CS 3205

Not a bad course, Floryan is pretty chill. Just stay on top of readings and the group project. Hope that your group is good at writing and explaining things well. Floryan added a midterm and final so not everyone can get an A in the class, which is pretty stupid. Test grading is pretty subjective since TAs grade differently. Overall, not a hard course, definitely an easy B.

This course has a reputation for being an easy A - this is somewhat outdated information that was true before exams were introduced into the course. It felt like exams weren't always testing relevant knowledge but instead would ask about really specific passages in the book. Floryan claimed that he did these to test whether you read the book but in my opinion, there's a difference between testing whether you read the book or memorized it. There was one programming assignment that had a lot of edge cases to account for that weren't outlined in the instructions, so definitely use piazza. There is also one big group project that was interesting, but is very subjectively graded. Overall, I'd say the course is an easy B. Floryan is a very engaging lecturer and makes class fun by starting discussions and encouraging participation, so I'd definitely recommend taking it with him. Just know that the class isn't necessarily the walk in the park that some claim it to be (or maybe you have a photographic memory and it's easy).

This course was very different than what I had expected it to be. For me at least, it was not the totally easy, breeze through, easy A elective I had anticipated.

Pros:
1. Floryan is a boss. He is a really engaging and enthusiastic teacher who has well thought out and insightful answers to questions.
2. The material is overall very interesting. You will learn some cool things about human beings and the way that they interact with technology.
3. The group project can actually be a lot of fun if you don't take it too seriously

Cons:
1. The grading is super subjective. He releases guidelines before hand which are extremely vague. The TA who grades just takes of points wherever he felt necessary without much regard to the guidelines posted.
2. The programming assignment. This was, in fairness, the first time this had been done so there is sure to be improvement in the future. In the middle of 2 of the homeworks was a just a random programming assignment where we had to implement one of the design patterns learned in class. The assignment was vague, the skeleton code was confusing and unhelpful, and the grading was far too harsh (I lost 20% for misreading a small, insignificant instruction)
3. The material can get dry and he does not allow laptops in class so paying attention was really the only option.

Overall, a decent course with a great professor that is a nice break from the nitty-gritty CS curriculum. Not an easy A per-se but I didn't put all that much effort into it and the curve at the end gave me an A-.

As others have said, Floryan is a great professor. He tries hard to make his class interesting and he is very receptive and understanding of student feedback. He also really knows his stuff, as he always had thoughtful answers for student questions.

This class, on the other hand, was very underwhelming and even somewhat frustrating. The course material was okay, though I admit I feel like I learned a lot which is really the goal.

The majority of the work for this class is a semester-long group project, though for some inexplicable reason, they decided to throw in a programming assignment in the middle of the semester that much of the class struggled with due to the irrelevance of it to the course material and the very poor explanation of the assignment. This assignment fell between the group assignments 2 and 3, which created a major gap in between and killed a lot of the momentum. Not only this, but the delay caused by this and many schedule pushbacks, the final group assignment was due on the day after the final, which really sucked. The group work in general was frustrating (even more so since I had untrustworthy partners) because so much of your grade depends on other people's work. There is potential to have a lot of fun with it if you have the right partners and an idea that excites you, but it is even more likely for it to become a chore, as your final product will be 30+ pages.

The tests weren't bad at all, but the final had way more specific things pulled from the book than the other two.

Another thing is that participation counts for 15% of the grade. I get why he wants to encourage discussion, but in a 100+ person class, this was not fun. In fact, it generated a lot of useless, thoughtless comments (especially in the first half of the class).

Overall, this isn't a bad or difficult class. You will learn a lot, but you may become frustrated at some aspects of the course.

Floryan is a good professor. But be wary of this course, especially the first homework. Floryan's grading guidelines that he releases to students is very broad and vague, and yet the TA graded on a very very strict criteria, especially with regards to formatting. There's definitely a disparity between what they explicitly ask you for, and what you end up getting graded on. That said, the material is interesting and useful.

Very low level of work, but not as interesting as I had hoped. Also the grading seemed very subjective and not exactly representative of what we learned/discussed in class.

I had a lot of fun in this class though the grading on the tests was too ambiguous.

The final project is a good opportunity to actually create something!

Floryan is my favorite professor. Take any of his classes if you can.

HCI is an interesting class with a lot of fun in-class discussions. The groupwork was interesting at times, but required some long meetings and a lot of writing (roughly 45 pages per group for the whole semester).

I know some groups got away with half-assing the work and doing it all at the last minute, but I found it more worth while to put real effort in and be proud of the outcome, even if it took a little extra time.

This course allows you to explore new technologies and ideas. If you're interested in start-ups or have some cool app ideas, this class is a must.

My reasons for taking this course were 70% because I am interested in psych and how people think (which is the whole basis of HCI) and 30% because Proffy Florman (it's a thing) was teaching it. The subject material is not difficult, but it is good to know, especially if you've never found yourself in a situation where you need to design something. The bulk of the class is groupwork, and the groups were chosen semi-randomly (you put your name next to projects you're interested in working on, and he goes through and assigns people to different projects). I lucked out and had a group where everyone actually cared and was willing to do work, but I know some people were not so lucky and found themselves spending a lot more time on the homework assignments than I did. I especially liked that we had toys that we could do our projects on - Oculus Rift, Leap Motion, and Google Glass. Despite the fact that my project was on Glass, our group did no coding whatsoever (maybe when you take the course Glass will be less Beta-y and you'll actually want to code a little bit). As far as exams go, there were two and they didn't have any unexpected information, but you will probably want to review because certain things require memorization.

tl;dr: While this class does not have difficult material, it's not an easy A (maybe an easy B). The course is light, fun, and interesting.

Floryan is awesome. However, the structure of the class did change in his 2nd semester teaching it, so there are more homeworks, 2 midterms and a final now. However, he's a super flexible guy and do to all the snow and other events we had a fair number of things adjusted/canceled.

Class itself is interesting, especially if you're doing mobile or web development and see yourself doing interface design for a real job. That being said, it is certainly not a coding elective and has a fair bit of busy work writing associated with it.

Great elective for your 4th year or something to make 3rd year a little less painful.

Super interesting and very low pressure class. One midterm, an optional second midterm in case you screwed up the first one, and a semester-long group project split into five homework assignments. (And random attendance checks, so don't slack!) Very different from most CS courses - emphasizes design principles and usability rules over technical content and programming (in fact, no programming is required at all). Prof. Floryan is a fantastic lecturer and very laid back and approachable. I would absolutely recommend this class to anybody looking for a CS elective.