Course code: IO3870
Course load: 3 EC

This course runs in the first two weeks of the minor. There is one assignment that you will be working on in small teams (2-3 students). For some of you it will be your first design project! The aim of this course is not to find out if you are a creative designer. The important aim of this course is to get to know each other by working together and to learn about various important aspects of interaction design in a learning-by-doing way. We will use the diagram below to guide our understanding and discussions.

Course code: IO3872
Course load: 3 EC

The Design Strategies course is a lecture series to introduce theory, methods and practice relevant to the minor design assignment.

Course code: IO3873
Course load: 15 EC

The course design and prototyping studio is the main design track in the minor. Students work individually as well as in groups on the main design assignment. The Design and Prototyping course runs during the whole semester.

In the Design and Prototyping Studio course students explore the possibilities for dynamic, interactive spaces in which people and environments engage in a mutual relationship with each other. The course structure is built around a group project assignment of an interactive social space, consisting of autonomously operating intelligent building components and smart products forming an architectural ecosystem.

In order to design and engineer successful interactive environments it is necessary to integrate knowledge of different disciplines in order to address not only technological, but also cultural, social, structural and aesthetical aspects of such systems that are all inherently interdependent on each other. Considering buildings to be dynamically performing entities, engaging multiple users and external factors in interactive exchange of information means that architecture has to be treated as a complex system.

Course code: IO38XX
Course load: 4,5 EC

The Technology Skills course aims to introduce the basic technology skills involved with making prototypes of tangible interaction design. Students will be introduced to tools and techniques to prototype interactive, to create networks of interactive objects, work with digital manufacturing (modelling and fabrication) and the engineering aspects of prototypes. These themes will be introduced, practiced and applied in cycles. Each cycle consists of a learning activity follow a week later by an activity in which the newly learned skill is applied to a concrete design project.

Course code: IO38XX
Course load: 4,5 EC

The Design Skills course aims to encourage an approach of problem solving that is common to different design disciplines. Nowadays this is often referred to as Design Thinking, and is rooted in some of the major companies of the worlds (i.e. Google sprints, IBM design thinking, etc.). - Students will be introduced to theories and methods about user research, conceptualisation, validation (or testing) and design teamwork. These themes will be introduced, practiced and applied in cycles. Each cycle consists of a learning activity follow a week later by an activity in which the newly learned skill is applied to a concrete design project.