SWEN303 (2022) - User Experience Engineering

Prescription

This course addresses the engineering of user experiences (UX). It presents principles and guidelines for design and covers a range of design and engineering processes. It presents techniques for user testing of applications, digital systems, and physical devices.

Course learning objectives

Students who pass this course should be able to:

1. Understand principles of usability engineering;
2. Design a user interface following accepted principles and guidelines;
3. Evaluate the user experience of a prototype interface, and interpret the results to improve the design;
4. Integrate user interface design techniques into the general software engineering life cycle;
5. Reflect on the quality of their work.

Course content

2022: The course is primarily offered in-person, and there are components such as tests, labs, tutorials, and marking sessions which require in-person attendance. There will be remote alternatives for all the components of the course, but these are only available to students studying from outside the Wellington region. The remote option for tests will use a Zoom-based system for online supervision of the tests. 
 
Students taking this course remotely must have access to a computer with camera and microphone and a reliable high speed internet connection that will support real-time video plus audio connections and screen sharing.  Students must be able to use Zoom; other communication applications may also be used. A mobile phone connection only is not considered sufficient.   The comuputer must be adequate to support the programming required by the course: almost any modern windows, macintosh, or unix laptop or desktop computer will be sufficient, but an Android or IOS tablet will not.
 
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This course will cover the design and evaluation of user experience (UX), with a focus on interfaces for desktop, mobile, and web applications.

Withdrawal from Course

Withdrawal dates and process:
https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/students/study/course-additions-withdrawals

Lecturers

Teaching Format

This course will be offered in-person and online.  For students in Wellington, there will be a combination of in-person components and web/internet based resources. It will also be possible to take the course entirely online for those who cannot attend on campus, with all the components provided in-person also made available online.
 
During the trimester there will be two lectures per week. There are no regular helpdesk or tutorial for this course, however tutorials will be scheduled based on student need.

Student feedback

Student feedback on University courses may be found at:  www.cad.vuw.ac.nz/feedback/feedback_display.php

Dates (trimester, teaching & break dates)

• Teaching: 28 February 2022 - 03 June 2022
• Break: 11 April 2022 - 24 April 2022
• Study period: 06 June 2022 - 09 June 2022
• Exam period: 10 June 2022 - 25 June 2022

Set Texts and Recommended Readings

Required

There is no set text for SWEN303.

Recommended

Recommended Reading are available via the Talis system: https://rl.talis.com/3/victoria/lists/DC565FA0-8C29-ACFE-FE13-5F435753AE5F.html

Mandatory Course Requirements

In addition to achieving an overall pass mark of at least 50%, students must:

• Contribute in good faith to the final group project, as evidenced by regular interaction with the whole project group (documented in project logs), and keeping the commitments agreed by the team.
   

  If you believe that exceptional circumstances may prevent you from meeting the mandatory course requirements, contact the Course Coordinator for advice as soon as possible.

If you believe that exceptional circumstances may prevent you from meeting the mandatory course requirements, contact the Course Coordinator for advice as soon as possible.

Assessment

This course will be assessed via two Assignments and one Project.

Assessment Item	Due Date or Test Date	CLO(s)	Percentage
Assignment 1 (25 hours)	End of Week 4	CLO: 1,3,4	25%
Assignment 2 (25 hours)	End of Mid-trimester Break	CLO: 1,2,4	25%
Project Part 1 (25 hours) (group project, 10% out of the 25% is a group mark)	End of Week 11	CLO: 1,2,3,4	25%
Project Part 2 (25 hours) (group project with individual component, 5% out of the 25% is a group mark)	Assessment Period	CLO: 1,2,3,4,5	25%

Penalties

Work submitted late (after slip days, without an extension) will have a grade cap reduced by 10% per day.

Extensions

Students have three slip days across the course that will be granted automatically. These cannot be used for group submissions.
 
Work submitted after slip days without an extension will be penalised 10% per day by a sinking cap on the maximum grade. e.g after 2 days the maximum is a A- but a C assignment will still get a C grade.
 
Extensions may be granted by the course coordinator.

Submission & Return

All work is submitted through the ECS submission system, accessible through the course web pages. Marks and comments will be returned through the ECS marking system, also available through the course web pages.

Marking Criteria

Marking criteria will vary for each assignment and the project and will form part of the assignment and project descriptions.

Group Work

Assignments may optionally be undertaken in pairs. The Project will be undertaken in groups of 5-6 students.
30 out of 100 marks for the final project is based on a group grade, this will contribute up to 15% of the final mark in the course as the final project is 50% of the course.

Peer Assessment

There is no peer assessment in this course.

Workload

In order to maintain satisfactory progress in SWEN 303, you should plan to spend an average of 10 hours per week on this paper, and 150 hours over the entire course. A plausible and approximate breakdown for these hours would be:

• Lectures and Readings: 50 hours
• Assignments 1 & 2: 25 hours each
• Project: 50 hours

Teaching Plan

See: https://ecs.wgtn.ac.nz/Courses/SWEN303_2022T1/LectureSchedule

Communication of Additional Information

Addtional information will be communicated via the course's website on the ECS system: https://ecs.wgtn.ac.nz/Courses/SWEN303_2022T1/

Links to General Course Information

• Academic Integrity and Plagiarism: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/students/study/exams/integrity-plagiarism
• Academic Progress: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/students/study/progress/academic-progess (including restrictions and non-engagement)
• Dates and deadlines: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/students/study/dates
• Grades: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/students/study/progress/grades
• Special passes: Refer to the Assessment Handbook, at https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/documents/policy/staff-policy/assessment-handbook.pdf
• Statutes and policies, e.g. Student Conduct Statute: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/about/governance/strategy
• Student support: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/students/support
• Students with disabilities: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/st_services/disability/
• Student Charter: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/learning-teaching/learning-partnerships/student-charter
• Terms and Conditions: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/study/apply-enrol/terms-conditions/student-contract
• Turnitin: http://www.cad.vuw.ac.nz/wiki/index.php/Turnitin
• University structure: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/about/governance/structure
• VUWSA: http://www.vuwsa.org.nz

Offering CRN: 17185

Points: 15
Prerequisites: COMP 261 or SWEN 221
Duration: 28 February 2022 - 26 June 2022
Starts: Trimester 1
Campus: Kelburn