Abstract
This panel will illustrate, through personal anecdotes, first hand experiences of being involved with the
Apple Computer Interface Design Project. This project was initiated to better prepare and train students for
real world interaction design problems. This was accomplished by sponsoring a specific project within the
university curriculum system. All of the panel participants have been directly involved with the Apple
Interface Design Project over the last few years, 1991-94. They represent different sides of the partnership.
The faculty who constructed courses around the Apple brief and students who designed interaction
prototypes as part of the project class. This will be an open discussion between students and faculty about
the benefits and problems encountered. We aim to examine future roles that industry could play in shaping
project topics to facilitate more real world design problem experiences.
Keywords:
Design Process. Teaching HCI. Relationship between industry & academia.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The Apple Interface Design project was initiated in 1991 to encourage interdisciplinary interaction design
courses to be established between different arts and sciences faculties. The goal has been to challenge
students to work together as part of a team responsible for building prototype solutions to real world design
problems. Over the last three years, about 8 universities around the world have been invited to participate in
the Apple Interface Design project. The colleges were selected based upon their ability to establish such
interdisciplinary courses, and their willingness to have students work on real world problems. The
university departments received a donation of Apple equipment. Each university had an Apple research
liaison visit the campus during the semester, to provide feedback and practical suggestions on design
prototyping.
Each year the topic for the design case study changed, but the evaluation emphasis was always placed on
the development of an iterative user-centered design process and on the effectiveness of working in an
interdisciplinary team. The case study topic was selected based upon current interests of Apple Computer,
Inc. Past topics included; design of a family of 'scalable computers'; design of a 'personal and adaptable
computer'; and design of 'specialised front ends for new Internet users'. Any one university was never
officially sponsored for more than two consecutive years, but some colleges continued on their own
volition, gaining no direct financial support from Apple Computer, Inc.
At the university student teams consisted of between 3-10 students. The goal was to encourage partnerships
between cognitive scientists, visual and industrial designers, as well as with engineering and computer
scientists. The student project teams usually worked on the case study topic over one, sometimes two
semesters and could be either graduate or undergraduate students.
Within each university, the faculty arranged periodic reviews of student team work, and at the end of the
course selected one final design project to be reviewed and presented at Apple Computer, Inc. Project
presentations in California are attended by press and any interested engineering/design professionals. The
students presented short media-based highlights of their prototype designs, showing the evolution of their
hardware and software design concepts. It was particularly important for them to illustrate the lessons learnt
by iterating design concepts based upon real user feedback. The student finalists are hosted on a company
tour, and awarded certificates for different design categories, as judged by outside design professionals. The
aim of the awards was not to rank their design submissions, but to evaluate and reinforce the strengths
evident within different project team approaches. Apple Computer, Inc. maintained first right of refusal
over commercialisation of the design ideas, which to date has never caused any difficulties with the students
or faculty.
Opinions/Comments:
The feedback received from students and faculty participants has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. The
facts about what the students actually learned and what the professors thought they learned will be divulged
during direct questioning of panelists! Faculty and students were both unaware of each other's first hand
experiences and the strife that accompanied developing their ideas. Personal anecdotes about the design
process used by the teams and how group consensus was reached is quite fascinating to hear from the point
of view of the insiders.
The faculty admit that the support of an outside industry sponsor lends credibility to their work with their
department heads, which enables them to establish credited courses across department barriers. Each of the
faculty members will describe the programs that they have established and the problems they encountered,
and how they might go about it differently. An entire undergraduate course has been established around this
project in Human Computer Design at the University of Toronto (Ron Baecker), and at the Computing and
Cognitive Sciences department at the University of Sussex, England (Yvonne Rogers).
As it turns out, most graduating design and engineering students are most likely to be hired into industry
where practical training is highly valued. It is difficult for faculty members to provide students with the
amount of relevant hands-on experience needed, especially when they are frequently not practicing
interaction design every day. The process of having external experts provide design critiques to the students
proved very valuable to the students (and professors). This is similar to existing ways that other design
professions, such as architecture, share their knowledge and experience between industry and academia.
Deciding on the best way to provide practitioner critique and feedback to interdisciplinary graduating teams
should become an essential part of establishing credible courses in interaction design.
One of the biggest challenges for students and faculty alike has been how to evaluate a team project, which
is unlike grading individual work in other courses. Students with different backgrounds make different types
of contributions at different stages of a project. It is hard to know, just as it is in a real industrial project,
how to give credit to an entire team comprised of both implementors and designers working successfully
together. One of the most valuable outcomes for the students has been the perspective gained through
working cooperatively with different disciplines. This will also be one of the most valued skills to working
successfully in industry. Despite the importance of this factor, it is always one of the most difficult lessons
to learn. In addition, the professors needed to balance creating multiple successful teams within one class,
without bringing in the unnecessary overhead of competition.
The success of the Apple Interface Design project has also turned into a management challenge. In order for
this project scheme to work effectively there must be some attrition, but the schools want to continue their
involvement! This is what we had hoped for, but it is costly in terms of personnel and management
overhead. There is increasing interest from India and Asia, not to mention continued interest from Pacific
and Europe. It seems that even without the equipment grants most universities would like to continue to
submit their projects for review and feedback by professionals. This project helps the faculty by providing a
focus of interest and energy within the universities for HCI, especially true because of it's potential for
publicity.
If we are to foster ideas of collaboration between industry and academia, then an important role for CHI
could be to help establish other cooperative industrial sponsorships. Why should just Apple Computer, Inc.
be involved with shaping the educational future of interaction designers? However, if other companies did
join together on such a project, it could be quite difficult to coordinate common goals and priorities, let
alone share design methodologies and present a consistent story to the students! Given the success of this
project we will discuss how SIGCHI could be involved with this type of prototype project, in order to meet
the educational needs of training future interaction designers.
