User Experience (UX) and Interactive Applications

Aims

The course aims to provide students with the theoretical-methodological foundations and techniques of the design and evaluation of the user experience (UX) and usability of products, services and digital content. The principles of psychological ergonomics applied to the digital design of interactions and interfaces such as websites, mobile applications, conversational agents will be presented.

There will be practical exercises on app design and evaluation.

At the end of the course, students:

• will be able to combine psychological, ergonomic and technological aspects to assess and reduce   cognitive load, optimizing satisfaction, related to the use of products, services, digital content and consequently reduce design and executive errors.
• will know and will have applied the Human Centred method, with a specific focus on digital products and services.
• will know and will have applied methods and techniques for evaluating the UX and usability of systems and services, drawn from cognitive ergonomics, on real case studies aimed at specific target users.
• will have developed project communication skills with emphasis on aspects related to the user experience (Usability and User Experience) and the added value brought by the user-centered approach.

Programme

The following topics will be explored in the course and in this sequence:

1. Introduction to the basic concepts: Usability, User Experience and Accessibility, reference legislation. Definition of the exam project, on which students will be able to apply all the design and evaluation tools proposed during the course.
2. User centred design and Design Thinking: tools and methods of design and evaluation.
3. The concept of interface. Principles and design guidelines for digital graphical user interfaces.
4. Human Factors applied to digital: perception, attention, memory, emotions in interface design
5. Rapid prototyping in UX: aims and techniques. Introduction to the use of wireframing software (e.g. Balsamiq, Figma). Mock-up development of exam projects
6. In addition to the GUI, new interfaces (conversational, gestural, haptic…). Hi-Fi Prototyping Tools
7. Usability Assessment Methods and Tools
8. Methods and tools UX assessment. Application on the projects developed by the students during the  course

Exam

The evaluation will consist of an oral exam. The students will be evaluated on the knowledge of the theoretical, methodological and design concepts of cognitive ergonomics and UX, learned from the recommended texts, from the distributed handouts. The project of a human-centred digital solution developed in a group during the course, will be part of the exam and each student will have to present it to be evaluated on the basis of basic knowledge, the methodological rigor, the completeness and the quality of the result. In addition, all students will be evaluated for their ability to make critical judgments, to link theoretical content to use cases, for the quality of their presentation and use of specific language.

Bibliography

• Donald A. Norman (Autore), G. Noferi (Traduttore), La caffettiera del masochista. Il design degli oggetti quotidiani. Firenze: Giunti, 2019.
• Debora Bottà. User Experience design – progettare esperienze di valore per utenti e aziende. Hoepli 2018. 
• Material Design: https://material.io/design.
• Dispense del corso.

Optional

• Jasse James Garrett. The elements of User experience Written. User centered design for the web and beyond. New Riders, 2011.