COMS BC3364: Introduction to Contextual Design for Technology
Barnard College, Fall 2019, 2020, 2021
This is an undergraduate course that introduces students to the methods and tools used in Contextual Inquiry (CI), User Experience (UX), and User Interface (UI) design. This course focuses on the early design stages of a product’s lifecycle, and aims to ensure the product will meet user needs; some example tools and methods to be covered include personas, scenarios, storyboards, interviews, wireframing, prototyping, InVision, Axure, Balsamiq, etc.
This class will serve as an introduction to these methods; no prior design experience is necessary. In this course, students will work on group projects covering one or more of the CI methods for products designed for today’s world of ubiquitous and mobile technology. Students will also participate in a final group project designing for a real context: the students will work with a local client to define their needs and requirements, with the end goal that the students’ design will be incorporated into the client’s real product. Developers with experience in UX/UI design methods are in high demand in today’s software industry, and the projects students work on in this course will strengthen their portfolios. Taught at Barnard College.
The first few assignments for the course can be found in intro-assignments.zip.