Human-Computer Interaction

This course introduces students to human-computer interaction theories and design processes. The emphasis is on applied user experience (UX) design. However, the course starts by discussing fundamental aspects of human perception and cognition and linking them with design principles. The course presents an iterative evaluation-centered UX lifecycle and introduces students to a broader notion of user experience, including usability, usefulness, and emotional impact. The UX lifecycle should be viewed as template intended to be instantiated in many different ways to match the constraints of a particular development project. The UX lifecycle activities we cover include contextual inquiry and analysis, requirements extraction, design-informing models, design thinking, ideation, sketching, conceptual design, and formative evaluation.