The lab is equipped with audio and video recording equipment, and several workstations. The HCI group has also been promoting the importance of HCI in the Computer Engineering undergraduate program and has begun to introduce HCI topics and modules in most of the traditional software curriculum. Many undergraduate students are also exposed to HCI through an undergraduate research course. Students participate in the research projects being conducted, providing them with a different academic perspective. Our experience has shown that students involved in research are encouraged to continue graduate studies.
Usability engineering is an important component in most of our research projects.
To handle the usability tests more efficiently, we have started a new approach by designating three students as official testers. These students are being trained in different usability testing techniques and will assist or perform tests for different research and development projects within our group. The main goal of this research is to develop practical methodologies for designing usable World Wide Web pages. The proliferation of Web pages with poor usability suggests that most of the designers of Web pages have little knowledge of user interface design and usability engineering. This results in pages that wastes user's time, and could be responsible for a large amount of unnecessary traffic on the Internet.