SWE 233: Intelligent User Interfaces

Fall 2025 • University of California, Irvine

Table of Contents

Overview

Course Information

Instructor: Daye Nam Email: daye.nam@uci.edu Lecture: 9:30 AM-10:50 AM PST, MW @ PCB 1200 Office Hours: Tuesday 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM @ ISEB 2430 Course Credits: 4 units

Course Description

This course examines the design, implementation, and evaluation of intelligent user interfaces; interactive systems that use AI techniques to enhance usability, adapt to context, and support user goals. We will focus on applications in software engineering, including intelligent developer tools, AI-assisted programming environments, and data science workflows.

The course begins with fundamentals of user interface design and human-computer interaction, then explores user modeling, personalization, context-aware and adaptive systems, conversational interfaces, and agentic tools. We will discuss trade-offs among different approaches, design for diverse users, and study how to evaluate them.

You will critically analyze research papers from HCI, software engineering, and AI conferences (e.g., CHI, UIST, IUI, ICSE, FSE) and apply these insights in a quarter-long project. Through the project, you will design and prototype an intelligent interface, conduct a literature review, develop a study design, and present your work. The final deliverable will be a research paper draft (in the style of a conference submission) and an evaluation plan, ready to complete with results after the course.

Learning Goals

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Topics Covered
  • Foundations of Human-Computer Interaction and UI Design Principles
  • User Modeling and Personalization Techniques
  • Adaptive and Context-Aware Interfaces
  • Conversational AI and Natural Language Interfaces
  • Agentic Interfaces and Multi-Step Task Delegation
  • Multi-Modal Interfaces (Voice, Gesture, AR/VR)
  • Programming by Demonstration and Example-Based Systems
  • Research Methods for HCI (Surveys, Interviews, Qualitative Analysis)
  • Evaluation Methods for Intelligent UI (A/B Testing, Longitudinal Studies, Wizard of Oz)
  • IDEs and AI-Powered Programming Tools
  • Debugging and Search Interfaces
  • Data Science Workflows and Computational Notebooks
  • Explainable AI (XAI) in User Interfaces
  • Trust, Transparency, and User Control in Intelligent Systems
  • Ethics and Inclusive Design in Intelligent Systems

Grading

Total: 100%

Submission Timing: All assignments are due at 1 AM PST. I highly recommend submitting by midnight. Deadlines are set so you can complete work before the next class session.

Schedule

Date Topic
Sep 29
In class: Intro survey 		Introduction to Intelligent User Interfaces
[slides]
Oct 1
In class: Presentation Bidding 		Foundations of Human-Computer Interaction
[slides]
Oct 6 User Modeling and Personalization
[slides]
Oct 8
Due: Problem Identification 		Adaptive and Context-Aware Interfaces
[slides]
Oct 13 Overview of research methods
[slides]
Oct 15 Designing evaluation
[slides]
• Evaluating user interface systems research
• A practical guide to controlled experiments of software engineering tools with human participants
Oct 20
Due: Presentation slides
In class: Mid-term feedback 		Project Proposal & Feedback 1
Oct 22 Project Proposal & Feedback 2
Oct 27
Due: Project Proposal 		Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
• Code bubbles: rethinking the user interface paradigm of integrated development environments
Oct 29 Conversational UI and Chatbots
• Context-aware conversational developer assistants
• Grounded Copilot: How Programmers Interact with Code-Generating Models
• Why Jonny Can't Prompt: How Non-AI Experts Try (and Fail) to Design LLM Prompts
Nov 3 Debugging
• Debugging reinvented: asking and answering why and why not questions about program behavior
• What would other programmers do: suggesting solutions to error messages
Nov 5 Search & Documentation
• Unakite: Scaffolding Developers' Decision-Making Using the Web
• Live API documentation
Nov 10 Explainable AI (XAI)
• Interpretable Program Synthesis
• Towards Usable Neural Comment Generation via Code-Comment Linkage Interpretation: Method and Empirical Study
Nov 12 Data Science
• mage: Fluid Moves Between Code and Graphical Work in Computational Notebooks
• Small-Step Live Programming by Example
Nov 17
Due: Prototype Design 		Multi-modal
• Code space: touch + air gesture hybrid interactions for supporting developer meetings
• Auto-Icon: An Automated Code Generation Tool for Icon Designs Assisting in UI Development
Nov 19 End Users
• SQLucid: Grounding Natural Language Database Queries with Interactive Explanations
• Situated Live Programming for Human-Robot Collaboration
• Interactive Program Synthesis by Augmented Examples
Nov 24 TBD
Nov 26 Thanksgiving - No Class
Dec 1
Due: Presentation slides 		Final presentation
Dec 3 Final presentation
Dec 10
Due: Final Report
Due: [Optional] Prototype Implementation 		No final exam (substituted by final presentation) - Final assignments due

Schedule and content are subject to change.

Project

Throughout the course, you will work on a quarter-long project where you design and prototype an intelligent user interface. This project will give you hands-on experience with the concepts covered in class and result in a research paper draft ready for conference submission.

Key milestones include:

→ View Complete Project Requirements

Presentations and Discussions

For the second half of the course, we will read and discuss systems with intelligent user interfaces within the software engineering domain.

Logistics

Time Management

This is a 4-unit course, which is expected to be approximately 12 hours of work per week when averaged over the whole quarter. In general, 3 hours per week will be spent in class, and 9 hours will be spent on readings and projects.

Attendance

You are expected to attend classes in person. Classes will not be recorded or available through Zoom, except when noted.

Each class will have in-class activities and submissions that count toward your final grade. We do not take formal attendance, but your participation grade reflects your presence. Your lowest 2 participation scores will be dropped, giving you 2 no-questions-asked missed classes without grade impact.

Beyond the 3 drops, exceptions are only made for extraordinary circumstances and may involve your academic advisor. Contact me immediately to find solutions together.

Late Work and Absence Policy

Late submission for assignments or projects will be penalized with a 10% or one letter grade deduction for every 24 hours they are late. For late submissions, the instructor cannot guarantee timely feedback.

Requests for extensions can be made only in extraordinary circumstances (e.g., family or medical emergency) and may involve your academic advisor.

Policy on the Use of Generative AI Tools

You are encouraged to use generative AI-powered developer tools, such as Cursor, for building prototype tools.

For writing, you may use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini, but you are responsible for what you submit. You are liable for factually inaccurate answers or citing the wrong references. This is a research-focused graduate-level course, and the submitted report will be graded according to the standard of academic research papers.

Feedback for the Course

Please feel free to give the instructor feedback on which topics to cover, how much time you spend for the course, or anything else. There will be midterm and final course evaluations to help improve the course, but any form of feedback is welcome at any time.

Accommodations

If you wish to request an accommodation due to a documented disability, please contact https://dsc.uci.edu/.

A Note for Self Care

Please take care of yourself.

If you or anyone you know experience any academic stress, mental health concerns, or difficult life events, we strongly encourage you to seek support.