A CS 4784 HCI  capstone course “HCI Outdoors” will be offered at Virginia Tech in Spring Semester 2019. The 3-hour course will meet weekly for 3 hours on Friday afternoons to examine and define ways that technology can influence outdoor experiences—both in positive and negative ways—for individuals and groups. The course will involve hands-on exploration of technologies that have promise for use in outdoor situations, and there will be opportunities to obtain, design and program, and evaluate technology using HCI methods.

The primary component of the course will be a client-centered team project.  Most class sessions will be dedicated to making progress on this project, including presentations, instructor and client discussions, and work activities.  In addition, this course will feature a number of reading and writing assignments focused on the HCI Outdoors theme, toward helping to craft a book for release in Spring 2020.

It is expected that the course will attract a small but diverse set of participants with interest and expertise in one or more of hiking, walking, personal tracking devices, health and wellness (physical and spiritual), human computer interaction, quantified self, mobile computing and technologies, and in-the-wild evaluations. It is strongly recommended that you have completed CS 3724 (Intro to HCI) and CS 3714 (Mobile Software Design), but relevant other courses and experiences can be substituted at the instructor’s discretion. Interested potential participants should email the course instructor, Dr. Scott McCrickard, indicating interest and experience in these topics and courses.