This course will introduce User Experience design technique taught in a Studio. Students will work on a series of design studies and a semester long design project exploring advanced User Interaction design techniques. The course is designed to help students start a design portfolio to reflect their work. Students will be expected to buy small art supplies.

The advanced graduate level of this course will explore the intersection of research and design, through exploration, study and practice. Research through Design combines the forward-thinking, artifact generating practices of design with the knowledge-generating goals of research. This approach is prevalent in HCI where researchers often create artifacts to understand people in a new light. We will also be focusing highly on design method, which is the approach used to design novel systems. Design activity in this course will be structured to address open questions, big ideas or broad missions.

The focus area this term will be designing interactions with automated systems. 

Organization

The studio nature of the course emphasizes the learning and growth which occurs when we are working together in a collocated manner. By seeing not only the product but the process of the making, we can best witness, appreciate and give input on one another work. As such, time spent in studio is sacrosanct. Participation in the reading, writing and design activities of class are very important for this reason as well.

Class Activity

As this is a studio class, the better part of time in studio should be spent working on design. Critique of work in progress will be a mainstay of the class; student participation and development in assessing and supporting the work of fellow students is an important element of the course.  There will be guest lecturers, on-demand instruction and sharing of inspirational materials throughout. 

As a warm-up, there will be an opening design project which is a microcosm of the class project.

After that, the class will be focused on a larger design project. There will be four milestones for the project: these will be in-class presentations, with a short-write up to be turned in afterwards. Group work is permitted for the term project and associated assignments, but the scale of the work is expected to multiply accordingly.

Readings and Discussions

Design is an intellectual activity, and to seed and feed our intellectual pursuit, we will engage in reading articles about design and interaction. Class on Mondays will start with reading discussion. Prior to each Monday class, students are required to write a short “reflection” for the assigned readings. The reflections are due by midnight before the class. Please submit the reflections on Canvas. At the beginning of class, we will read one another reflections and then have discussion.

The reflection should be about a paragraph long. It should be more than a summary of the readings. (Do not say that you “like” the reading, or that you find it “interesting” or “boring.”) Analyze the article. Make connections to things we have read, discussed in class, or are making in studio.

Doing Design, Performing Design

To make your design activity something that other people can look at and give input on, you are asked to make your design activity visible throughout the course. This may be challenging in a hybrid environment, and working with digital materials, and creating something--interaction--which is fundamentally immaterial. Nevertheless, a critical part of designing interaction is figuring out how to manifest the design-in-process so that reflection, critique and refinement can occur. 

Writing/Recording

Writing serves many functions in academic research activity. It can provide a means of reflection, it can help with communication, it makes a record of what is occurring. For this reason, the last hour of class on Wednesdays is dedicated to writing/drawing/recording. Each person is expected to be doing writing activity, even within a shared group project. These should be turned in on Canvas; work done in other media should be captured so that a record of the activity is in Canvas for grading purposes.

Attendance