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Course Description
Web usability has become an essential requirement of web-based systems. A major cause underlying poor web usability is a lack of understanding of a usability engineering process for developing usable web interface designs. Software developers often still have primary responsibility for developing interactive systems, but most are not trained in web usability methods and, therefore, do not have the knowledge and skills to include web usability methods in their life cycle activities. The purpose of this course is to learn about the process of developing web sites. This course will take a user-centered approach to designing web sites and will focus on the entire lifecycle of a web site, from the initial idea of developing a web site, collecting the requirements, designing the pages, performing usability testing, and implementing and managing a web site. It examines the basic design and usability issues for web development. Current platforms and technologies for web applications are presented. The course focuses on usability of web sites in terms of content organization, navigation, page and site design, and the general principles of web usability. Case studies are presented and explain how user-centered design concepts have been applied to web development in real-world situations. During the course the students will work on a group project following the user-centered approach for designing websites.

Instructor: Dr. habil. Alexander Nikov
Room: 417, Phone: 3117 or 4127, Office Hours: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays 10-11

Teaching assistant: Koffka Khan

Textbook

Lazar J.: Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach, Addison Wesley, 2005, ISBN: 0321321359

Assignments Dates
Assignment1: Sep 26, assignment2: Oct 3 assigment3: Oct 10, assigment4: Oct 24, assigment5: Nov 15 assigment6: Nov 22

Lecture Hours
Mondays 5:00-8:00 pm, Usability Lab, Frank Stockdale Building

Course Evaluation
Project assignments (1+2+3+4+5+6+7) 70%, Final Exam 30%

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Revised: 23 September 2008