HCI education

First of all I want to give some updates on a previous column. Last November, in "quality matters", I discussed issues ofedu-catinnal quality and compared it with issues of quality in interface design. This included the importance of reflective practice in educational quality somewhat similar to that embodied in the SEI capability maturity model for software engineering. Brian Shackel contacted me after the column came out and reminded me that two of the ISO standards, ISO 13407 and ISO TR 18529, address usability in precisely the manner of SEI CMM. This also reminded me of Renan Fitzpatrick's work on choosing appropriate usability assessments methods for particular projects. This is again reflective, looking at different assessment metrics and methods and matching their assessed criteria against project requirements. Notice not one-size-fits-all, but finding the right tool given the context. Another update on the same article is that Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education is now University of Gloucestershire. Quite soon after I wrote the November col-uxrm, I heard that they had eventually been granted university status. In the LIK the title of'University' is officially by royal seal and C&G had had a whole year of visits by representatives appointed by the Privy Council, followed by another year waiting while they made judgment-nothing just-in-time about the British Constitution! I was there in November to give a talk (called "toys for the boys or jobs for the girls", but that is another story ...) and it was a real privilege to be able to say, "it's good to be in the University of Gloucestershire". So, now rmjust hoping that the rest of the 100 or so UK universities can manage educational quality procedures as appropriate and effective as their newest member! So, now onto something completely different. I find myself again and again making the fundamental mistake of doing Agatha Christie teaching-not telling students what I am doing or why. I have often criticised mathematics for sys-tematising the discipline around who-dunnit education, but I don't learn the lesson myself. It was almost halfway through a week-long intensive HCI course for our masters students. Although I was using for-really presented material, I also frequently broke the sessions with extensive analyses prompted by devices and soRware being used in the classroom. Problems with the television prompted discussion of affordances, failmc to be able to close a window in Excel lead to mode errors and closure. …