Mastering Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

Discover the fundamental concepts for human-computer interaction to understand what we mean by "the user" when we talk about user experience design, and how we approach designing effective user engagement strategies for products and experiences.

Ethical research with human subjects is critical for collection of data and experimentation.

Affordances are a key part of understanding how humans operate technologies, and how designers can "communicate" to users all of the available actions (and what they should be doing) when engaging with an HCI experience or product.

Learn about the kinds of data you will collect in your research, and how to distinguish between "qualitative" and "quantitative" data.

This section covers a broad array of research techniques including participatory design, heuristic evaluation, ethnography, contextual inquiry, and more.

One of the most common ways to collect user data about HCI products and experiences is Usability Testing -- here, we go in depth on how to conduct your own usability evaluations.

Interviews are a terrific way to gather lots of user research that will improve the design of engaging HCI products and experiences -- but how do you conduct a productive interview with users?  Here we explain everything from the process to some potential pitfalls.

Wireframes and sitemaps are the first step in designing usable products and experiences from the data you have collected.  We explore the aspects of these important steps, as well as some resources to help you get started.

Building a functional prototype not only allows you to test your designs with users in a usability evaluation, it can also be used to achieve stakeholder buy-in (and funding) when creating presentation prototypes.

Personas are fictional representations of user groups that help to define aspects of your HCI product or experience and generate deep empathy for your users.  They are also fun to create -- here, we talk about building meaningful personas for your upcoming activity.

Persuasive technologies influence our behaviors, sometimes without us even being aware.  Here, you will learn how to persuade and direct the behaviors of your users with some simple, powerful techniques.

Diversity, equity, inclusion and access have become a topic of even greater importance as we explore the ways we can reach larger groups of users with effective products and experiences.  This light overview explores the ways these topics impact users and the teams that design products and experiences, and how we can do better.

You did it!  Thanks for taking “Mastering Human-Computer Interaction.”