Interface Technologies

Recommended Prerequisites

Students are expected to be fairly familiar with elementary interaction design concepts and programming.

Teaching Methods

Theoretical (T) classes, where a detailed overview of topics and cases is presented, with special attention to User Interface, Experience and Service Design. Contextual examples are presented and student discussion is promoted. Interaction design patterns are presented and discussed with their respective application in real-life situations.

Practical Laboratory (PL) classes are used to test and evaluate specific technologies, as well as for developing concrete interface projects, in student groups.

Learning Outcomes

The Interface Technologies course encourages students to develop empirical knowledge in the development of interfaces, effectively planning and designing for human interaction. Students are expected to acquire the 

necessary skill set to evaluate advanced interaction processes and propose adequate and consistent design solutions, using diverse technologies in the deployment of interactive products. By the end of the unit, students should be able to employ adequate interface design solutions in specific contexts of human interaction, not only ensuring the aesthetic quality of their solutions, but also its usability, consistency and their adequacy to solve the specific problems at hand.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. Interface technologies as tools for the interaction designer.

2. Analysis of the Human sensorial complex and its influence for the design of interfaces. Psych-Cognitive aspects and its relation to usability.

3. Introduction to physical computing

4. Interface technologies. Functional Aspects and Implementation: Audio input and output, voice recognition and synthesis; Tactile, gesture and haptic; Image/video, pattern recognition, face tracking, gesture tracking; Multimodal technologies.

5. Analysis and classification of interfaces; tangible/intangible, ephemeral, direct/indirect manipulation, immersive, natural.

6. Augmented reality and intelligence at the interface.

7. Universal design and accessibility.

Head Lecturer(s)

Tiago José dos Santos Martins da Cruz

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Other: 25.0%
Exam: 25.0%
Project: 50.0%

Bibliography

Moggridge, Bill (2007). Designing Interactions. The MIT Press

Wigdor, Wixon, Brave NUI World: Designing Natural User Interfaces for Touch and Gesture

Maximo Banzi (2015), Getting started with Arduino, O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN: 1449363334.

Jody Culkin, Eric Hagan (2017), Learn Electronics with Arduino, O'Reilly Media. ISBN: 1680453742

PACKT group, Mastering OpenCV with Practical Computer Vision Projects,

Murray, Janet H (2012). Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice. The MIT Press

Johnson, Jeff (2010). Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Rules. Morgan Kaufmann

Tidwell, Jennifer (2011). Designing Interfaces, 2nd Ed. O'Reilly Media,

Ellen Lupton (Editor), Andrea Lipps (Editor) (2018), The Senses: Design Beyond Vision (design book exploring inclusive and multisensory design practices across disciplines), Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN: 1616897104.