Contact Information

Dr. Paul Marty, Assistant Professor, College of Information, Florida State University

Office: 240 LSB
Office Hours: By appointment
Office Phone: 850.644.5133

The best and fastest way to reach me is by email: marty@fsu.edu. I make every effort to respond to emails within 12 hours; if I don't respond within 36 hours, please email me again, as your message might have gotten lost or junked accidentally.

While this class is taught using BlackBoard, this syllabus is also available online at: http://info.fsu.edu/~pmarty/lis5275

Course Materials

There is one required text for this course:

Additional readings (available online) will be assigned each week. Please note that readings from the Communications of the ACM or ACM's Interactions are available through FSU's subscription to the ACM Digital Library. You will need to use the proxy server if you are off campus.

The course websites (see above) will provide access to all the information, additional to the textbook, required for successful completion of the course. This includes lecture materials and references to other required readings.

The following list of websites will also provide you a good source of potentially relevant sources, opinions, articles, etc.:

The course will require the use of web design software (e.g. Macromedia DreamWeaver) although you won't need anything too fancy, so any freely available HTML authoring tool will likely be fine. All you will need to do is post webpages containing text and images.

Course Description

This course will provide a comprehensive overview of usability analysis and its role in user-centered design. The course has been designed to familiarize students with both the concepts and procedures necessary to incorporate usability analysis into the information systems design process. At the end of the course, students will possess both the resources and skills necessary to conduct usability analyses and evaluate information systems from a user-centered design perspective.

Course Objectives

After the completion of this course, students will be able to:

Course Policies

Attendance policy for this course is consistent with Florida State University Policy as stated in the Bulletin. Your regular attendance at class meetings of this course is expected, and you are required to participate in class discussions (online or offline). All students are expected to abide by this class attendance policy.

Late work is not acceptable. Work submitted late with a reasonable excuse will be accepted especially if this is discussed with the instructor before the due date. Do not expect an incomplete for the course without extreme and unforeseen mitigating circumstances. If a situation arises where you will not be able to meet a deadline, you should let me know well in advance!

Accomodations will be made for documented illness, deaths in the immediate family and other documented crises, call to active military duty or jury duty, religious holy days, and official University activities in a way that does not penalize students who have a valid excuse. Consideration will also be given to students whose dependent children experience serious illness.

You are required to check your ACNS email accounts and the course discussion boards on a regular basis. All emails to the instructor must include a subject line that begins with the number of the course. You try to should set up your email account so that your full name accompanies each email (e.g. I should receive email from John Q. Smith, not from jqs4432). If you are emailing from Blackboard, please include your name in the body of your email, as Blackboard does not include your name in the from field! Emails that include neither your full name somewhere in the email nor the course number in the subject line will not receive a response.

University-wide policy requires all students to attend the first class meeting of all classes for which they are registered. Students who do not attend the first class meeting of a course for which they are registered will be dropped from the course by the academic department that offers the course. In order to enforce this policy, instructors are required to take attendance at the first class meeting and report absences to the appropriate person in their department or school/college. For further information, consult the FSU General Bulletin at: http://registrar.fsu.edu/bulletin/grad/apdefault.htm.

Grading / Evaluation

The most important criteria for grading are timeliness, completeness, and quality. Please get your assignments in on time; please complete all parts of each assignment; and please make every effort to clearly present your thinking at each stage in the process. The effort you put into your assignments is just as important as the final outcome.

Assignments that have not been demonstrably spell-checked, grammar-checked, and proofread for absolute nonsense will not be accepted. Unacceptable assignments will receive a zero, and may be resubmitted at the instructor's discretion. Please note that all of your work for this class must be original.

Percentage weights for each assignment are listed below. Letter grades will be allocated using the following scale: 100-93 = A, 92-90 = A-, 89-87 = B+, 86-83 = B, 82-80 = B-, 79-77 = C+, 76-73 = C, 72-70 = C-, 69-67 = D+, 66-63 = D, 62-60 = D-, 59-0 = F.

Assignments / Responsibilities

Please see the course assignments page at the following URL: http://info.fsu.edu/~pmarty/lis5275/assignments.html

The following list is provided for quick reference:

Course Content / Outline

Please see the course outline at the following URL: http://info.fsu.edu/~pmarty/lis5275/outline.html

The following list is provided for quick reference...

Academic Honor Policy

The Florida State University Academic Honor Policy outlines the University's expectations for the integrity of students' academic work, the procedures for resolving alleged violations of those expectations, and the rights and responsibilities of students and faculty members throughout the process. Students are responsible for reading the Academic Honor Policy and for living up to their pledge to ". . . be honest and truthful and . . . [to] strive for personal and institutional integrity at Florida State University." (Florida State University Academic Honor Policy, found at http://www.fsu.edu/~dof/honorpolicy.htm.)

Americans with Disabilities Act

Students with disabilities needing academic accommodation should:

  1. register with and provide documentation to the Student Disability Resource Center; and
  2. bring a letter to the instructor indicating the need for accommodation and what type. This should be done during the first week of class.

This syllabus and other class materials are available in alternative format upon request.

For more information about services available to FSU students with disabilities, contact the

Student Disability Resource Center
97 Woodward Avenue, South
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4167
(850) 644-9566 (voice)
(850) 644-8504 (TDD)
sdrc@admin.fsu.edu
http://www.fsu.edu/~staffair/dean/StudentDisability/

Syllabus Change Policy

This syllabus is a guide for the course and is subject to change with advanced notice.