Subjects

MFA in Interaction Design

Service Design

The third term project focuses on public use. We address products and services like healthcare facilities, public transportation or public services. The term public use includes the whole population as potential users as opposed to specific social or professional groups. Public use emphasizes a "service design" perspective where people interact with equipment, environments, services and other people rather than interacting with a single isolated product or product group. Services are used rather than owned and often experienced over long periods of time with high user expectations on efficiency, consistency, quality and security. Methods employed in this project include experience prototyping. Previous projects range from Grocery Purchasing (cooperation: Telia) to The Library as Interface (cooperation: Umeå Municipality and Umeå City Library).

Interaction Concept

The Interaction Concept Project aims to introduce the practice and understanding of interaction design, as it is perceived at the Umeå Institute of Design. We try to move away from an "object-oriented" design approach by specifying project deliverables in the form of an interactive process rather than a physical product. We emphasize the idea of people-to-people interaction mediated by a process or a technology rather than person-to-object interaction.
Previously we have carried out this project in cooperation with students from other interaction design programmes in Scandinavia who have their roots in disciplines other than industrial design, such as CHI. In this way the students become aware of different perspectives and approaches to the practice of interaction design and also have the opportunity to visit another Scandinavian country.
The project is concluded with group presentations and time for reflection and discussion. A literature compendium is provided and several lectures are given presenting our philosophy and practice of interaction design.

Interface Prototyping

Screen-based media are dominant in interaction design through the web, mobile devices and numerous software applications. Prototyping graphical user interfaces (GUI) and solid user interfaces (SUI) are therefore important skills for interaction designers.

Dimensions of Form

Exercises and experiments are designed to investigate the topics of sound, imagery and action. Training is provided in the relevant software for creating and treating sound and lectures in industrial sound are given. In a short exercise students explore the relationships between sounds, product identity and brand.
The course is concluded with a project in which students design a product emphasizing sound, light, visual form and temporal qualities. Results are presented as high-fidelity and media-rich demos. Final presentations illustrate the experience of the product where sound, light, appearance, feel and interaction are illustrated as realistically as possible. Tutoring is given throughout the course. This course is a joint cooperation between students from the Interaction Design and Advanced Product Design programmes.

Experience Prototyping

This course in Experience Prototyping deals with applying suitable and relevant technologies for prototyping interaction. The course is divided into 3 parts:

1. Tangible Interaction
The tangible interaction course includes practical training in the use of Phidgets (physical widgets). The Phidget family consists of easy-to-use building blocks for input and output controllable from a computer. Students participate in a series of lectures and experiment in order to explore the possibilities and limitations of Phidgets and to learn how to put them to use in prototyping interaction.

2. Interaction Technologies
This part of the course includes a lecture series covering topics such as wireless communication, identification technologies, emerging interaction modalities, sensors and screen technologies. These lectures are interspersed with case studies illustrating how these different technologies have been used for prototyping interaction.

3. Prototyping Interaction - Project
This part of the course applies knowledge gained in the Tangible Interaction and Interaction Technologies sections in practical project work. The students work in groups and results are presented as electronic prototypes, wizard-of-Oz experiments or simple experience prototypes. The emphasis is on prototyping the experience of use rather than evaluating the technology.

Graphic Design for Interactive Media

This section of the course covers the fundamentals of graphic design, typography, layout, logotype design and pictograms as applied to interactive media. You are given a number of practical assignments and the expected results include graphical profiles, screen layouts for different kinds of interactive media, animations and examples of graphic design applied to print.

Multi-layering in Interface Design

The overall aim of this course is to move away from the WIMP format and explore alternative approaches for visualizing screen-based information, which draw on other design traditions such as poster design, maps, colloquial graphics and layered information. These approaches attempt to explore a visual structure for interfaces that break the traditional boundaries of GUI design.

Interaction Design Methods

Our courses in interaction design methods are integrated into the three major term projects to ensure reciprocity between theory and practice. The courses run parallel to project work and give you the opportunity of relating specific design methods to concrete project work.

User Observation & Task Analysis

The first term project emphasizes the professional user. The project focuses on methods of design investigation including observational studies, contextual enquiry, interviews and task-analysis. Seminars introduce different approaches to user-centered design.

Ethnographic Perspectives

The second term project focuses on service design. Methods and approaches include design anthropology and observational studies. Seminars given by a design anthropologist introduce different techniques within a design ethnography framework.

Interaction Prototyping

In the third project, techniques and methods for prototyping interaction are emphasized. A separate course in Experience Prototyping develops skills and the third major project offers the opportunity for building and testing interaction.

Design Visualization

This course tries to broaden your vocabulary of design visualisation skills by including course modules in diagramming, film anthropology, scenario techniques, storytelling and video sketching, as well as more traditional rendering and sketching techniques. These course modules are integrated into project work and studio courses.

Here & Now - Video Conference System for Compulsory School (Linda Bogren)