CSCE 655 · Human-Centered Computing
CSCE 655


Human-Centered Computing

A reading- and discussion-driven seminar on frontier HCI research

This is a frontier HCI class covering human-centered computing and a range of late-breaking topics in the design and development of human-computer interaction. Each week combines three modules — lecture, student presentation, and discussion — built around three papers spanning theory and highly technical, futuristic interaction devices.

You will present twice a semester, as a group of two, on a topic of your choice, and lead the class discussion.

14 weeks 3 papers / week 2 presentations / student Lecture · Presentation · Discussion
Learning Outcomes
Class Schedule
WEEK 01 Course Intro
WEEK 02 Snow day — no class
WEEK 03 Interaction Design & Prototyping design
  • Forming interactivity: a tool for rapid prototyping of physical interactive products — Avrahami & Hudson, 2002
  • Reflective Physical Prototyping through Integrated Design, Test, and Analysis — Hartmann et al., 2006
  • Making Multiple Uses of the Obscura 1C Digital Camera: Reflecting on Design, Production, Packaging and Distribution of a Counterfunctional Device — Pierce & Paulos, 2015
  • Additional: SmartSkin — An Infrastructure for Freehand Manipulation on Interactive Surfaces, 2002
WEEK 04 Physical Computing hardware
  • Phidgets: Easy Development of Physical Interfaces through Physical Widgets — Greenberg & Fitchett, 2001
  • Crafting Technology: Reimagining the Processes, Materials, and Cultures of Electronics — Buechley & Perner-Wilson, 2012
  • Sprayable User Interfaces: Prototyping Large-Scale Interactive Surfaces with Sensors and Displays — Wessely et al., 2020
WEEK 05 Persuasive Computing behavior
  • The Design of Eco-Feedback Technology — Froehlich et al., 2010
  • E3D: Harvesting Energy from Everyday Kinetic Interactions Using 3D Printed Attachment Mechanisms — Arabi et al., 2023
  • InteractOut: Leveraging Interaction Proxies as Input Manipulation Strategies for Reducing Smartphone Overuse — Lu et al., 2024
WEEK 06 Wearables & Ubiquitous Computing wearable
  • OmniTouch: Wearable Multitouch Interaction Everywhere — Harrison et al., 2011
  • Wearability Factors for Skin Interfaces — Liu et al., 2016
  • FaceBit: Smart Face Masks Platform — Hofmann et al., 2020
  • Additional: Synthetic Sensors — Towards General-Purpose Sensing, Laput et al., 2017
WEEK 07 Assistive Technology access
  • SpaceSense: Representing Geographical Information to Visually Impaired People Using Spatial Tactile Feedback — Yatani et al., 2012
  • Living Disability Theory: Reflections on Access, Research, and Design — Hoffman et al., 2023
  • GenAssist: Making Image Generation Accessible — Huh et al., 2023
  • Additional: Situationally Aware Mobile Devices for Overcoming Situational Impairments, Wobbrock, 2019
WEEK 08 Working day — no class
WEEK 09 AR / VR immersive
  • The World Through the Computer: Computer Augmented Interaction with Real World Environments — Rekimoto & Nagao, 1995
  • XRtic: A Prototyping Toolkit for XR Applications using Cloth Deformation — Muthukumarana et al., 2022
  • Hand Interfaces: Using Hands to Imitate Objects in AR/VR for Expressive Interactions — Pei et al., 2022
WEEK 10 Haptics touch
  • Impacto: Simulating Physical Impact by Combining Tactile Stimulation with Electrical Muscle Stimulation — Lopes et al., 2015
  • Grabity: A Wearable Haptic Interface for Simulating Weight and Grasping in Virtual Reality — Choi et al., 2017
  • Tacttoo: A Thin and Feel-Through Tattoo for On-Skin Tactile Output — Withana et al., 2018
WEEK 11 Novel Sensing & Augmenting Interactions sensing
  • Activity Sensing in the Wild: A Field Trial of UbiFit Garden — Consolvo et al., 2008
  • Touch & Activate: Adding Interactivity to Existing Objects using Active Acoustic Sensing — Ono et al., 2013
  • SeamPose: Repurposing Seams as Capacitive Sensors in a Shirt for Upper-Body Pose Tracking — Yu et al., 2024
  • Duet: Exploring Joint Interactions on a Smart Phone and a Smart Watch — Chen et al., 2014
  • Human I/O: Towards a Unified Approach to Detecting Situational Impairments — Liu et al., 2024
  • Elastica: Adaptive Live Augmented Presentations with Elastic Mappings Across Modalities — Cao et al., 2024
WEEK 12 Privacy & Ethics privacy
  • The Effect of Social Influence on Security Sensitivity — Das et al., 2014
  • The Dark (Patterns) Side of UX Design — Gray et al., 2018
  • What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review — Zhang et al., 2023
  • Additional: Deepfakes, Phrenology, Surveillance, and More! A Taxonomy of AI Privacy Risks, Lee et al., 2025
WEEK 13 Computational Interaction computational
  • You Are Where You Tweet: A Content-Based Approach to Geo-locating Twitter Users — Cheng et al., 2010
  • Modeling and Understanding Human Routine Behavior — Banovic et al., 2016
  • Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior — Park et al., 2023
WEEK 14 Social Computing social
  • VizWiz: Nearly Real-time Answers to Visual Questions — Bigham et al., 2010
  • How Video Production Affects Student Engagement: An Empirical Study of MOOC Videos — Guo et al., 2014
  • Who Broke Amazon Mechanical Turk? An Analysis of Crowdsourcing Data Quality over Time — Marshall et al., 2023