Spring 2027

Building User Interfaces

Introduction to software development of user interfaces, covering UI paradigms, diverse user input handling, and platform-specific APIs for web, mobile, desktop, and voice interfaces.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Cole Nelson

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Yuhang Zhao

The workload was high but useful, with extensions and extra credit provided to help manage the intensity.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Engage in design thinking around user interface needs and problems, ideate and communicate conceptual design solutions

  • Create visual designs, layouts, and navigation structures, and effectively use design languages, color palettes, and platform-specific design elements

  • Prototype and develop user interfaces for the Web, mobile, and voice user interfaces (VUIs)

  • Program front-end, user-facing software elements using the state-of-the-art programming languages, frameworks, and libraries

  • Follow user-centered design principles, heuristics, and methods to iteratively build, assess, and refine design solutions

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

COMP SCI 400 or graduate/professional standing

COMPSCI 571

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.34 GPA, 61.7% A/AB (n=334 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.42 GPA, 72.5% A/AB (n=280 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.35 GPA, 69.6% A/AB (n=257 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

COLE NELSON is recorded teaching in Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

YUHANG ZHAO is recorded teaching in Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 002Classroom Instruction0 / 1250
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1250

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Yuhang Zhao

Students found Professor Zhao passionate about teaching and supportive of success, making the course a positive experience despite its demands.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.34 GPA, 61.7% A/AB (n=334 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.42 GPA, 72.5% A/AB (n=280 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.35 GPA, 69.6% A/AB (n=257 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Yuhang Zhao

The workload was high but useful, with extensions and extra credit provided to help manage the intensity.

Past student reviews · Yuhang Zhao

Students appreciated the instructor's enthusiasm and willingness to provide additional opportunities for academic improvement.

Topics

  • UI paradigms including event-driven, direct-manipulation, and dialogue-based interaction
  • Methods for capturing and responding to user inputs such as pointing, text, speech, touch, gestures, and physiological states
  • Platform-specific UI development across web, mobile, desktop, natural, and voice interfaces
  • Creating visual designs, layouts, navigation structures, and using design languages and color palettes

Skills

  • Implementing UIs using event-driven, direct-manipulation, and dialogue-based paradigms
  • Capturing, interpreting, and responding to diverse user inputs like speech, touch, and gestures
  • Using platform-specific APIs, frameworks, and toolkits for web, mobile, desktop, and voice UIs
  • Applying design thinking to ideate and communicate conceptual UI design solutions
  • Iteratively building, assessing, and refining designs using user-centered principles and heuristics

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

4 earlier forecasts · 0.12 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
COMPSCI 571 · Spring 2027

Building User Interfaces

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:266:026032",
    "course_id": "COMPSCI 571",
    "course_uid": "course_8db0bb2cfe30dfb4e729578a",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "026032",
    "source_subject_id": "266",
    "title": "Building User Interfaces",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "530687d4c117701f8e187a53f9e79a8f5e1122b75b6059e5f183c67e38826a4e",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}