In this course, you will learn how to design technologies that work well and meet the needs of their users; how to communicate and justify your design decisions; and how human-centered design fits into the broader context of product development.This course provides an introduction to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). You will learn to apply design thinking to User Experience (UX) design, prototyping, and evaluation. We will also cover a few special topic areas within HCI. Specifically you will learn to:

• Observe: Use needfinding methods such as interviewing and diary studies to define a problem space and apply design thinking modes. 
• Prototype: Prototype your potential solutions using low-fi and high-fi prototyping techniques. 
• Test: Test your prototypes using methods such as usability testing and A/B testing.
• Communicate: Present your designs and justify your decisions in ways that are grounded in research-backed methods.

Class lectures are based on the following resources:

• Observing the User Experience, Second Edition: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research
• About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
• Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need
• Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces
• The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed.
• The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction
• The Design of Everyday Things
• The Nielsen Norman Group

Every week, class consists of a lecture and a related activity which you will work on in class. Activities will give you the opportunity to practice the topics of that week. Students will also complete a semester-long final project on a problem of their choice.

Week	Topic	Activity
1	Introduction
2	Iterative design, product development lifecycle	Critique: Come up with ideas for your final projects, give feedback and critique to other students.
3	Observation: Interviews and other forms of data gathering	Practice an interview: Form groups of 3 and take turns interviewing each other on remote learning.
4	Observation: Analyze, insights, reflection, personas	Personas: Analyze the data gathered from your previous activity. Create personas based on your data. What are the benefits and potential dangers of presenting need-finding data as personas?
5	Design: Scenarios and storyboards	Storyboard: Brainstorm in a group and create storyboards representing different ideas related to food (e.g. food delivery, healthy food, food waste).
6	Design: Prototypes (low-fi)	Paper prototypes: Make prototypes for your final projects.
7	Design: Prototypes (high-fi)	Figma prototypes: Iterate on your paper prototypes and create high-fi prototypes using figma.
8	Design: Human factors, laws of UX, visual design	Critique: Analyze and present critiques of two website for the presence/absence of the laws of UX and visual design
9	Evaluation: Usability testing	Usability test: Work in groups of three and conduct two usability tests on two given websites.
10	Evaluation: Other usability inspection methods, heuristic evaluation	Heuristic evaluation: Conduct a heuristic evaluation on a given website.
11	How to communicate design, design doc, portfolio	Design doc: Create a design doc for your final project
12	Ethics and politics of HCI	Values assessment: Use the Tarot Cards of Tech to assess the ethics and potential impacts and harms of your final project.
13	Guest speakers (special topics in UX and HCI)
14	Final presentations

Special thank you to Stef Hutka (Fall 2022 co-instructor), Evan Peck, James Landay, Michael Bernstein