Devising instruction from errors in students’ assignments: a case in usability engineering education

Problem‐based learning emphasizes the role of problem solving as the main driver of instruction, thus critically relying on the quality of problem collections, which should exercise especially those aspects students find difficult to master. In areas in which extensive and tested problem collections are not available, it is useful to analyze the mistakes of students in previous year’s assignments as a source of evidence for the design of new problems or tutorial resources. This paper reports preliminary results of that approach as applied to heuristic usability evaluation in the context of an introductory Human Computer Interaction course. The process is described, and some examples are reported as concrete cases in which assignment analysis lead to insights for devising instruction.