Lecture (LEC)

• Students not in the INFO HCI Masters Program require permission to enroll.
• Above class open to HCI Design masters only

Many professionals are involved in the ongoing design and re-design of our environments, artifacts, machines, systems, and tools. The challenge is to design artifacts, systems, and environments that have qualities good enough to be accepted and incorporated into peoples¿ everyday reality. The design process is therefore highly complex, difficult to describe, hard to understand, and almost impossible to prescribe, however, every design is a result of someone¿s idea about how to perform a design process. This course aims at supporting each student to create a developed intellectual understanding of the professional design process. An underlying assumption is that a reflective and philosophical understanding of practice supports and fosters practical design competence. In the course we will therefore examine, analyze, study, and discuss how design can be understood and described as a process of inquiry, thought, and action. The course is divided into two types of activities: (1) theoretical and philosophical studies of design and (2) empirical studies of design practice. These activities are designed to support each student to establish a personal, reflective, and examined intellectual position in relation to design as a professional practice. The overall purpose of the course is to prepare students (1) to take a leadership role when it comes to design as a professional (2) for scholarly work in the field.