CSCI 5115 - User Interface Design, Implementation and Evaluation

Welcome to your library course guide for CSCI 5115, intended to support your secondary research of your user population. If you have questions on any of the information below, or are having difficulty finding the background information you want, you are welcome to email me (hcabullo@umn.edu) or schedule a research consultation.

- Hannah Cabullo, your Computer Science & Engineering librarian

Introduction

Statistics and reports can give you a general overview of characteristics about your users.

Search tips

• When searching more specific sources, like Statista and Pew Research Center, use general terms like:
• seniors and smartphones
• immigrants and internet access
• When searching Google, add additional keywords like statistics, report, survey, or demographics, to get at the type of information/source you're looking for.
• Try multiple searches with different keywords, and search in multiple places.

Resources

Introduction

Scholarly articles include primary research other researchers have done with a population, as well as secondary research, like literature reviews, that gather together primary sources to gain a broader understanding of what is known on a topic. Scholarly research articles will likely be much more specific and in-depth than statistics and report-type sources mentioned above.

Search tips

See the two tutorials below for tips on searching library databases. In general, it works better to break your search into keywords rather than using long phrases or sentences like you might use to search Google. For example:

("older adults" OR seniors) AND health AND (smartphones OR tablets OR internet OR mobile device)

When using the Libraries Search (the search box on the Libraries homepage and linked below), limit Material Type in your search results to Articles if you want to just find scholarly research articles.

The search terms above, limited to articles, returns results such as:

• "Effects of three motivationally targeted mobile device applications on initial physical activity and sedentary behavior change in midlife and older adults: A randomized trial"
• "Investigating older adults' decisions to use mobile devices for learning, based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology"
• "A Systematic Review of Smartphone and Tablet Use by Older Adults With and Without Cognitive Impairment"

Libraries Search