C. M. Chewar

Understanding usability: investigating an integrated design environment and management system

Purpose – Decades of innovation in designing usable (and unusable) interfaces have resulted in a plethora of guidelines, usability methods, and other design tools. The purpose of this research is to develop ways for novice developers to effectively leverage and contribute to the large and growing body of usability knowledge and methods.Design/methodology/approach – This work presents the first extensive usage evaluation of an integrated design environment and knowledge management system, LINK‐UP. Key to this effort is the central design record (CDR), a design representation meant to prevent breakdowns occurring between design and evaluation phases.Findings – The case study results show that a design knowledge IDE centered on the CDR can help novices make connections between requirements data, design representations and evaluation data and better understand how to leverage that information to improve designs.Research limitations/implications – Future efforts are focusing on exploring the utility of this ap...

Avoiding the pratfalls of program assessment

Most agree that assessment is an important step in improving an academic program. However, implementation often falls short of expectations due to common missteps. In this paper, we identify and discuss common program assessment pratfalls. We also describe the assessment program and the manner in which we have taken steps to avoid each of these pratfalls.

Towards a "humans-first" computer science curriculum

Traditionally, computer science education has considered objects-first or imperative-first approaches, with the focus of the course on teaching design of programs starting with data objects or imperative program flow, respectively. Yet with the number of computer science majors dwindling, and with the percentages of women and minorities on the decrease, it is time to consider a new approach that will encourage a larger and more diverse population to the computer science undergraduate major. In our work, we propose a humans-first approach, where core principles of human-computer interaction (HCI) are integrated in the computer science and information technology curricula---from the earliest stages of each curriculum through graduation---to provide a coherent, connected experience for students.