What makes for a great user experience? How can you consistently design experiences that work well, are easy to use and people want to use? This course will teach you the core process of experience design and how to effectively evaluate your work with the people for whom you are designing. You'll learn fundamental methods of design research that will enable you to effectively understand people, the sequences of their actions, and the context in which they work. Through the assignments, you’ll learn practical techniques for making sense of what you see and transform your observations into meaningful actionable insights and unique opportunity areas for design. You’ll also explore how to generate ideas in response to the opportunities identified and learn methods for making your ideas tangible. By answering specific questions and refining your concepts, you’ll move closer to making your ideas real. We’ll use cases from a variety of industries including health, education, transportation, finance, and beyond to illustrate how these methods work across different domains.
This course is part of the Interaction Design Specialization
Offered By
Interaction Design SpecializationUniversity of California San DiegoAbout this Course
Learner Career Outcomes
46%
37%
Skills you will gain
Learner Career Outcomes
46%
37%
Offered by
University of California San Diego
UC San Diego is an academic powerhouse and economic engine, recognized as one of the top 10 public universities by U.S. News and World Report. Innovation is central to who we are and what we do. Here, students learn that knowledge isn't just acquired in the classroom—life is their laboratory.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Design Research
Our course begins with the first step for generating great user experiences: understanding what people do, think, say, and feel. In this module, you’ll learn how to keep an open mind while learning more about how people’s needs, goals, values play out in their day-to-day lives and their hopes for the future. You’ll consider the different activities they do, in what order, and the larger systems in which they interact. You’ll start by generating lists of questions and move through different research methods to answer your specific questions. To illustrate these research methods, the lessons share several examples from real design projects across a variety of fields. What I hope you’ll take away from this module is the importance and thrill of going out to talk with and learn from people when and where they do their everyday activities, rather than basing your designs on assumptions. Through these techniques you’ll gain a new perspective on the problem and identify opportunities for creating a meaningful and accessible design.
Ideation
Once you’ve identified an opportunity area, how do you generate great ideas? In this module, you’ll learn the thrills and challenges of ideation. We’ll start with the two common pitfalls to generating good ideas: fixation and judgment. We discuss rules to follow including getting every idea out regardless of whether it’s good or bad and techniques for building on ideas. Through concrete examples taken from the field, we’ll cover five popular ideation techniques that designers use when they have a problem they want to solve. We’ll also discuss who to include in the brainstorming process and why. We’ll conclude with a discussion of how to choose which ideas to pursue and which ones to leave on the table.
Synthesis
After you’ve collected all of this new and exciting information, what do you do with it? How do you aggregate the data? Find connections and tensions? Move from what people say to what it means? Evaluate its usability? In this module, you’ll learn how to make sense of the rich data you collected and how to turn it into actionable insights that will lead to meaningful new experiences. We’ll start by looking at how to organize all of the data and photos you’ve collected and then we’ll discuss four common synthesis techniques that designers use: personas, journey maps, diagramming and the 2x2 matrix. After making sense of the data, you’ll be able to identify clear opportunity areas for design including a focus, stakeholder, a need, and an actionable insight. With each technique, I’ll share a real world application so you can get a sense of how designers use these tools. By the end of the lesson, I hope you’ll feel confident in your ability to take lots of disparate bits of data and turn them into an actionable opportunity area for design..
Prototyping
After you’ve gone through the ideation process, how do you make your ideas tangible so that you can test them with others and answer critical questions necessary for pushing your idea forward? To help you make ideas real, our final lesson will introduce you to the rules of prototyping including building ideas quickly, making a lot of prototypes, and providing only essential details. We’ll discuss questions you’ll want to ask when testing your idea with different people. You’ll learn the importance of making many prototypes so as not to get attached to any one idea and so you can pick the parts that work best for each idea. Through rapid iteration and testing, you will more quickly get to a meaningful and accessible experience that you will be proud of. We’ll conclude with four popular forms of prototyping including storyboards, role-plays, walkthroughs and touch-points – all forms of prototyping you can do with materials you can find around your home. No coding needed! What I hope you'll take away from this lesson is a love of making ideas tangible to answer specific questions and how different forms of prototyping will influence the questions you can answer. So we can take all of those ideas written on sticky notes and make them real!
Reviews
TOP REVIEWS FROM USER EXPERIENCE: RESEARCH & PROTOTYPING
Really good course. Helped me understand the importance of interviews in making a product\n\nHelped me come up with many ideas for a single problem\n\ngave me a 260 degree view of user experience
Great moments with the professor and really candid, inspiring coursework! I definitely learned what I needed on prototyping but there's extra breadcrumbs everywhere to go the extra mile.
Very good course, as a standalone course, some sections are slightly too short, but the information is great, very useful, nicely presented and works when put into practice. Thanks!
This course is more hands-on. I wish more interaction (feedbacks from peer, guidance from mentor) could be added to make the learning experience more fruitful.
About the Interaction Design Specialization
You will learn how to design technologies that bring people joy, rather than frustration. You'll learn how to generate design ideas, techniques for quickly prototyping them, and how to use prototypes to get feedback from other stakeholders like your teammates, clients, and users. You'll also learn principles of visual design, perception, and cognition that inform effective interaction design.
Frequently Asked Questions
When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
Access to lectures and assignments depends on your type of enrollment. If you take a course in audit mode, you will be able to see most course materials for free. To access graded assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience, during or after your audit. If you don't see the audit option:
- The course may not offer an audit option. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid.
- The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.
What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?
When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.
Is financial aid available?
Yes, Coursera provides financial aid to learners who cannot afford the fee. Apply for it by clicking on the Financial Aid link beneath the "Enroll" button on the left. You'll be prompted to complete an application and will be notified if you are approved. You'll need to complete this step for each course in the Specialization, including the Capstone Project. Learn more.
More questions? Visit the Learner Help Center.
