This graduate-level introduction to the theories and concepts underlying the design of interactive technologies for human use is important for all professionals and researchers engaged in this endeavor. The first core course of the cross-disciplinary Designing for People (DFP) Graduate Training Program, it builds common ground among students from a range of backgrounds, providing a shared vocabulary and methods to bring into other components of the training program. “DFP” means designing for human experience, abilities, and fallibilities, which requires in-depth engagement of users throughout the design process. Students will learn methods to help them understand and critique the choices designers have made to build the world around them, focusing on the underlying models of the user used in human-computer interaction and the theory of and advanced methods for design and evaluation.
Course website: https://blogs.ubc.ca/cpsc544/home/
Overview: The DFP Project enables students to gain hands-on collaborative experience solving real-world design challenges, by integrating end users into the design process and synthesizing appropriate techniques within the context of reflective practice and design thinking.
Working with a mentor team comprised of DFP faculty, project sponsors, industry and senior students from the same training program, students will learn to understand and frame a design situation, to develop a design concept through successive levels of prototyping, and to evaluate their design, and communicate it to others for feedback and to support decision-making.
Teams and Projects: Interdisciplinary student teams collaborate closely with project sponsors drawn from, e.g., industry, health organizations, and nonprofits such as schools, museums and neighborhood collectives. Project sponsors will work with students to define the design opportunity and create a viable solution including appropriate technological elements.
Timing, Effort and Major Deliverables:
Requirements:
Questions: info-grad@dfp.ubc.ca