Teaching HCI in software engineering

The creation of graphical user interfaces (GUI) can be an invigorating but a complex challenge. Gone are the days when a programmer could build an interface with little or no thought of the user. As the complexity of interfaces increases, and interfaces become user centric, programmers now consider interface design well before the first programming keystrokes are entered. The problem is teaching students during their college years about human computer interaction (HCI). Here at Mary Washington College, HCI is an elective that has only been offered twice. With this in mind, many students do not get the opportunity to take an HCI course. The purpose of this paper is to describe one methodology of teaching HCI in a software engineering course.