The facilities include banks of suns and Macintosh computers, about 100, networked, there are good virtual reality, graphics, multimedia and CSCW support facilities - both hardware and software. The machines are housed in a multipurpose student building. The courses offered are part of the HCI stream Advanced MSc courses. Students choose four from a selection of courses in user modelling, interactive system design, virtual environments and multimedia, natural language, OOPS, User Interface Management systems, some of which do not run in all years.
Assessment is by coursework and examination.
The primary aim is to enable students to become familiar with the kinds of problem to be solved in interactive system design. The emphasis is on teaching students how to build user-centred interactive applications, based mainly around seminars looking at the design, evaluation and evolution of designs. Assessment is by coursework only. The Multimedia course addresses the impact of multimedia on HCI and computer systems design. The course covers the representation, storage, and transmission of audio, video, still image, graphics, and test within a single digital environment, but the main focus is on the empowerment of users and new applications enabled by these facilities.