Human Factors and the User Experience

UX900C

Course Description

Designing usable products and an effective user experience requires an understanding of the human behaviors underlying the user's interaction with the product or service. Human Factors in Information Design introduces you to the applied theories relevant to the design of information products, systems, user interface designs and the larger user experience. This course is particularly relevant to those working with critical applications, diverse user populations, and new technologies. Foundations in Human Factors helps you design applications compatible with the user's goals and the strengths and weaknesses of the user's perceptual and cognitive processing systems. This course helps you to anticipate user requirements before product development, to explain the user's performance during usability and prototype testing, and to foster a smooth transition for users facing new technologies or information.

Key Outcomes

• Gain a comprehensive understanding of human behavior and its application to enhancing experience design.
• Weight a given behavior in the context of the user population(s), product requirements, and use environment.
• Employ these practices in the design process to proactively enhance the user experience as well as to evaluate problematic areas in existing product designs.
• Communicate the importance of this approach to the product design team and product owner
• Consider and apply an understanding of human perception (sight, sound, touch, and gesture) to a user’s interaction with a product or service.
• Apply principles of perceptual organization and design patterns to assist the user in rapidly organizing and navigating the designed space.
• Appreciate and apply the foundational principles of cognitive psychology to create products that are intuitive, easy to learn, safe and productive.
• Design to support demanding cognitive activities in the user experience such as reading, learning, decision making and the like.
• Consider and design to support the emotional aspects of the user experience such as social connection, anxiety, motivation, pleasure, and gamification.
• Apply these same principles to emerging technologies such as the IOT, conversational interfaces, cognitive computing, virtual reality and the like.

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Prototyping the User Experience

UX915C

Course Description

Key Outcomes

• Learn about different types of prototyping at different stages of the Design Thinking process
• Learn and practice prototyping using paper, Balsamiq, and Figma 
• Learn and practice design critique techniques
• Create a portfolio sample with a course prototyping project

Design Challenge

Students can choose one of the three provided design challenges and create design solutions for targeted users by applying the design thinking process and prototyping techniques covered in the course. The students can work on the assignment for 2-3 weeks and the final deliverables include (1)wireframes for the solution, (2) higher visual and interaction fidelity prototypes, (3) a slides deck describing the project with a recorded presentation, and (4) 1-page portfolio write-up. 

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Usability Testing

UX922C

Course Description

The usability study is the keystone research method in user experience research. Whether we are evaluating a digital product, a physical device, or even a real-world experience, observing people’s behaviors while they interact with something is the gold standard of research. This course will take you through the usability study timeline and convey best practices for each step along the way to ensure your research attains goals and has actionable outcomes. We’ll discuss preparing for the study, conducting it, how to analyze the data, and how to best convey the results to others. With interactive group exercises and an assignment to conduct a small-scale study, this course will give you the needed practical tools to conduct your own successful usability research.

Key Outcomes

• Define and measure usability
• Distinguish between the different types of usability studies
• Establish user research goals for your usability study
• Create a screening questionnaire to recruit study participants who match your target user profile
• Develop a scenario and tasks for your study
• Create a data collection plan and best practices for data collection
• Prepare the materials required to prepare, conduct, and analyze a usability study
• Effectively moderate a usability study session
• Analyze and report on your usability study findings

Research Challenge

The final assignment is a small-scale usability study with complete documentation. Students will create a participant screener and study interview guide, recruit three friends as participants, conduct the sessions via Zoom, create a report, and submit a moderation self-critique.

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Designing for Accessibility

UX923C

Course Description

Accessibility is an important facet of user experience. Designing accessible interfaces is easier if you understand the range of disabilities, key principles of accessibility, how assistive technologies work, and how users actually use them. You will learn how to move beyond standards compliance to integrate accessibility in a way that creates equivalent, universally usable, and engaging web experiences for everyone. We'll examine the key standards including the most recent updates of WCAG, version 2.2.  We will spend time discussing how to integrate accessibility into the UX design process.  Also, we will learn how to design and test for accessibility on mobile devices. We then explore user needs, validation methods, and ways to engage users with disabilities in your user experience research process. By the end of the course, you will have a firm foundation on how to design and evaluate the accessibility of systems.

Key Outcomes

• Appreciate that accessibility is an important foundation of user experience.
• Appreciate that accessibility does not serve a small number of users, but is part of a good design process and good business strategy that has benefits for all users regardless of disability.
• Learn how to move beyond standards compliance to integrate accessibility into UX in a way that creates equivalent, universally usable, and engaging web experiences for everyone.
• Understand the range of disabilities, key principles of accessibility, how assistive technologies work, and how users actually use them.  
• Attain an understanding of the key standards, principles of accessibility such as WCAG 2.2.
• Learn how to apply WCAG 2.2 and other accessibility best practices to mobile technology.
• Develop a firm foundation how to design and evaluate systems for people with visual disabilities (Blind, low vision, color blind) including people that use screen readers.
• Develop a firm foundation how to design and evaluate systems for people with auditory disabilities (Deaf and hard of hearing). 
• Develop a firm foundation how to design and evaluate systems for people with motor disabilities.
• Develop a firm foundation how to design and evaluate systems for people with cognitive disabilities (e.g., memory, problem solving, and attention challenges).

Design Challenge

The course assignment puts into practice what you learned over the two-days and will provide you with several portfolio-worthy artifacts.  You will pick any publically available web site.  Previous students have selected a company, product, or organization that they are associated with or use often.  You will create two personas representing customers or users with disabilities.  Then using these personas as your guide, you will evaluate three web pages from the site on both desktop and mobile against WCAG 2.2  You will create a report deliverable containing the personas, the identified accessibility issues, and recommendations for improvement.

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User Research Methods

UX929C

Course Description

User Research Methods complement lab and online studies and are an essential part of a user researcher’s toolkit. This course covers several types of user research methods, including both qualitative and quantitative techniques. We will start with an overview of UX research and a discussion about how user research methods fit in. Then, through lectures, case studies, class exercises, and group discussions, we will explore commercial ethnography (including home and office visits), interviewing, diary studies, survey design, focus groups, and the development of personas. In the classroom, we’ll practice ethnographic interviewing and the cognitive pretesting of a questionnaire. We’ll also spend one morning outside of the classroom on a project involving participant observation (web students will be able to participate in their community). With some additional work, this project could be used in a portfolio as an example of user experience research. Students will leave with a long list of recommended books, articles, websites, and videos.  

Key Outcomes

• Conduct an ethnographic interview in class after learning about interviewing techniques (both semi-structured and ethnographic interviewing).
• Learn how to create an observation guide for a home or ethnographic study.
• Engage in participant observation (outside of the classroom) as part of a field study during the second day of class, after learning about the methods of commercial ethnography and contextual design.
• Understand the ethics of doing field research and the principles of professional responsibility of the American Anthropological Association and the American Sociological Association.
• Gain confidence to try new techniques and understand that in most cases there is no one “right” way to collect user experience information or to understand consumer behavior.
• Learn the basics of survey design and all the serious errors that must be avoided.
• Learn how to perform cognitive pretesting of questionnaires and to analyze an error-filled questionnaire in the classroom.
• Learn how to conduct a diary study and choose among the three types of reporting, the multiple techniques for collecting data, and typical types of analysis.
• Learn the basics of personas and focus groups.
• Understand where to find online sources of UX information and how to continue learning most effectively.

Research Challenge

There are two options for the research challenge, which should be completed in the month following the class. The first is to continue the study of coffee shop culture and behavior started during class, visiting and observing at several Starbucks to try to characterize customer behavior and social interaction, and learn how the layout and design of the physical space influence customer behavior. Students will turn in their observation guide, notes, and a report that examines how Starbucks’ user experience can be improved.  Alternatively, a student can work with the instructor to set up a project that involves the methods discussed in the course, with the goal of improving a product or service

This course is taught by Demetrios Karis. View his bio here.

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Leading a User Experience Team

UX930C

Course Description

Leading User Experience distills decades of best practices, principles, and real-world experience into a highly interactive two-day course applicable to design organizations ranging in size from a single designer in a startup to hundreds of designers in Fortune 500 organizations.

Key Outcomes

• Clearly define User Experience
• Understand the 100+ year history leading to the explosion of the modern UX profession
• Appreciate how waterfall, agile, and unintentional bias have shaped and constrained the environment designers work in today
• Compare and contrast the Lean Movement, Design Thinking, and the Double Diamond
• Connect this knowledge through the lens of Lean UX

Design Challenge

Students will use the Lean UX canvas to translate these concepts into real world projects.

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Designing the User Experience

UX935C

Course Description

This course will explore the propagation of user requirements into design solutions. Students will investigate the design space through multiple perspectives to identify opportunities for innovation. The class will examine design stages and techniques through real-world examples and hands-on prototype development. Student teams will generate scenarios and storyboards providing a foundation to synthesize features into logical areas comprising an information architecture and interaction design. User experience concepts will be visualized in the form of paper prototypes as teams explore the relationship between content types, navigational metaphors, and creating a branded experience. Teams will share, critique, and defend their progress.

Key Outcomes

• Five elements of the user experience: strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, surface 
• Design Thinking principles and examples
• Design planning integrated with generative and evaluative research 
• Translation of research insights into design principles 
• The role of metaphor and analogy in design 
• Developing a vision statement and high-level scope for the UX
• Conceptual modeling and descriptive/prospective frameworks 
• Creating context scenarios 
• UX design within agile development 
• Designing for physical + digital experiences 
• Developing skeletal designs with key views and screenflows
• Storyboards: illustrating key path scenarios 
• Paper prototyping 

Design Challenge

Students will create storyboards and screens (app + website) for a virtual lost-and-found: how a ‘finder’ might tag and post a discovered item; how a ‘loser’ might search, identify, authenticate, and retrieve said item. 

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Measuring the User Experience

UX944C

Course Description

The goal of this course is to teach participants how to effectively use a wide variety of usability metrics as part of their everyday work. Participants will learn all the common usability metrics, as well as those that are lesser-known, but equally effective. Participants will learn the strengths and limitations of each metric, when to use (and not use) each, and how to present usability data in a simple yet compelling way. Five distinct types of usability metrics will be covered: Performance, self-reported, issues-based, behavioral/physiological, and combined/comparative metrics. The course will be oriented towards practical use, with a strong emphasis on hands-on exercises and real-world examples.

Key Outcomes

• Develop a broad awareness and understanding of all the different ways to measure the usability and user experience of various products.
• Understand the strengths and limitations of different usability metrics, and under what circumstances different metrics should be considered.
• Examine usability findings in a critical manner, understanding the role metrics play in being able to draw appropriate conclusions.
• Learn how various usability metrics have been used in past research studies with varying levels of success. 
• Use basic statistical techniques, including descriptive statistics, comparing means, analysis of variance, regression/correlations, and Chi-square analysis.
• Analyze a wide variety of usability data, and being able to distill key patterns or trends in the data.
• Develop a sound plan to collect a wide variety of usability metrics, given various time and budget constraints.
• Present and report usability metrics in a clear and persuasive way.
• Value the importance that measurement plays in the user-centered design process, specifically in usability evaluation methods.
• Embrace both qualitative and quantitative research techniques.
• Appreciate a rigorous, scientific approach to usability evaluation methods.

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Content Strategy - Putting content first in design

UX964C

Introduction

Any digital experience is about creating a conversation with users. Conversations consist of words, tone, even gestures. How can you create a conversation with users without looking at the content of that conversation first? Of course, there are many elements, such as research, analysis, and writing, that go into creating a streamlined, thoughtful conversation. In this course, I’ll walk you through the steps for putting content strategy first in everything you design.

Course Description

Putting content first means implementing a multi-phase design process. Rather than creating a design and filling in the content after the fact, I’ll introduce a way to use a content-based creative approach that will lead you to a human-centered design in the form of wireframes and visuals. We’ll look at the following and more in the content design process:

• Content inventories and audits
• Prevision work including conversation maps and content maps
• A prototype based on your findings
• Testing and iterating on your work
• Creating final designs

Who Should Attend?

Anyone interested in user experience or content strategy, content design, or UX writing, as well as the content curious.

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