Sys 6023 - Cognitive Systems Engineering - Spring, 2014
Mondays & Wednesdays 11:00-12:15pm, MEC 345

Instructor: Stephanie Guerlain, (434) 242-7292, guerlain@virginia.edu
Office Hours: By email, phone, or appointment

Teaching Assistant: Sarah Lightbody, (330) 647-4009, sml3jt@virginia.edu
Office Hours: By email, phone, or appointment

Course Objectives: This course introduces the fundamentals for the analysis, design and evaluation of human-centered systems in both “simple” contexts such as a single user working with a product under no time constraints or severe consequences and “complex” domains that involve teamwork, competing objectives, time pressure, high risk, and/or supervisory control. Course topics include analysis of human-systems interaction, domain and task analysis, software and product user interface design, usability testing, experimental design, and human-centered lifecycle design. Course projects and assignments include examples from medical, military, transportation, consumer product, and process control domains.

What fundamental questions will this course help you answer? What are the human information processing fundamentals to understand for designing and evaluating human-systems interactions?  What methods can I use to analyze a human/systems interaction?  What theories explain the kinds of errors people make?  How can we design systems, products and software to reduce the likelihood of human error and improve ease of use and overall improved system functioning? What are alternative decision support system approaches?  How do I design and conduct an effective human-centered system evaluation?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of the different usability evaluation methods?  What are some different approaches to designing decision support systems?  What effects can these designs have on performance? 

Required Readings:

Norman, D. (1993). The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Doubleday (originally published as The Psychology of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books, 1988). - We will order as a group, first day of class

Additional Readings (on Collab) as indicated in the Activities section.

Recommended Readings:

Hutchins, E. (1995).  Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Tufte, E. (1990). Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

 COURSE MODULES:

1. Introduction
2. Human Information Processing
3. How Artifact Design Affects Complexity
4. Human-Centered System Design
5. Decision Support Systems

This course introduces the fundamentals for the analysis, design and evaluation of human-centered systems in both “simple” contexts such as a single user working with a product under no time constraints or severe consequences and “complex” domains that involve teamwork, competing objectives, time pressure, high risk, and/or supervisory control. Course topics include analysis of human-systems interaction, domain and task analysis, software and product user interface design, usability testing, experimental design, and human-centered lifecycle design. Course projects and assignments include examples from medical, military, transportation, consumer product, and process control domains.