About / DataShop MHCI Project

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Masters Project

Over a period of eight months, Masters students in the HCI program at Carnegie Mellon University analyzed DataShop and iteratively designed new user interfaces to various DataShop reports. The results of their work are shown on this page, including a high-fidelity prototype created in Flash.

The MHCI project is an 8-month capstone project that consists mainly of two phases.

In the Spring Semester, or first phase, the project team performed contextual inquiries and requirements solicitation interviews to determine the appropriate requirements for the DataShop. They solicited users across the different LearnLab curricula in order to ensure that the requirements would address the needs of all of the seven subjects. Finally, as a reality-check, they developed a survey, which they conducted in-person with representatives from each of the courses, to ensure that most of the general concepts required in the DataShop (problems, errors, knowledge components, hint requests, etc.) were present in each of the current and planned courses.

In the second phase, or Summer Semester, they focused on iteratively designing, prototyping and user testing the interfaces for the Data Export, Learning Curves, Error Reports and Problem Profiles. The Data Export is the primary path to allowing users to export their data, which every user is likely to need at some point in the analysis. Learning Curves are difficult to produce by hand and are valuable in their ability to measure learning during a study, long before pre- and post-test results can be compared. The need for Error Analysis was shared amongst all of the LearnLab courses, including those whose researchers do not measure skill-based learning. And Problem Profiles provide researchers with context, which is essential to understand and interpret the data.