So, by the title you can tell how surprising it is that we're near the end of term already. It really just feels like yesterday when we starting discussing interactive designs and user experience. I still remember some of the really cool example that Velian talked about in class. How we all went from calling it 'sickkk' to analysing its efficiency and aesthetics.
We definitely covered a lot of material that I wasn't really expecting just by the name of this course. The few outlines we had as goals for this course included coming up with creative solutions to design problems, learning to understand and anticipate user needs and of course critically evaluating user experience.
Assignment 1 allowed us fresh insight into what goes on behind the scenes in trying to design an efficient product. It allowed us to be creative and innovative with Project Jacquard. It really helped integrate our learning material into practical use.
Furthermore, assignment 2 really taught us to critically evaluate a technical website like MarkUs. It was really interesting how we had already sort of learnt to look at things from a technical perspective. It went from viewing MarkUs just as a simple tool to fully comprehending how much detail it requires to build a fully functioning system like it. From catching certain glitches in design to being critical of its implementation designs it was definitely a learning experience.
One of the most helpful things throughout the semester was definitely the research based lectures. I personally find myself definitely tilting toward research in the future and while there was definitely certain information like Week 2 and the basics that was a little repetitive from other Cognitive Science and Psychology course where I've already done research before, it was nonetheless still informative. I particularly liked discussing research methods and very clear cut instructions on how to structure it. Its usually not this detailed in most courses and this was an eye-opener. It allowed me to take things one step at a time and evaluate each step before moving on.
The overall project for this course is of course a big part of that learning experience. Writing research essays for other courses is always interesting but actually formulating our own problem space in detail and then step by step analysing the solution for it was far more challenging and satisfying to complete.
The lecture for Usability and Goodwill were really interesting too since some of the things seem obvious enough but considering there are still are some awful designs out there it made for an interesting lecture.
Like mentioned earlier, there was a lot of overlap with other cognitive psychology courses and some of the experiments and models we discussed in class definitely seemed a little redundant to me, but I could appreciate seeing them in a new context and light especially relating it in detail to technology and how some of these researches help us design better products.
Last but not the least, I have to appreciate these blog posts. When Velian first mentioned it, I was rolling my eyes, expecting the blogs that we had to do in 1st and 2nd year for some of the programming courses where it was solely focused on discussing class material. That can get tedious and mostly just feels like work. This however was a brilliant idea and honestly so much fun.
It was really really cool how it was basically effortless especially with facebook and youtube always having so many innovative new projects being publicized. It was very informative and educational trying to evaluate them with a critical eye now.
All in all, I'd 100% recommend this course especially for anyone interested in HCI or even Cognitive Science. Shoutout to all the TAs and Velian for doing a great job!
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