Cognitive Science 121 is the second course in the HCI sequence. It focuses on interaction architectures programming techniques and cognitive and computational principles for designing effective systems. We begin by covering the fundamentals of user interface design for web based systems and quickly move to larger scale design and implementation activities. A major component of the class is completion of a substantial programming project in which students work together in small teams.

Textbook

There is no required textbook for the course. There is no single book that covers what one needs to know to build modern web based applications. This situation is further complicated by the fact that the web environment and development tools are rapidly changing. One of the important skills programmers and designers increasingly need today is to be able to quickly locate relevant current material on the web. Selected links to the topics we cover each week will be provided but everyone is encouraged to share links to other useful resources they discover. We will use this wiki to communicate this and other course related information. Each student will also maintain a blog or wiki to document their course related activities.

I have found the following books to be useful:

• JavaScript: The Definitive Guide by David Flanagan
• Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference (3rd Edition) by Danny Goodman
  
• CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd
• DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model by Jeremy Keith
• Ajax in Action by Dave Crane and Eric Pascarello

The O'Reilly Safari series of tech books are available free on line via the UCSD library. This includes Danny Goodman's Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference. If you want one good reference book for serious web development. This is it.