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March 10, 2009
How Technical is the HCI Track
I've been getting a considerable amount of questions from prospective students with a computer science or computer engineering background about how technical or intense the MSI program is, particularly for the HCI track. So I decided to address it in this blog post.
So first I would say the level of intensity depends on your specialization and the classes you take. If you are a well practiced programmer then you are likely to pick up programming much easier then others. Yet, some SI courses will allow you to either practice your skills and introduce you to new languages.
The Information Analysis and Retrieval specialization (IAR) is inherently more technical and allows for this. Dragomir Radev is the main faculty member for this specialization and students in this area would take courses like SI650 Information Retrieval or ...
Fellow recruiting assistant Malhar Gupta can speak directly about the IAR & HCI specializations and comes from a tech background.
Other courses that would be challenging for you include:
SI 508 Networks: Theory and Application
SI 601 Data Manipulation (1.5 credits)
SI 618 Exploratory Data Analysis (1.5 credits)
SI 650 Information Retrieval
SI 649 Information Visualization (Program in Processing or other desired language to create an infoviz project)
there are typically taken by those with interest in SC/HCI/IAR
SI682 Interface & Interaction Design has a project requirement to create a prototype based on user research and findings from conducting user-centered methodologies. So as the technical person on the team you have to opportunity to lead the programming effort. For an example of what an end product might look like see my groups project site: http://mitalkers.interspike.com/
We had a guy with programming experience who used PhP and another team member with significant experience in web design/CSS/HTML who skinned out final hi-fi prototype.
542-1 Introduction to Health Informatics
This course also has the option of creating a working prototype to address an opportunity you research in health IT.
Other students have used their cognate courses to further improve their portfolio by taking classes that requires developing a functioning prototype as a key deliverable in the class.
Finally, I'd like to say that first, having the ability to program and understand SW development is SUPER valuable. A quick look at Interaction Design or Information Architecture job posts will illustrate that companies are seeking candidates with some programming background for these positions. Second, SI's focus on user-centered design is essential for creating usable applications that address relevant and necessary functionality of a system that is demanded by its users. Such principles are not always covered in CS or CompE degrees and so HCI is the perfect compliment (in my opinion) to your technical skills as you learn how to identify functionality relevant for the system, what usability is, how to evaluate it and integrate user-centered requirements into a design.
Hope this helps.
Posted by krosalia at March 10, 2009 12:07 PM