To develop an understanding of basic HCI Principles, I took the Interaction Design course by Prof. Scott Klemmer on Coursera.
Introduction to Human-Centered Design
In this course, I learned several techniques for rapid prototyping and evaluating multiple interaction designs. One of the most interesting assignments was when I interviewed a stranger for finding latent needs.
Creating storyboards was one of the most interesting ways to prototype, here are some of the ideas I loved working on:
Heuristic evaluation was one of the last topics of the course. Ten key principles of key design were introduced and the assignment for this week was to evaluate different websites on these criteria.
I evaluated two popular travel websites: Yatra and the Karnataka State Transport Corporation.
Design Principles: an Introduction
I this course I learned about how the artifacts in our environment fail to implement fundamental design principles. I was quickly able to identify some devices which were poorly designed - a measuring scoop which was not transparent making it extremely tough to see the level up to which the content was filled. The redesign was simple - making the cup transparent and adding different level markers.
I was especially excited to learn about typography and was one of the things I loved working on. The assignment related to typography was to typeset an announcement using any scale, weight, location, orientation, and grouping.
The final week was about designing experiments for usability feedback. I got key insights into how the interview process needs to be designed. The course made me realize the ubiquitously growing relevance of HCI and was a great experience.