Mobile interaction

Course goals

After completing the course, students

• know the basics of state-of-the-art and emerging trends for mobile interaction; mostly mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) plus some wearables (demonstrated by the related exam questions).
• can apply basic techniques of mobile interaction to a concrete use case, e.g., a mobile game (demonstrated by the related project work; implementation/setup part).
• know the advantages and disadvantages of using different interaction techniques and how to verify and demonstrate them (demonstrated by the related project work; evaluation part).

Assessment
Your final grade will be the average of your grades from the exam and the practical assignment.
There will be one exam at the end, covering the lectures and related papers.
The practical assignment consists of a project, which will be done in a group. For the project, you will get one grade for the group, but individual differences may apply for students doing particularly well or bad.
Criteria for passing: exam and practical grades must be at least 5.0 each (before rounding) and the total grade must be at least 5.5 (before rounding).

In order to pass this course, you have to

• participate in the exam and score at least a 5.0 (before rounding)
• handed in all practical assignments (see milestones and deadlines in the schedule and on the project page) and score at least a 5.0 (before rounding)
• score a total final grade of at least 5.5 (before rounding; see weighting above)

If you pass the course you can not participate in the retake exam or practicals (university policy).

You can participate in the retakes if and only if you fail the course and

• you participated in the exam and
• handed in all practical assignments and
• your final grade was at least 4.0 (before rounding)

If you failed and your averaged grade from the exam was below 5.0 or your final grade was below 5.5

• you can participate in the retake exam. Your retake exam result will replace your original exam grade. Based on the number of students, the retake exam will either be an oral exam or a digital open book exam.

If you failed and your averaged grade from the practicals was below 5.0

• you can get a new practical assignment. The concrete topic will be decided individually by the instructor. Your grade from this new assignment will replace your original practicals grade.

You will pass the course, if your new grade calculated after the retakes fulfils the original criteria specified above.

Content

Mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, have become as powerful as traditional computers, often replacing them for various tasks.
Yet, interacting with them remains challenging due to issues such as limiting form factor, mobile context, etcetera.
On the other hand, it is exactly this form factor, context, and other characteristics of mobiles that provide us with new and exciting opportunities for alternative usages. Examples range from innovative mobile games, to mobile AR (augmented reality) applications.
In this course, we will have a closer look at standard interaction with mobiles (e.g., via touch screen; including potential issues as well as opportunities), address new approaches, and look into related current and future research -- including wearable devices (e.g., head mounted displays, such as Google Glass, wristbands and smart watches, such as the Apple Watch).
Concrete application domains include mobile gaming and mobile VR/AR. For more information about content, procedure, and formal issues please refer to the course’s website: https://ics-websites.science.uu.nl/docs/vakken/mmob/

Course form
Lectures, presentations, self-dependent group project.
 
Literature
There will be no textbook, but we will use journal articles and conference papers instead. These will be announced in the lectures and on the course’s website: https://ics-websites.science.uu.nl/docs/vakken/mmob/