Course content

- Human-centered technology
- Usability principles
- Human memory and information processing
- Knowledge in the head, in the body, in the user inteface, in the world
- Metaphors and idioms
- Information structure and navigation
- Standards and guidelines in usability engineering
- The life cycle of usability engineering
- Personas
- Scenario techniques
- Rapid prototyping
- Formative-iterative usability testing
- Heuristic evaluation and expert evaluation
- Universal design

Learning outcome

Knowledge:
- The student should know of principles and methods for designing interactive systems with a high degree of usability.
- The student should know of methods for evaluating the usability of interactive systems.
- The student should know of cognitive limitations and human factors in a usability context.
- The student should be able to use universal design principles in design projects.

Skills:
- The student should know how to use scenario and personas based methods in design projects.
- The student know how to evaluate usability using usability heuristics.
- The student know how to participate in the execution of different types of usability evaluation involving end users.

Learning methods and activities

Essay, lectures, group project work, formative iterative tutorials

Mandatory assignments:
One essay must be approved before attending the written exam.

Compulsory assignments

• Essay

Specific conditions

Required previous knowledge

Exam registration requires that class registration is approved in the same semester. Compulsory activities from previous semester may be approved by the department.
Admission to a programme of study is required:

Graphic Design (BMED)
Interaction Design (BIXD)
Web Development (BWU)

Course materials

Cooper, Alan (2014). About face: the essentials of interaction design. 4th ed. Indianapolis: Wiley.

Norman, Donald A. (2013). The design of everyday things. Revised and expanded ed. New York: Basic Book.

SUPPORTIVE LITERATURE:

Martin, Bella, and Bruce Hanington (2012). Universal methods of design. Beverly, Mass.: Rockport.

A selction of relevant journals in NTNU’s library:
Interactions (ACM SIGCHI).

Credit reductions