I took HCI with Amanpreet Kappor in Spring ‘21. It was a great class and I learned a lot from it. I didn’t take the UX class so I can’t really go into the differences between the two.

HCI as you could assume focused on the Human aspect. Creating software for everyone to be able to use. One of the first things we talked about is how when software design is tested it is often tested mainly on a younger generation and sometimes focuses too much on a certain gender.

The class had a few individual assignments like designing on paper 10 different ways to create an interface for a keyboard on a smartTV, creating wireframes (low fidelity and high fidelity). Creating an application to allow for two students to communicate directions to a building on campus in different languages.

In class he also had us work in groups to create software. Our overall focus was on applications to allow for personal growth. Through a series of semester long projects. Groups did things like fitness, journaling, finance, etc. Assignments included activities like interviewing potential users and understanding how they would feel about our potential design or features. Also looking at research for how our idea could be enhanced or where we could learn from it and incorporate it. We also created wireframes and even the application itself. Lastly we created a report on our application and compared it to similar applications and real world use cases. So our group created an application that was a budgeting app and we compared it to something like Mint Mobile as well as a personal banking app that a financial institution would ah e for customers. You would use a testing tool (survey, time a user on how easy it is to do a certain task on each app, ask the user how they felt) and then you would use quantitative and qualitative data to determine if your application has merit and serves the purpose you wanted it to or maybe you found a specific area that you could pivot to and incorporate.

One of the areas I did struggle in the class was I didn’t know how to use the MERN stack going into it so I was a little lost and had to spend a lot of my personal free time figuring out how to do certain things. It was also during all online classes so getting help was a little more difficult as all of us were still learning the technology. If you have the time and the desire I think it was one of the more challenging but rewarding classes I have taken.

Ruiz is a pretty easy professor, you won’t spend much time on the class at all