CSC318 Course Feedback

The most interesting topic: Cognition and Memory

Designing an interface for users based on how human brains work can improve the effectiveness of it. 
Before this topic was introduced,  I have some understanding of cognitive science, but never connect cognition and interface design together. It is interesting and useful to know how to design interfaces in a more effective way using knowledge of cognition and memory. 

The most boring concept: Data Gathering

This topic is the instructions of how to correctly do data gathering. It is usually some details that experimenter needs to be careful not to misleading the subjects. Although acknowledging that this topic is useful in doing research, this topic only contains instructions (what to do and what not to do) and this causes this topic to be boring. Maybe adding some interesting examples, such as an experimenter was not careful and misled his subjects and caused a hilarious experiment result. 

My experience of putting a concept I learned in the course into practice:

I used the concept I learned in my csc301 project, which is a project building a web. When designing the web interface, I carefully consider the colour and layout I used, so that the colours on the page match with each other and the whole page looks pleasant. And users should not be confused of how to operate.

Alternative take on the concept of data gathering:

Give out sentences in different wording. Students in class can test using those sentences with each other and feel the power of wording themselves.

Topic that I wish we had covered in more detail: Cognition and Memory

Some people might think that the arts and style are the only thing to be considered for design. However, cognition and memory in design are as important as arts and style. In fact, arts and style are parts of cognition - what will pleased users the most (what colour, font and so on). But I do realize that this is not a cognitive science course, putting too much time on this topic may not be reasonable.

CSC318 is really an amazing course. Allow me to say great thanks to the instructor, all the TAs and classmates in this course for giving me such a great experience.