Course Syllabus

Course Syllabus for UX Design: From Concept to Prototype

Summary In this course, you will start learning methods and skills involved in designing interactive systems. The course covers the design process from the initial formulation of a design problem to creation of initial design representations like scenarios, personas, and storyboards that concretize findings about user needs discovered through formative work. This course also introduces the basic building blocks of user interaction, different forms of prototyping, and important conceptual issues related to prototyping and design.The course work involves a combination of quizzes, discussions, and practical work on a design problem that you will choose during the first week of the course.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, learners will be able to:

Explain how designers approach complex problems Describe the iterative nature of the design process and its main components Recognize the central role of ideation and gain experience in sketching Create personas, scenarios, and storyboards Evaluate systematically tradeoffs of alternative ways you can design a component of a system Analyze factors that influence the design of user input and feedback in an interactive system Describe different types of prototype, and what kinds of questions each type of prototype is intended to answer Create and evaluate low-fidelity prototypes Recognize the importance of good choice of defaults Reason critically about the broader impacts of the systems that they are designing Effort

The course consists of six weeks. You should expect to spend about 3 to 4 hours on each week to fully engage with the course and fellow learners in the Discussion.

Academic Integrity and the Use of Discussion Forums

All submitted work should be your own, original work. While collaboration is really important, and we encourage you to collaborate whenever it makes sense, you will maximize your learning if you do the assignments for this course yourself.

Our work often builds on the work of others. If you are referencing others’ work, put it in quotes! If you are directly quoting, or building on others’ writing, provide a citation.

Finally, while we cannot monitor everything, FutureLearn and the course team will monitor the forums for any activity that violates academic integrity rules and basic civility to each other. Participation in the discussion forum is not required, though it is strongly encouraged.

Contact with the Instructor

Given the large number of students in this course, the teaching assistants or instructor should not be contacted directly with any questions. While we appreciate the time and effort you put into the course, responding to questions is virtually impossible. Instead, please direct your questions to the forum. The course team will monitor the forums and participate on a regular basis.

Would you like to take part in an optional learner background survey to improve the online educational offerings at the University of Michigan?

The University of Michigan is carrying out learner background survey research.

We’d like to invite all Learners on this course to take part in this optional pre-course survey. By taking part in this survey, you’ll support the University’s efforts to provide a quality online learning experience to a diverse population of participants. We may use the findings to evaluate the efficacy and impact of this educational content, as well as to identify opportunities to create new content.

The University of Michigan may share anonymous data collected during the survey with its platform partners, including Coursera, edX, and FutureLearn, with the goal of improving learning experiences and outcomes.

To take part in the learner background survey, please click the link below. If you choose to participate, you will be asked to provide personal information, including information about your gender, race, location country, employment status, and educational attainment. Your responses will be kept confidential, and the results from this survey will only be presented in aggregate form. It should take no longer than 10 minutes to complete.

<a href=”https://umich.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_735AxMay2FSApSZ?platform_id=futurelearn&course_id=”>Take part in the pre-course learner background survey.

Your responses will be linked to your course activity, but you will not be identifiable in any data that we publish or share. Summarised findings may be published in online and print publications and in University of Michigan promotional materials and may be included in presentations at professional development events, academic and professional conferences, and in various private settings. All the information collected during this survey, will be stored and handled according to the Center for Academic Innovation at the University of Michigan’s privacy policy.

The survey link will open in this same window for the purposes of making it accessible to screen readers and other assistive devices. You may need to manually navigate back to the course afterwards.

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Please note that this is an independent research survey carried out by the University of Michigan and your participation is subject to the University’s own policies and terms. FutureLearn takes no responsibility for the contents or the consequences of your participation in this study. Your participation in the research has no effect on your course progress, marks or FutureLearn profile.