Course overview
This is an inherently practical module that introduces the principles of user-centred design and evaluation. The module is delivered in two halves. The first half considers design and supports the learning of students to carry out a group design project. The second section focuses on evaluation.
Participants in piloting
The course is compulsory for students on the MSc in User Experience Design and an the MSc Computing. The following groups of students were engaged:
- 143 students in academic year 2019 – 2020.
- 154 students in academic year 2020 – 2021.
Timeframe
academic year 2019 – 2020
academic year 2020 – 2021
Use of ALIEN services and tools
The students had to learn about user-centred design methods to create a prototype. This was a group-based activity. The students had to roll a dice to create a unique scenario, with different user groups and technologies, which they would design for. Over a 5 week period students investigated the users and applied appropriate methods to create a prototype system. For example, they were informed about the usefulness of personas in a taught class but then had to go away and create these for their unique scenario.
To complete this task they had to investigate ways of creating personas, collect data, and synthesize a set of personas to aid their design.
