During the course you will learn:
- different methods of interaction design and how interaction design has evolved.
- how qualitative and quantitative user research relate to each other
- how to conduct user research in digital and personalized systems
- how to translate the findings of user research into system requirements
- how to build mockups or prototypes based on system requirements

When developing any product or smart system used by people, it is crucial to take into account how users will be experiencing these products or systems. Do users understand them or do they feel lost? Do they work according to expectations or is the user surprised by how the system works? Are they consistent? Do users enjoy using them or is it a pain?

Interaction design is the process of optimizing the user experience with systems or products. Good interaction design requires understanding the users of a system, the design of the system and system-user interaction. Interaction design has predominantly adopted a qualitative approach, using formal methods such as user-centered design to incorporate the user experience in product design.

User research is an important means of understanding users and evaluating the user experience. It is mainly done in a qualitative way, through for example think-aloud studies. Several methods exist and applying these correctly requires training. The counterpart of qualitative user research is quantitative user research. With current digital systems (such as websites and apps) came ways to objectively measure user interaction. Real-time logging of interaction behaviors allowed for new sources of data that enabled for example online usage analytics, or clickstream analysis. In addition these systems allow for running real-time experiments through A/B testing. These methods can also provide insight into the user experience. Quantitative user research allows us to leverage the big data to understand our users and the user experience, but it brings additional challenges with it. Contrary to qualitatitive user research, we cannot ask our users for clarification.

Nowadays digital systems are personalized more and more. Based on an individual user's interaction, the system is altered to match inferred user preferences or needs. One of the reasons to personalize systems is to improve the user experience. Several methods for personalization exist, ranging from behavioral segmentation to making inferences from information retrieved from third party systems through single sign on. User research and interaction design for personalized systems brings new challenges with it.

You will be assessed through an intermediate exam and a report. The exam will test you on your understanding of why and how user research is conducted. The report will focus on one interaction design cycle of an existing product.

TBD

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TRANSITIONAL REGULATION:
Students started the programme prior to September 2019 will be able to finish their programme until September 2020 (excl.).
For the educational units which no longer will be offered as of September 2019 and which students have not completed successfully, a resit option for (all components of) the educational unit will be given until September 2020 (excl.).

Interaction design, user research