Interaktionsdesign 1, idesign1-12

Overview of schedule and course assignments

The course will be running on 50% intensity during the spring, with a general structure of lectures on Mondays and seminars on Thursday or Fridays.
All activities will take place in room 4716 (next to MDI Torget), Lindstedtsvägen 5 (D huset), plan 6, KTH, Stockholm

Student projects spring 2012

Course Schedule

Overview

The course is based on several small projects where students work in groups of 2-3, around a concrete interaction design brief. The work will be conducted in a studio-based setting with weekly design crits, where projects are openly criticized and discussed. Each project is documented online.

The main part of the course will be to work on solutions to given design briefs, in the form of sketches, interaction scenarios, and prototypes (in small groups of 2-3 students), using established methods and tools for interaction design work. Feedback on these activities is given as group design crit sessions, where everyone provides feedback on each others work. A second part of the course is to conduct an interaction design project with academic grounding in literature, relating to state-of-the-art in the research domain of interaction design. This takes the form of a larger project conducted in pairs, which is to be documented in the form of an academic paper (4 pages), and presented at a mini conference and exhibition at the school. A goal with this activity is also to reflect on ones own practice and to articulate use qualities of interactive systems.

Learning Objectives

After completing the course, participants should be able to:

• Discuss and analyse use qualities of interactive artefacts based on concepts and frameworks from literature.
• Name and discuss current research problems in the area of interaction design in terms of contemporary commercial products and international research projects.
• Apply adequate design methods for the development of interactive systems in the different phases of system design: exploration, conceptual design, prototyping and analysis/documentation.
• Show proof of practical experience of different interaction design techniques, in the form of a small portfolio of interactive systems.
• In academic writing reflect on a completed project, with reference to relevant literature.

Prerequisites

Introductory course in Human-Machine Interaction

Literature

The course is based on the book Designing for Interaction, by Dan Saffer (2009). This book gives a quick overview of interaction design, and we will read and discuss it together during the first six weeks of the course, along with some practical exercises. Thereafter, we make use of online resources for extended understandings of interaction design as explored both academically and in industry.

Main course book: DESIGNING FOR INTERACTION: Creating Innovative Applications and Devices (2nd Edition), by Dan Saffer (2009)

(Although it says 2010 at some places, e.g. in the sample pdf of the first 24 pages, which you may download here: http://www.designingforinteraction.com/designingforinteraction2_sample.pdf)

Selected chapters from Interaction-design.org (Interaction Design, User experience,  Contextual Design, Philosophy of interaction, Affective Computing)

Students are also expected to search and select additional research papers based on personal interests, e.g. to support project work.

Tasks and marks
All tasks will be performed in small groups of 2-3 or individually.
The course marks are Pass / Fail.
For passing the course you have to:

• Conduct all tasks and be present and active in the seminars (you are allowed to miss two seminars).
• Update an individual study log that briefly documents each of the projects conducted in the course.
• Together with another student write a paper on a shared project and present it in the final mini conference/exhibition. The paper will go through a peer review process, and the final version must take all comments in the reviews into account.
• Submit reviews to two of the other papers (using review form) at the end of the course.

Teacher
Ylva Fernaeus, lecturer in interaction design (YF)

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