• Identify and compare the scope and utility of various methods in creative, innovation and design-oriented IT projects
• Do in-depth critical research and analysis of users and their context and apply such research to the development of new digital products and services
• Reflect on theoretical and methodological aspects of various methods within a broad interaction design framework.
• Apply user-centred design principles, personas and scenario-based development, ethnography-inspired and participatory design methods as well as iterative design processes, working towards the delivery of valuable services or products within the field of business IT.
• Develop and present a comprehensive prototypes and expressive visualizations of a product.
• Perform a principled, critical assessment of proposed designs, and offer alternatives or suggestions for further iterations.
• Use a technological design tool to device functionality and information architecture of a digital service or technology

The course will feature practical design activities and visualization work as core disciplines for development of digital services and products, and it will equip students to think, visualize, critique, facilitate and present design concepts. It will further focus on a critical, reflective understanding of design methods and their judicious application. 

The course will focus on design-centric research methods drawing on an interaction design framework. This entails visualizing, sketching on paper, developing simple prototypes in software, conducting, analyzing and presenting quick-and-dirty design ethnographies, user-centered design, participatory design, personas and scenarios development and an overall philosophy of rapid, iterative design processes. 
The process of prototyping at early stages in the development process is emphasized in the course. Rapid iterations of lo-fidelity designs or mock-ups will be used extensively in the student design teams to “ask questions” and glean knowledge from the users and the particular business contexts for which the teams design. 

The literature will cover practical design methods derived from, and building on, Human-Computer Interaction methods and insights, as well as methodologies and theoretical readings in the humanities and social science. 
Design teams and project work: 
The outset for all of the coursework and the exam will be a student design project, and practical work is part of the in-class activities as well as workshops. Parts of the teaching will be lab-based, i.e. entailing engaged group work around the design of a product or a service. 

The students will be using a technical prototyping application for their project work (e.g. Axure, myBalsamiq or similar, depending on need). It is expected that the students will have gained some competence with the application before embarking on the design project. The typical product is a prototype produced and presented in a particular medium (e.g. on a computer, a device, paper, or video). 

All student design teams will perform a mandatory presentation of their ongoing work 3 times during the course, and prepare relevant questions to ask of their design (this is the “design crit” session, parts of which will be based on a design-space analysis/argumentation method). Doing their project, the students must work in 2-5 (3 or more being ideal) person design teams to be able to cover sufficient ground in the project in terms of data collection for the case context as well as to do timely design critique throughout the project. Interdisciplinary work and bringing different competences to bear is key for good projects. 

The project (product) is of the students own choosing, and can include work that involves design for (and with) public sector services as well as private enterprise – note that for the area chosen, the students must identify and use 2 peer reviewed research papers. 

It is expected that a group is formed and a project or case is defined as early as possible in the course period, so that work on the product (the prototype) can commence early

Bødker, S. (2000). Scenarios in user-centred design-setting the stage for reflection and action. Interacting with computers, 13(1), 61-75. 
Brandt, E. (2007). How tangible mock-ups support design collaboration. Knowledge, Technology, and Policy, 20(3), 179-192. 
Buchenau, M. & Fulton-Suri, J (2000). Experience Prototyping, in Proceedings of ACM DIS, 2000. 
Buur, J., & Sitorus, L. (2007). Ethnography as Design Provocation. Proceedings from Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, Keystone, CO, USA. 
Buur, J., Binder, T., & Brandt, E. (2000). Taking Video Beyond “Hard Data” in User Centred Design. the Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference, New York, CPSR, December. 
Erickson, T. (1995). Notes on Design Practice: Stories and Prototypes as Catalysts for Communication. In Scenario-based design: envisioning work and technology in system development (pp. 37–58). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, NY, USA. 
Fallman, D. (2003). Design-oriented human-computer interaction. Proceedings from Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. 
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Hertzum, M. (2003). Making use of scenarios: a field study of conceptual design. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 58(2), 215-239. 
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Buxton, Bill (2007): “Sketching User Experiences - Getting the Design Right and the Right Design”, Morgan Kaufmann, 2007 (COURSE BOOK 1) 
Greenberg, Carpendale, Marquardt, & Buxton 2012: Sketching User Experiences: The Workbook, Morgan Kaufmann, 2012 (COURSE BOOK 2) 
Fraser, H. M. A. (2009). Designing Business: New Models for Success. Design Management Review, 20(2), 56-65, available at: http://www.dmi.org/dmi/html/publications/news/viewpoints/09202FRA56.pdf
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