MAPD4300 Design for Experience Course description

This course aims to introduce the students to the complexity and conception of an experience. As such it is the series of complex interactions between humans and their technological, social, and natural environments that people interpret into a general impression. This course tackles this complexity by introducing multifaceted approaches to designing for experience of products and/or services.

The candidates will be therefore invited to explore social and interface interaction, phenomenology of experience, as well as theoretical approaches for engaging users in a practical context. These explorations will include applied experiments, and design iterations through testing, and scenario building. To create more meaningful experiences the issues of mastery, resilience, motivation and well-being will be revisited and discussed.

Admission to the Masters program

On successful completion of this course the students are expected to have these learning outcomes acquired:

Knowledge:

The candidate can

• discuss and describe an experience through phenomenological as well as behavioral theoretical concepts
• choose relevant methods for exploration of design for experience

Skills:

The candidate can:

• plan and organize design process using phenomenological, and behavioral methods.
• implement experiments, user testing and probing in a lab and in the field.
• design product features and service components that consider experience as a key factor.
• critically assess their designs, product features, and service components and the implication of the design intervention for the experience.

General competence:

The candidate can:

• critically assess wider societal perspective on experience of products and services.
• practice evaluation of ethical issues and cultural relevance when conceptualizing and developing design for experience.

• Emotional factors in design/psychological mechanisms in design
• Experimentation and fieldwork
• Service experience 
• User behavior 
• Task analysis
• Human to human, human to product interaction
• Mastery, resilience, motivation
• Different forms of user engagement

The most important teaching and learning methods for this course are workshops, lectures, group work, studio courses and tutoring.

The following required coursework must be approved before the student can take the exam:

• One note of reflection. Maximum 1000 words.

Individual or group portfolio examination. The portfolio consists of:

• design process documentation. Various medias if possible. Students can choose to work in groups. Maximum 3 students per group.

The examination result can be appealed. 

No restrictions.

Grade scale A-F. 

Two internal. External examiner is used periodically.