FIT5152 User interface design and usability
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · S2 2026FIT5152 Overview
- Monash University
- Semester 2, 2026
- Postgraduate unit
- Seminars and applied classes
- Group mobile app design project
FIT5152 User interface design and usability is Monash University’s postgraduate unit on the theories, principles and practices that make computer-based systems usable.
- Assessed by Four project submissions and five in-class activities
- Core idea Usability depends on users, goals and context
- Main method Design with theory, then evaluate with heuristics
- Watch for Exact screen counts and task-specific AI rules
How FIT5152 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Data Gathering and User Analysis Report | 25% | Report by the group with each member’s analysis, persona and user stories; due Thursday 27 August 2026 |
| Low-Fidelity Prototyping Report | 25% | Individual storyboard, kanban board, three hand-drawn screens and report; due Thursday 17 September 2026 |
| High-Fidelity Prototyping and Evaluation Report | 30% | Group Figma prototype and report with an individual heuristic evaluation; due Thursday 22 October 2026 |
| Presentation | 10% | Group recorded video presentation of the improved prototype; due date published as 22 October or 5 November 2026 |
| In-Class Activities 1 to 5 | 10% | Five activities worth 2% each, assessed during the applied class in Weeks 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 |
Assessment is 100% in-semester and the Week 1 seminar states there is no hurdle requirement. Two versions of the unit’s assessment page give different due dates for the Presentation, 22 October and 5 November 2026; the later one matches the project overview’s Thursday of Week 14, so confirm the live date on Moodle.
What FIT5152 covers
Follow the semester as one design project: from defining usability and studying users, through Norman’s principles, accessibility and prototyping, to navigation, visual design, voice and heuristic evaluation.
Defining and Measuring Usability
Week 1. The ISO 9241-11 definition and its three components, measures for effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction, the Nielsen Norman Group and five Es alternatives, and how HCI, UX, UI and user-centred design relate.Week 1 of FIT5152 sets up the idea the whole unit depends on: usability is never a fixed property of an interface. A booking screen that a daily commuter finishes in seconds can defeat a tourist using a borrowed phone in the rain.
- The ISO 9241-11 usability definition
- Effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction measures
- Nielsen Norman Group quality components
- Quesenbery’s five Es
- HCI, UX, UI and user-centred design
- Usability engineer, interface designer and developer roles
Understanding Users: Data Gathering and Analysis
Weeks 1 and 2. Classifying users by role, demographics, skill and need state, sampling and sample size, questionnaire formats, interviews and observation, cross tabulation, personas, empathy maps, user stories and MoSCoW prioritisation.This chapter follows the first stage of the FIT5152 design project, where the group learns who its users are before drawing any screen.
- Customer versus user thinking
- Four ways to classify users
- Sampling approaches and sample size
- Closed, open and Likert questions
- Interviews, observation and focus groups
- Cross tabulation and analysis
Foundations of Human Interaction
Week 3. Norman’s seven principles, affordances versus signifiers, constraints, feedback and natural mapping, knowledge in the head and in the world, the seven stages of action, the gulfs of execution and evaluation, and cognitive load.Week 3 gives the unit its theoretical backbone through Don Norman’s account of how people use everyday things.
- Norman’s seven principles of interaction design
- Affordances and signifiers
- Constraints, feedback and natural mapping
- Conceptual models and mental models
- Knowledge in the head and in the world
- Seven stages of action and the two gulfs
Accessibility and Inclusive Design
Week 4. Inclusive design principles, permanent, temporary and situational exclusion, the four WCAG principles and their key questions, conformance levels, concrete techniques with thresholds, universal design versus accessibility features, and assistive technologies.Week 4 widens the idea of who a design must serve.
- Inclusive design principles
- Permanent, temporary and situational exclusion
- WCAG principles and key questions
- Guidelines, success criteria and conformance levels
- Techniques and thresholds for accessible screens
- Universal design and accessibility features
Design Methods and Prototyping
Week 5. Waterfall versus iterative user-centred design, Agile UX and Scrum, Lean UX hypotheses and minimum viable products, kanban and acceptance criteria, the six-stage design sprint and its methods, and prototype fidelity, breadth and depth.Week 5 asks how design work should be organised.
- Waterfall and iterative user-centred design
- Agile UX, Scrum and kanban
- Lean UX hypotheses and minimum viable products
- The six stages of the design sprint
- Sprint methods from How Might We to dot voting
- Prototype fidelity, breadth and depth
Navigation and Menu Design
Week 6. Navigation versus menus, Jakob’s, Fitts’ and Hick’s laws and the Von Restorff Effect, sequential, structural, associative and utility navigation, menu patterns from tabs to off-canvas drawers, labelling, and exact versus ambiguous organisation.Week 6 is about how people find their way through an interface. The seminar first separates navigation, getting from one piece of information to another, from menus, the interface elements that present a set of choices.
- Navigation versus menus and the orientation questions
- Jakob’s, Fitts’ and Hick’s laws and the Von Restorff Effect
- Sequential, structural, associative and utility navigation
- Menu patterns and when each fits
- Textual and iconic labelling
- Exact and ambiguous organisation schemes
Visual Design Elements and Principles
Week 7. The six visual design elements, colour attributes and typography, skeuomorphism and flat design, scale, visual hierarchy, balance, contrast and repetition, the five Gestalt principles, icon design and design systems.Week 7 treats visual design as part of usability rather than decoration.
- Six elements of visual design
- Colour, typography, texture and space
- Scale and visual hierarchy
- Balance, contrast and repetition
- Gestalt principles of perception
- Icons, graphics and design systems
Voice and Multimodal Interaction
Week 8. What voice user interfaces are and who they help, invocation, responses, prompts, intents, slots and earcons, five themes from voice guidelines, limitations and mitigations, unimodal and multimodal interfaces, fusion and fission, and modalities beyond WIMP.Week 8 moves beyond the screen. Voice user interfaces let people act through speech, which suits users with physical impairments, people whose eyes are busy and anyone multitasking, but they lack visual signifiers, so they need their own design guidance.
- Voice user interfaces and who they help
- Invocation, responses, prompts and intents
- Slots, utterances and earcons
- Five themes from voice guidelines
- Limitations of voice and their mitigations
- Multimodal interfaces, fusion and fission
Heuristic Evaluation of Interfaces
Week 9. Why evaluation matters, expert versus user methods, cognitive walkthroughs, Nielsen’s ten usability heuristics, how many evaluators to use, the two-pass process, severity factors and scale, collating results, and Shneiderman’s eight golden rules.Week 9 turns from designing to evaluating.
- Why and when to evaluate
- Expert reviews and cognitive walkthroughs
- Nielsen’s ten usability heuristics
- How many evaluators to use
- Severity factors and the rating scale
- Collating findings and debriefing
It looks at interface design from the perspectives of the user, the programmer and the designer, covers methods and tools for building effective interfaces, and teaches evaluation methods such as usability testing and heuristic evaluation.
Designing for many kinds of users and settings runs through every week.
The unit is taught through a weekly seminar and a weekly applied class, and the applied classes double as the workspace for a semester-long Usability Design Project.
In small groups, students design a mobile app prototype for a particular group of users, taking it through four submissions: a data gathering and user analysis report, an individual low-fidelity prototyping report, a high-fidelity prototype with an individual heuristic evaluation, and a recorded presentation of the improvements.
Five short in-class activities make up the rest of the grade.
The weeks follow the life of that project. Week 1 defines usability through ISO 9241-11 and compares it with alternative models, then introduces questionnaires. Week 2 covers classifying users, sampling, interviews, observation, analysis, personas and user stories.
Week 3 brings in Don Norman’s principles and the seven stages of action, and Week 4 turns to inclusive design and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Week 5 turns to design processes and prototypes, Week 6 to menus and wayfinding, Week 7 to visual design and Gestalt principles, Week 8 voice and multimodal interaction, and Week 9 heuristic evaluation with Nielsen’s heuristics and Shneiderman’s golden rules.
Later weeks cover usability testing, interaction styles and devices, and interfaces beyond the traditional screen.
This guide follows Weeks 1 to 9 chapter by chapter, with worked examples written for the guide, practice questions with answers and a checklist for each submission.
Worked example · free
Placing four user stories on an impact and effort matrix
- 1Reminders (A): high impact, because forgetting the time is the main problem in the data, and low effort, so a quick win.
- 1Group chat (B): high impact for coordination but high effort to build and moderate, so a big bet.
- 1Colour themes (C): low impact on the evidenced problem and low effort, so a fill in for later.
- 1Augmented-reality preview (D): low impact and high effort, a money pit to set aside.
Key terms
- Usability
- The extent to which specified users can achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.
- User-Centred Design
- A design approach that keeps the specified users and their context of use in view at every stage of development.
- Persona
- A fictional profile of one representative user, built from research findings, used to keep a design team focused on real needs.
- User Story
- A one-sentence requirement written as a persona, a goal and a benefit, without naming any interface feature.
- Signifier
- A perceptible clue that tells people where and how an action can be taken.
- WCAG
- The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, organised under the principles perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.
- Low-Fidelity Prototype
- A simple, often hand-drawn representation of screens used to test structure and flow before visual detail.
- Gestalt Principles
- Principles describing how people perceive separate visual elements as grouped wholes, such as proximity and similarity.
- Heuristic Evaluation
- An expert review in which evaluators inspect an interface against an agreed list of usability heuristics.
- Severity Rating
- A score for a usability problem that weighs how often it occurs, how much it affects users and how persistent it is.
FIT5152 FAQ
What is this Monash interface design unit about?
It teaches how to design and evaluate usable interfaces, from defining usability and researching users to Norman’s principles, accessibility, prototyping, navigation, visual design, voice interaction and heuristic evaluation, applied in a group mobile app project.
How is the unit assessed?
Entirely during semester, as the Week 1 seminar sets it out: a Usability Design Project worth 90% across four submissions weighted 25%, 25%, 30% and 10%, plus five in-class activities worth 2% each, together making up the remaining 10%.
When is the Presentation due?
The unit’s pages give two dates. One version lists Thursday 22 October 2026 and a later version lists Thursday 5 November 2026, which matches the project overview’s Week 14, so check the live Moodle page.
Is the project done in groups?
Yes, in groups of four from the same applied class, though Submission 2 is individual and Submissions 1 and 3 contain individual parts, such as each member’s persona and each member’s heuristic evaluation.
Can generative AI be used in the submissions?
Only in limited ways that change by task: persona profile photos in Submission 1, nothing at all in Submission 2, and image assets inside the prototype in Submission 3, each acknowledged with the tool and prompt.
Which tools does the project use?
Low-fidelity screens in Submission 2 must be hand-drawn on paper, while the high-fidelity prototype in Submission 3 must be built in Figma using a Monash account and shared with edit access for markers.
What does the individual heuristic evaluation involve?
Each member evaluates the group’s prototype against all ten of Nielsen’s heuristics, one unique instance each, with at least three violations rated from 1 to 4 and justified by frequency, impact and persistence.
Questions students ask in each FIT5152 chapter
- Why does the ISO definition insist on specified users and goals?
- Because a design can work well for one group doing one task and badly for another. Naming the users, goal and context makes a usability claim testable instead of a general impression about whether a product is nice. Chapter 01 · Defining and Measuring Usability
- How many participants does a usability study need?
- The seminar gives no single number, but it suggests good qualitative insight can come from as few as five participants, while good quantitative insight should include at least thirty, balanced against time and cost. Chapter 02 · Understanding Users: Data Gathering and Analysis
- What is the difference between an affordance and a signifier?
- An affordance is an action that is actually possible, while a signifier is the visible or audible clue that tells someone the action exists. On screens, signifiers create the perception of affordance. Chapter 03 · Foundations of Human Interaction
- What are the four WCAG principles?
- Perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Each asks a question of the design: can users detect the content, carry out the interactions, interpret what they perceive, and can technologies process the interface correctly? Chapter 04 · Accessibility and Inclusive Design
- Why is the waterfall model a poor fit for user experience work?
- Its phases run one after another, so problems found with users during testing arrive after design decisions are locked in. Iterative user-centred design loops back, keeping user needs realistic and reducing risk. Chapter 05 · Design Methods and Prototyping
- What is the difference between navigation and a menu?
- Navigation means getting from one piece of information to another, which means knowing where you are and planning where to go. A menu is one interface element that offers a set of choices, which may support navigation or data entry. Chapter 06 · Navigation and Menu Design
- How many font sizes should a screen use?
- The seminar’s rule for scale is to use no more than three different sizes in most designs, because more sizes add cognitive load without adding clearer meaning. Chapter 07 · Visual Design Elements and Principles
- Who benefits most from voice user interfaces?
- The seminar names people with physical impairments, people with limited visual attention such as drivers, and anyone operating a device remotely or while multitasking, though blind users report that long voice dialogues can be tiring. Chapter 08 · Voice and Multimodal Interaction
- How many evaluators does a heuristic evaluation need?
- The seminar reports Nielsen’s finding that one evaluator uncovers about 35% of problems and five uncover about 75%, and it treats the best number as a cost-benefit decision for each project. Chapter 09 · Heuristic Evaluation of Interfaces
How to prepare for the assessments
Treat the unit as one project told in nine steps and keep a single working document that grows with it. After Week 1, write the ISO definition of usability and one measure for each component for your group’s app. As Week 2 arrives, draft questionnaire items against the tips on wording and format, then practise one cross tabulation before your real responses come in.
From Week 3 onward, keep a theory card for every principle you meet, Norman’s seven, the four WCAG principles, the Week 6 laws, the visual and Gestalt principles and Nielsen’s ten heuristics, each with your own example, because every submission asks you to name a principle and point to the element that shows it.
Before each deadline, reread the brief for exact counts and limits, since extra screens and over-length justifications earn nothing. Finally, schedule your individual heuristic evaluation early: it is the largest single block of Submission 3 and needs time to find genuine violations.
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