Course Overview

Throughout this course, students will embark on a comprehensive journey, covering the basics, intermediate, advanced, and project-based modules that mirror the most prevalent strategies in the user experience design and testing industry. The course immerses students in the art of designing and crafting user interfaces that are not only functional but also provide a harmonious and satisfying user engagement—motivating users and enhancing information comprehension. By understanding users' needs, students will learn to establish the right information hierarchy for effective data visualization. Challenged to combine logical thinking with design intuition, students will validate their design choices using data, aiming to create user experiences that are simultaneously intuitive, informative, and satisfying. The ultimate goal is to humanize the interface of complex computing systems, distilling information for better user understanding. Students will master the fundamentals of study design, qualitative data gathering, and analysis techniques to achieve this. Moreover, this course delves into the principles of behavioral economics, applying them to the experience design process. Technical skills for usability and user experience design and testing are imparted. Students will learn to create wireframes that convey design intent and workflow, culminating in interactive prototypes. These prototypes are subjected to user testing, leading to a usability and user experience assessment report for the application prototype.

Course Outcome

After completing this course, students will:

• Understand the definition, differences, and similarities of user experience and usability and apply these to design, research, and testing practices in field of interaction design for digital interfaces.
• Apply behavioral economics principles to user-centered design and research.
• Analyze and evaluate the difference between qualitative and quantitative research methods as they relate to user experience and usability testing for concept validation.
• Conduct ethnographic research to produce user profiles.
• Create a functional, interactive prototype.
• Apply the basics of test design, including user consent, safety, ethics, and privacy concerns.
• Conduct effective usability and user experience test sessions.
• Generate usability and user experience assessment reports.