User-Centered Design Studio aims to provide an understanding of what exactly we mean when we talk about User experience (UX) and Usability in HCI. UX is dealing with developing interactive systems, products and services of high quality that fit with people and the context where they will be used. Examples from everyday life and our interaction with different interfaces, devices and artifacts will be brought into the lesson and discussed, allowing students to construct their knowledge based on their experiences. Usability underlies a good user experience, following design principles, learnability, efficiency, understandability, safety to use etc. The concept of usability is central to a good UX.

Module content

• An Introduction to UX
• Usability
• Design Thinking Process
• Stage 1: Empathize - Understanding the User’s Needs
• Stage 2: Define – Defining the problem space
• Stage 3: Ideate - Gathering Design Ideas
• Stage 4: Prototyping I 
• Stage 4: Prototyping II
• Stage 5: Evaluation/Testing:I
• Stage 5: Evaluation/Testing II
• Contexts for Designing UX – Artificial Intelligence and Interface Agents