energy to the videos, they are very easy watches and convey the necessary information very well. I found the actual content behind the "Principles" unit to be much more interesting than the "Methods" unit, which often felt a bit surface-level (I'm a grad student, I know what different types of data are and how to use statistical tests), but the course endeavors to be entry-level, so whatever. The homeworks each consisted of answering 4 questions in 8 or fewer pages. Like many things in this course, it felt like these were graded quite easily and straightforwardly.

The second third of the course (the "Practice" phase) felt like it ramped up the workload quite a bit. This phase consisted of reading the associated texts with the course, completing four quizes (4x5% = 20% final grade), along with working on the individual project (15% final grade), and taking 1 out of the 2 course tests (10% final grade). The readings varied in quality considerably. Many of them felt like "slightly-reworded-lecture-content-but-worse", but a few of them were interesting. The quizzes felt very fair. Studying the lecture content felt straightforward (like I said, the lectures were good). One question on each quiz was from the assigned reading, and the instructor informed us ahead of time which reading would be on the quiz (I dunno about this one, this feels maybe a little too nice). The project consisted of selecting a design task, performing needfinding for that task (for 95% of people, this meant posting a survey for the class), designing three prototypes, evaluating these prototypes (for 95% of people, this meant posting a survey for the class), making a higher-fidelity final prototype, and having people evaluate it (for 95% of people, this meant posting a survey for the class). I didn't really mind the project, although it appeared to be a massive procrastination trap for a lot of people. It did sometimes feel like a lot of the survey responses were low-effort (we got participation points for completing surveys). Writing the project report (max 25 pages) felt like the same straightforward grading as the homeworks; if you do everything the assignment asks, you can expect a 100, no surprises.

The final third of the course (the "Application" phase), consisted of a team project (15% final grade), along with taking the remaining test (10% final grade). If that sounds a lot easier than the last phase... yep. The tests were open-note, open-internet. They felt like the kinda assignment where its extremely easy to get an 85%, easy to get a 90%, and quite difficult to get a 100% on (which, coincidentally, is the opposite of the rest of the course). I don't have much more to say about them. The team project was nearly an exact reboot of the individual project; the major differences were an increased page limit on the report (max 40 pages), and the vague direction that our prototypes should be higher fidelity. I didn't like this. It didn't really feel like we had a chance to dive deeper into the design process, since (as mentioned), I felt like poor survey responses were kinda bottlenecking the interface design anyway (the instructor plans to require interviews for the team project feedback in the future, which I do think is a good idea). In addition, there is also the classic team-project roulette; my team had one person completely unresponsive, and another who had to be prodded quite a bit to do work. I think these kinds of projects are fundamentally unfair, end of story.

The remaining 10% of the grade comes from course participation, for most people, this meant spamming low-quality survey responses. I wish there was a better way to align incentives to encourage thoughtful responses, but I can't really think of anything.

Dr. Joyner intended this course to take ~10 hours per week. I think it mostly does, with the caveat that unless you're willing to work a bit ahead, you will definitely have weeks that exceed that, and that the final third of the course is much easier than the other two. I'd probably scooch a quiz or two into this final phase if I were running the show, but it's not a huge deal.

I would advise anyone taking this course to heed the instructor's advice about proactively forming your own team instead of doing the matchmaking survey (to increase your odds of avoiding slackers), and to be proactive with the project work. But the class is very straightforward (potentially to a fault) if you don't mind things being somewhat introductory, and having a moderately bumpy workload.

My background: first semester in OMSCS, CS undergrad, and 5 yoe as a software engineer.

This class was a great intro into HCI and the OMSCS program. I am not the best writer so the amount of written assignments almost scared me away. The assignments have clear directions and even as a weak writer you are basically guaranteed an A as long as you clearly follow the instructions.

The group and individual projects are basically the same: practicing the design lifecycle using strategies that are well-covered in the course material and writing A LOT about it. Make sure to follow the directions closely and include everything they ask for.

Overall, group projects put you at the mercy of your teammates. Don't leave your group up to chance: pick your team early to find proactive students to secure your A. I finished the class with an A but the team project almost sent me down to a B as most of my teammates didn't follow the directions and one didn't do anything.

This course was very helpful to ease into the program. Joyner does a great job teaching the subject while keeping it interesting. I had no problems getting high marks on the papers by ensuring I followed the rubric. The tests were straightforward and open note, so they ended up being fairly doable. The only part that causes me grief were the quizzes. These are close note, short answer questions that took me the whole time to answer. I did great on the first two quizzes and OK on the last two. Overall ended with an A and the course was great to get me back into the swing of school. I recommend taking it seriously, but this course makes for a great summer class.

Overview This was my first completed class after dropping my first semester last year, and it’s a perfect beginner course for learning how OMSCS works or easing back into education.

Course Structure The summer session is very front-loaded with heavy readings, videos, and assignments early on. Prof. Joyner’s videos are excellent, though the readings can feel scattered and cover many topics without much depth.

Assignments Homework is straightforward—follow the rubric, stick to JDF format, and use Overleaf (LaTeX). Start the individual project early, as the team project is essentially the same.

Team Project Tip Pick your team members early if possible. My proactive group started early and finished most of the project well ahead of time, which made the process much smoother.

Exams and Quizzes Tests are open-note—merge PDFs for quick searching. Quizzes are heavily weighted, so avoid doing poorly on more than two areas to protect your grade.

Final Thoughts Overall, it’s an approachable class if you stay disciplined through the intense start.

Used ChatGPT to enhance my message for clarity and conciseness.