INTERACTION DESIGN: DESIGN METHODOLOGY SEMINAR

Spring 2025

Instructors:

Dr Joëlle Bitton

Prof. Jürgen Spath

OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVES 

The Interaction Design Methods course is proposed as an ongoing 'workshop', where theory is practiced and where we share knowledge and learn from each other. This course proposes to investigate the methods of interaction design and the challenges they pose, with an outlook on human-centred, non-human centred & planet-centred design. With notions of cultural contexts, historical overviews, and case studies, we’ll discuss the foundations of interaction design methods and their evolution.

Each student is responsible to advance the collective knowledge of the class, by becoming an investigator and by discovering sources, case studies, and possible new methods as well. Students should also mentor each other.
During the overlap with your studio courses, some of the methods reviewed will be put into practice. 

The course is a work-in-progress inviting experiments in pedagogy and in modulating theory and practice together. The field of Interaction Design is dynamic and thus calls for mixing foundation literature with new proposals, while keeping a critical perspective and staying open to shifts. As we progress in uncovering the topics of method class, we also put a strong emphasis on developing essential skills: reading, writing and reflecting, researching, including diverse sources, evaluating data, identifying assumptions and biases, presenting arguments, mediating discussions, sharing knowledge and owning your voice.

COURSE OUTLINE 

See calendar for when the course takes place. From week 2, two students are responsible for one session around a topic, where they present literature, case studies, mediate discussion and activity. See topics below. 

Note that sessions may take place either on-site or online - but hybrid session (both on-site and online) are not possible. 

EXPECTATIONS, GRADING

In pair, students provide support and reflection for each other during the semester.
At the end of the course, the student grade themselves with a short written summary and reasoning included. *Teachers may modulate the grade with their own evaluations.

Following criteria for the final grading:

Exposé & Activity 30% 

Handout 30%

Participation in discussions 20% 

Blog 20%

Regular attendance is required (80%). Absences have to be excused (medical notes, etc). Arriving late on more than one occasion will also affect the grade.

Any assignment that remains unfulfilled receives a failing grade. 

DELIVERABLES

EACH SESSION

• BLOG FEATURING:
  • READINGS & RESPONSE NOTES
    For everyone, there are several mandatory readings per session and response notes are expected for each paper and have to be uploaded on the blog (see below) by the prior Sunday evening. 
    Students are expected to discuss and comment in class based on the readings they have done prior to the class (they can be randomly called to share their perspectives).
    A reading guideline is provided to support the reading process: identify author(s), research location/institution, country, background, date, writing style, publication, context, sources, possible biases; identify words and concepts that are not familiar to you; identify questions that are emerging. See additional tips for reading academic papers by researcher Mike Ananny.
    Texts vary in length every week, this is considered part of the learning process in this class to go through a reading and gather essential ideas in a limited time.
    
    
  • Reflective notes on class discussions/learnings
    A separate 'reflective journal' is developed by each student to share learnings from the seminar. It should be in the form of an online blog/vlog/podcast (ie. WordPress, Notion, Medium, TikTok, Insta or other) to share with the public your discoveries, findings, reflections, etc. The journal should be structured in a generally comprehensible manner
    
    

1-TIME PRESENTATION & ACTIVITY:

Two assigned students each prepares a 8 minute-exposé on the topic on the week, coming from two distinct angles, and with arguments from the selected texts as well as 3-4 additional sources that they will research themselves. The additional sources should include academic references, from various genders, and from various countries / cultures. Case studies should be presented as well. Each exposé should provoke questions, inspire ideas.

The week before the presentations, students send instructors a 1 - 2-pages written discussion (handout), by the Wednesday 14.00, prior to the class to get enough time for feedback and possible changes. The paper should include title, author, date, context, summary, bibliography.

Additionally, the students presenting have to engage the class actively with a short exercise/task and mediate a discussion with 1 main question.

The structure of the class should include:

• 2 x 8 minutes exposés 
• 15-minutes short exercise/activity where a method related to the topic is applied 
• 1 or 2 questions for the class to discuss 
• Larger discussion, feedback and perspectives from the tutor 
• a 5mn break

COURSE MATERIALS 

Readings are made available in the shared IAD server.

CALENDAR

Week 1 - 17.03.25 - 9.30-11.30 - Design/Undesign: Perspectives and biases (jb)

Lecture : “Perspectives of Interaction Design”
Case studies of design moments in history, how technology and design intertwine, as well as understanding who designs design.

Readings: 

Additional references on the topic:

Carroll, J. M. (2000). "Making Use: Scenario-­Based Design of Human­Computer Interactions". The MIT Press. “the Process”

Dubberly, H. ­(2004). "How do you design?" Dubberly Design Office.

Kolko, J. (2011). "Exposing the Magic of Design: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis". (Oxford Series in Human­Technology Interaction) (1 ed.). Oxford University Press, USA.

Sanders, E. (2013). "Perspectives on Participation in Design". Transcript Verlag.

Week 2 - 24.03.24 - 13.00-14.30 - Observations & Experiences (jb)

In design fields, observations are at the center point of delving into projects: observations of our surroundings, of everyday life, of specific settings, of non-human perspectives, in the field & specific public spaces, in private spaces, in media, on social networks, in conversations, etc...  Observations lead us to approach user experiences and to create around them. 

• Students: 

Readings

boyd, danah. 2007. “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.” In MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 

Additional references on the topic:

Buchenau, M. & Fulton Suri, J. 2000. “Experience Prototyping”. In Proceeding of DIS ’00.

Merholz, P., Wilkens, T., Schauer, B., & Verba, D. (2008). Subject To Change:
Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World: Adaptive Path on Design. O’Reilly Media, Inc. (Chapter 1 + 5) 

Horst, Heather. 2011. Free, Social, and Inclusive: Appropriation and Resistance of New Media Technologies in Brazil. In International Journal of Communication. 5. 437–462.  

Kaye, Joseph, Levitt, M. K., Nevins, J., Golden, J. & Schmidt, V. “Communicating Intimacy One Bit at a Time”. In Proceedings of CHI ‘05. 

Week 3 - 31.03.25 - 13.00-14.30 - Prototyping concepts, prototyping everything (jb)

The prototype is the actuation of an idea, its evaluation, its dissemination, its validation all at once? Where does the prototype stop?

• Students: 

Readings

Montgomery, Will. 2013. “Machines for Living”. In Wire. 243. 28-35.

Houde, S., and Hill, C. 1997. "What Do Prototypes Prototype?", in Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (2nd Ed.), M. Helander, T. Landauer, and P. Prabhu (eds.): Elsevier Science B. V: Amsterdam.

Schleicher D. & al. 2010. Bodystorming as Embodied Designing. Interactions.

Additional references on the topic:

O’Sullivan, D. & Igoe, T. 2003. Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers. Premier Press..

Youn­Kyung, L., Erik, S., & Josh, T. 2008. The anatomy of prototypes: Prototypes as filters, prototypes as manifestations of design ideas. In ACM Trans. Comput.­Hum.Interact. 15(2). 1–27. 

Ehn, P., & Kyng, M. 1991. Cardboard computers: Mocking-­it-­up or hands­-on the future. In Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems. 169–195. 

Bolchini, D., Pulido, D., & Faiola, A. 2009. “ “Paper in screen” prototyping: an agile technique to anticipate the mobile experience”. In Interactions. 16(4). 29–33. 

Week 4 - 07.04.25 - 13.00-14.30 - Pop Culture & Storytelling  (jb)

Stories and narratives surround us, influence us via fictions, movies, pop culture, games, advertising, marketing, scams, propaganda, etc... In interaction design, we often use storytelling to demo a concept and disseminate a project, it is also used as forms of prototyping and of evaluation. It can also be used to sell a project, to highlight its qualities, to hide its flaws...  How do we use stereotypes to tell stories? How does pop culture narratives influence design and vice-versa? 

• Students: 

Readings

Auger, James. 2012. “Demo or die: Overcoming oddness through aesthetic experience”. In Why Robot? Speculative Design, the domestication of technology and the considered future. PhD Thesis. RCA, London. 

Kim, J., Lund, A. & Dombrowski. 2010. “Mobilizing Attention: Storytelling for Innovation”. In Interactions.

Lindström, K., Ståhl, Å. 2020. Un/Making in the Aftermath of Design. In: Proceedings of the 16th Participatory Design Conference.

Tsaknaki, Vasiliki & Fernaeus, Y. 2016. “Expanding on Wabi-Sabi as a Design Resource in HCI”. In Proceedings of CHI ‘16. 

Additional references on the topic:

Brown, D. M. (2010). “Competitive Reviews” In Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning. 254­-263. Berkeley: New Riders. 

Quesenberry, W. & Brooks, K. 2010. “Why Stories?”. In Storytelling for User experience. Rosenfeld Media. 

Loch, Christopher. 2003. Moving Your Idea Through Your Organisation. In Laurel, Brenda (ed.). Design Research. Methods and Perspectives. 

Week 5 - 14.04.25 - 9.30-11.30 - Outcomes and Findings, Evaluating with participants (jb)

What does it mean to evaluate an interaction design work, what are the tools, how is a project fitting its intentions? Is evaluation even necessary in the context of design? How do gather findings from a process?

• Students: 

Readings

Bardzell, J., Bolter, J., & Löwgren, J. 2010. “Interaction criticism: three readings of an interaction design, and what they get us”. In Interactions. 17:2. 32–37. 

Greenberg, S., & Buxton, B. 2008. "Usability evaluation considered harmful (some of the time)". In Proceedings of CHI ’08.

Irani, L. et al. 2010. Postcolonial Computing: A Lens on Design and Development. CHI 2010.

Additional references on the topic:

Nørgaard, M., & Hornbæk, K. 2006. “What do usability evaluators do in practice?: an explorative study of think ­aloud testing”. In Proceedings of DIS ‘06.

Preece, J., Rogers, Y., & Sharp, H. 2002. “Introducing Evaluation”. In Interaction Design. Wiley.

Sengers, P., & Gaver, B. 2006. “Staying open to interpretation: engaging multiple meanings in design and evaluation”.  In Proceedings of DIS ‘06.

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\

Week 6 - 06.05.24 For who and what do we design? Do we design for anyone? (mn)

Design takes place everyday, it is inspired by popular culture and in turn inspires stories and the collective imagination. What power does design have? What kind of responsibility do designers have? What futures do we want to create? 

• Students: 

Readings:

Samochowiec, J. (2020). "Future Skills: Four scenarios for the world of tomorrow". GDI Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute. 

Bell, Genevieve, Blythe, M. & Sengers, P. (2005). “Making by Making Strange: Defamiliarization and the Design of Domestic Technologies”. In ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. 12. 149-173.

Kelley, T. (2001). "The Art Of Innovation: Lessons In Creativity From IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm". Crown Business. 23-52.

Franzini, L., Herzog, R., Rutz, S., Ryser, F., Ziltener, K., Zwicky, P. (2021). “Postwachstum? Aktuelle Auseinandersetzungen um einen grundlegenden gesellschaftlichen Wandel". edition 8.
chapter ["Die Postwachtumsökonomie als plünderungsfreier Zukunftsentwurf, Paech, N., page 73-82]
chapter ["Von der imperialen zur konvivialen Technik", Vetter, A., page 159-167]

Week 7 - 13.05.24 Human-Computer Interaction and methods (mn)

Interaction Design and the field of HCI research are intertwined. Desk-based research, cultural probes, participatory design, ethnographic video, etc… terms that are at the heart of methodologies.

• Students: 
  

Readings:

Gaver, B., Dunne, T., Pacenti, E. (1999). “Design: Cultural probes”. In Interactions, 6(1), 21-­29. 

Oulasvirta, A., Kurvinen, E., & Kankainen, T. (2003). “Understanding contexts by being there: case studies in bodystorming". In Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 7(2), 125­-134. 

Buur, J., Fraser, E., Oinonen, S., & Rolfstam, M. (2010). “Ethnographic video as design specs”. In Proceedings of SIGCHI Australia’ 10.

Danzico, L. (2010). “From Davis to David: Lessons from Improvisation”. In Interactions.

Week 08 - 27.05.24  Data and visual abstractions (mn) 

Diagrams, sketching, mind mapping, working with data, visualising information: this is the work of explaining to your audience, from clients, to customers, to collaborators, the essence of an argument.

• Students: 
  

Readings

Buxton, B. (2007). "Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design". Morgan Kaufmann. 76-81.

Eggers, W. D., Hamill R., Ali A. (2013). “Data as the new currency. Government’s role in facilitating the exchange”. In Deloitte Review. 13. 18-31. 

Pavliscak, P. (2015). "Data-Informed Product Design". O’Reilly. 

Rogers, Y., Sharp, H., Preece, J. (2002). “Identifying Needs and establishing Requirements”. In Interaction Design: Beyond Human­ Computer Interaction. John Wiley & Sons. 201-­211. 

Week 09 - 03.06.24 Design Fiction, Speculative Design, Artistic research (mn)

Where design and art collide: what is your design standing for? How do we reboot the design field?

• Students: 
  

Readings

Auger, James. 2012. “Speculative design: The products that technology could become”. In Why Robot? Speculative Design, the domestication of technology and the considered future. PhD Thesis. RCA, London. 

Wakkary, Ron & Odom, William & Hauser, Sabrina & Hertz, Garnet & Lin, Henry. 2016. A short guide to material speculation: Actual artifacts for critical inquiry. interactions. 23. 44-48. 

Dunne, Anthony and Raby, F. 2001. Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects. August / Birkhäuser. 

Kakalios, James. 2005. The Physics of Superheroes. The Gotham Books Publishing Group. 

Week 10 - 10.06.24 Teach or Why Were You Here? (mn)

For our final class, we go back to the basics of design: its pedagogy. Interaction Design is though here as a mediation for everyday life: how can you as students use your knowledge to develop your craft and to share your lessons learned.

Readings:

Ackermann, E.K. (2016). “Learning to Code: What is it? What’s In It For The Kids?— A Tribute to Seymour Papert". Trans. version from publication in Tecnologie didattiche (TD 27-2002).

Moriwaki, K., Brucker-Cohen, J. (2006). “Lessons from the scrapyard: creative uses of found materials within a workshop setting”. In AI & Society. 20:4. 506-525. 

JOURNALS/BLOGS LINKS