A combined introductory course on human-computer interaction and computer graphics

In this paper, we report on five years of teaching experience with our introductory course “Graphical-Interactive Systems”, which covers basic topics of human-computer interaction and computer graphics for students in the third year of their major in computer science. Although the two fields of human-computer interaction and computer graphics are usually taught in different courses, we believe that they have much in common and can therefore be integrated into a combined course. “Graphical-Interactive Systems” builds a foundation for advanced courses in both disciplines and achieves an efficient use of teaching time due to synergy effects.