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Unit of study_
ENGD2001: Protecting People Who Use Technology
2024 unit information
This unit takes an interdisciplinary approach to think strategically about a selection of key issues that emerge from human-technology interactions. This unit shows how the human-technology interface impacts on what people do with technology (whether a computer program, or a physical equipment), and especially on mistakes that might be made, which can threaten physical safety, social well-being, privacy, and other human needs. The unit will analyse risks that arise from poor or malicious interface design, how one can evaluate these risks, some different ways to limit the risks, and the ethical implications of this. Students will learn about physiological, cognitive, social and cultural aspects of human interaction; diversity among people (including cultural norms etc) impacting both what they aim to do, and how they 'read' instructions, discover affordances and actually use systems. The unit deals with fairness, accountability and transparency of sophisticated interfaces. The unit will provide insights that are important for future leaders, both of technology creation activities and of organizations that include the users. An interdisciplinary approach to evaluating these systems provides an opportunity for collaboration and identification of many factors that would otherwise not typically be considered by the designers of the system. This leads to a collective effort to improve current systems and for future systems to be designed that not only consider better functionality and usability, but also their impact on people, society and the environment across time and space.
Unit details and rules
Managing faculty or University school:
Computer Science
| Code | ENGD2001 |
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| Academic unit | Computer Science |
| Credit points | 6 |
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Prerequisites:
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must be in the Dalyell stream |
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Corequisites:
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None |
| Prohibitions:
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None |
| Assumed knowledge:
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None |
At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:
- LO1. communicate clearly and with impact, through oral presentations and written reports
- LO2. work in multidisciplinary teams, and with users of different backgrounds
- LO3. demonstrate knowledge of case studies where safety of mechanical systems was inadequate, and awareness of approaches that could have reduced these risks
- LO4. demonstrate knowledge of case studies where security of computer systems was compromised, e.g. physically, remotely, operationally (esp. social engineering); and awareness of approaches that could have reduced these risks
- LO5. demonstrate awareness of processes that can be used to reflect on incidents, identifying contributing issues, and proposing changes that might improve safety or security
- LO6. collect observations of users interacting with a system, and in particular to use a think-aloud approach, to identify issues with the usability, security or safety of the system
- LO7. demonstrate experience in safety thinking and security thinking, Understand the different sources of risk, understand the balance between incident likelihood, incident damage, and cost; and experience with threat modelling and risk analysis as tools to choose this balance for a given system
- LO8. demonstrate awareness of the major challenges for designing safe secure and usable systems, including factors associated with individual users, cultural and organisational contexts
- LO9. demonstrate knowledge of a core set of cognitive, physiological, organisational, and other key human factors and their implications for interface design, system safety, and security.
Unit availability
This section lists the session, attendance modes and locations the unit is available in. There is a unit outline for each of the unit availabilities, which gives you information about the unit including assessment details and a schedule of weekly activities.
The outline is published 2 weeks before the first day of teaching. You can look at previous outlines for a guide to the details of a unit.
Modes of attendance (MoA)
This refers to the Mode of attendance (MoA) for the unit as it appears when you’re selecting your units in Sydney Student. Find more information about modes of attendance on our website.
