Usability & HCI

This course provides students with an introduction to internet and web technologies, and to development on Macintosh/UNIX computer platforms. Topics include HTML and CSS, CSS3 features, digital images, web page design and website publishing. Emphasis is placed on fundamentals, concepts and standards. Additional topics include the user experience, mobile design issues, and copyright/intellectual property considerations.

I really appreciate how well-kept mycourses is. This is the only class where I actually trusted the "Work to do" tab in mycourses. This prof was also very forgiving with deadlines which I definitely appreciate. Perhaps a little too forgiving.

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Takats is a very calm and understanding professor who you can tell genuinely wants to see his students succeed.

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Personally Professor Takats, helped enhance my understanding of web and mobile completely. The way that he ran his class was perfect for my learning style and helped me with my time management skills this semester as well. Along with being available outside of his normal office hours (due to our conflicting schedules) he was able to make time to help me when I needed it. He's very organized on my courses and used the textbook as a huge asset, I thought it was very useful and I dislike paying for textbooks. He's overall a very chill professor and it was a pleasure to work with him.

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• 2022 – Major revamp and new interactive textbook integration (ZyBook). Began as a pilot over the summer, to be ready to launch in Fall 2022 to over 10 sections with 6 instructors all teaching ISTE-140 on the Rochester campus of RIT simultaneously. Added custom material not found in ZyBook and adapted 10 ZyLabs.
• 2021 Creation of a new sequence of projects. Here is an example of one
  • Intro to project 3 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-enxiapt4A
• 2020 – Conversion of in person class to an online asynchronous course. Recorded dozens of videos (listed in section above) to create an online asynchronous version of web and mobile 1 that has since been offered in subsequent summers.

Course Coordination & More on Zybook Implementation: This class will often have at least 8 sections in a single fall semester, and is offered in multiple countries (RIT Dubai, RIT Croatia) so significant coordination efforts need to be spent here. As described in the section above, another area I helped coordinate this course being offered around the world was when I implemented the virtual textbook (zybook). This video goes over how the zylabs work and I give a few demos (for summer 2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VNT5z3p8Yg

This course builds on the basic aspects of web page development that are presented in the first course and extends that knowledge to focus on issues and technologies related to the design and development of web sites. Topics include advanced internet technologies (including, but not limited to: AJAX, server-side programming, database use and access, client libraries, server frameworks, and creating and consuming information services).

Professor Takats is kind, patient, and understanding when it comes to teaching the course material. He's very experienced as a web developer and he does his best to translate that into his teaching. He always tries to be available outside of class and will respond to questions at all hours of the day. He also put in a lot of time and effort to ensure we had real clients to work with for our group projects, and that alone has given me an invaluable experience in web work and project management. He really tries to go above and beyond, and secured a bunch of extra software to try preparing us for developing in real-world settings. I took a previous class with him, and went out of my way to take another because I appreciated his attitude and effort.

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This was by far the best class I've taken at RIT. Although the material being taught, and my desire to learn web development may have played a part in how much I enjoyed taking this course, I believe that the biggest reason however was Prof. Takats. The manner in which he taught, explained with patience, promoted discussions and a positive learning environment, and how he was always available to meet with were things I genuinely appreciated. Also, the individual project and the group project setups were great.

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I think Professor Takats did a good job organizing the massive amount of material in this course into manageable lessons. He provided helpful feedback on assignments and was always available for questions and assistance, especially after the switch to online learning. It is clear from taking this course that Professor Takats cares about his students and strives to help them learn material that is interesting and beneficial to them. He took a difficult course and helped us understand the material in a meaningful way.

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Group Project for Local Non-Profit Organization Initiative

• Overview: Traditionally, students in the course (ISTE-646 Foundations of Web Technologies II) are tasked with developing a design document and a small website, complete with dynamic features such as web forms and database-driven content. However, recognizing the potential for real-world impact, I initiated an initiative to engage genuine clients, primarily from the Rochester non-profit sector. This strategic shift not only offered students a tangible connection to industry practices but also aimed to enhance the web presence of small organizations with very limited resources. Borat

News article w/ video on RIT website: https://www.rit.edu/spotlights/code-community-weaving-real-world-non-profit-projects-web-technologies-course

• Presentation to computing college on findings:
  • YouTube Video of presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbc3pi-8MnM
    • Slide Deck: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1raZNfZQC5be35rxtHDm9M3nryl6T-7iA/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116505914402717236361&rtpof=true&sd=true

• Organizations we have helped:
  • Marketview heights (a community service organization committed to improving the quality of life in Rochester through underscoring the need for decent housing that is affordable to low and moderate income people):
    • Working Website:
      https://646marketview.cad.rit.edu/marketviewheights/
  • South Lyon Cardio Drumming
    • Working Website:
      https://646cardio.cad.rit.edu/getsimple-main/
  • Additional Organizations we have helped but not a finished website to show are: Britton Rd. Cemetery, UPSTAT Statistics Conference Mastermind (an academic quiz bowl for middle school and high school students).

Additional Initiatives and Development:

• Content Management Systems Added to curriculum. Since the class is composed of graduate students, many of whom are not actually going into Full Stack Development it wasn’t a requirement to learn as many of the basics. This allowed me to implement several content management systems the students could use in their group project including: WordPress, Joomla, Get Simple CMS.

This class provides an introduction to internet and web technologies. Topics include an introduction to the internet and basic internet technologies (including, but not limited to: SSH, SFTP, UNIX, XHTML, CSS, Client-Side programming, and website publishing)

For me this course became very helpful as professor was always available via office hours and during lecture as well. I can't thank enough for clearing my all doubts and guiding me. Thank you so much professor.

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Cared about our learning journey

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Professor Takats had enthusiasm and patience teaching the course materials. I really appreciated the speed of the course as an HCI student with no experience in web development; I would imagine the course is fairly slow for Software Engineering students or others with a coding-heavy background, however. I also appreciated that he's honest when he's not sure about a particular question, and welcomes learning opportunities from students as well, many of whom have experience working in Web careers.

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I absolutely loved how Professor Takats taught the class. Maybe it is because I needed a refresher on web development, but I appreciated the pace of the class.

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He was supportive in and out of class. He provided resources when needed and was willing to assist the student at all times. Overall, he was a mentor figure for me.

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• 2021 – Implemented progressive enhancement principles into the course and wireframing.
• 2021 – Designed and added a team project to create a multi-disciplinary design document. View the instructions I developed here: View Document
• 2020 – Implemented an interactive textbook into the course (Zybook, a similar setup as described in ISTE-140 but with some differences for graduate level students).