Starting again with HCI

Human-Computer Interaction turned out to be a lot of class. There was research, analysis, sketches, prototypes, testing, and then another round of changes, all while the rest of life kept happening. I missed plans with friends. My calendar started looking like it had beef with me.

At one point I seriously considered dropping. My wife coached me into sticking with it, and I’m glad she did. The class was intense, but it was also a chance to take the work I already do and look at it through a more deliberate HCI lens.

Turns out those things have names

Heuristics gave me a way to point at a usability problem instead of waving my hands and saying “something feels weird.” Cognitive load made me notice how much a person has to remember, scan, and keep in their head. The gulfs of execution and evaluation sound like they belong in a fantasy novel, but they describe very ordinary frustrations: How do I do what I want? and How can I tell what just happened?

And the design lifecycle kept bringing me back to the same lesson: don’t sprint straight to the interface. Ask people about the problem, make a few different ideas, put one in front of someone, learn what’s confusing, repeat. It sounds obvious when written as a list. Doing all of it while juggling a class and a life is a different story.

Peer review: where does the comment even go?

For our group project, we looked at peer review in Canvas. The existing flow left students unsure where feedback belonged and whether it had actually been submitted. In our survey, 21 of 25 respondents said they were confused about where to write feedback, and 18 of 25 were unsure about submission status.

Our team explored a few directions. I led the design and prototyping for PeerView, a split-screen review where the paper stays beside its feedback. Reviewers could highlight a passage and attach a thought, question, nit, or action right there. No more trying to remember which of the three comment boxes was the right one, then wondering if the feedback vanished into the Canvas void.

Explore the PeerView prototype

YouTube subscriptions: a folder could help

For my individual project, I picked a problem I knew personally: a long list of YouTube subscriptions that was hard to browse and easy to abandon. I asked people about it, evaluated the existing experience, and sketched three alternatives. Folders came out ahead in the first round, so I combined them with search scoped to subscriptions and filters in the next prototype. The highly scientific conclusion: sometimes a long list really does want folders.

In the final survey, 25 people tried the design. They rated finding channels, understanding folders, and feeling in control highly. Moving channels between folders was still the part that needed more thought. That’s the bit I like about testing: it’s nice when people like the idea, and even nicer when they show you where it still falls over.

Explore the YouTube subscriptions prototype

I learned things; I also missed brunch

I already work in design engineering; the class didn’t reveal a surprise new career path. It gave me better tools and language for work I’m already doing, and a reason to slow down and ask what a design is asking of the person using it. A heuristic is only useful if it changes a decision. A prototype is only useful if it helps answer a question. (Or, at minimum, gives you something concrete to argue about.)

I also had to accept that I couldn’t do every assignment perfectly and still show up for every person I care about. I missed some friend commitments, got stressed, and learned to let a few things be good enough. “B’s get degrees” stopped sounding like a joke and started sounding like useful project scope.

If you’re doing school on top of an already full life, ask for help before you’re completely cooked, and decide what can be B-level on purpose. There are only so many hours in a week, and Canvas will still be there after you go see your friends. I needed that reminder too.