Inspirations for Design: A Course on Human-Centered Research

This course will introduce you to crucial methods in design research, which will help you to discover inspirations for innovative solutions. We take a task-based approach to build your competencies and skills: You will learn to spot workarounds, observe potential users in their context and explore the basic skills of conducting insightful interviews.

Syllabus

WARM-UP / Week 1
This is a chance for you to introduce yourself and get to know the learning environment and your peers with the help of an exercise.
Time commitment: 1h – 1:40h

OBSERVATION / Week 2
The week focuses on the skill of careful observation and introduces you to workarounds and misuses.
Time commitment: 1h – 1:40h

CONDUCTING QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS / Week 3
This week focuses on the role of qualitative interviewing and how to conduct a good interview.
Time commitment: 3h – 3:40h

INFERRING MEANING FROM INTERVIEWS / Week 4
After you conducted your own interviews, this week's module introduces you to interpreting your findings and inferring meaning from them - the first step towards gathering inspirations for design solution!
Time commitment: 1h – 1:20h

WRAP-UP / Week 5
In this week, we will provide a summary of what you have learned. We will talk about future steps and discuss some of the best assignment results with you.
Time commitment: 0:30h – 1h