Self-Taught UX Curriculum

Introduction

Week 1 – UX Primer

A User Experience Primer (What is interaction design?) & Human Centred Design (HCD) Case Study 

Readings: 

  • The Design of Everyday Things (Don Norman, 2013) – Ch.1 “The Psychopathology of Everyday Things” ✅
  • What Is Interaction? Are There Different Types? (Dubberly et al., 2009)
  • – Interaction Design: Beyond Human ✅\Computer Interaction (Preece et al., 2015) – Ch. 1 “What is Interaction Design?” ✅
  • The frontier of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Bloomberg – These Devices Let you hear through your skin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=285Jg0WN2yo) ✅

Lectures (~3hrs videos)

Tutorial Activity 1: Human Centred Design (HCD) Case Study

  • Activity: Create a list of good and bad examples from your life of interactive designs that you use everyday. Use Normans fundamental interaction principles (Affordances, Signifiers, Mappings, Feedback, and Conceptual Models) to break-down how we interact with these everyday things. 

Week 2 – What is it?

(UX) “How Do You… Do / Feel / Know?” + Industry benchmarking (Thought leaders, Good & bad portfolios, Companies)

Readings: – The Design of Everyday Things (Don Norman, 2013) – Ch.2 “The Psychology of Everyday Actions”- What Is Human Centred Design? (Giacomin, 2014)- Watch – How Do We… Bill Verplank interview (Moggridge, 2007).6 ( https://vimeo.com/83683447) + https://www.ideo.com/post/designing-interactions-

Chapter 2 of Designing Interactive Systems (Benyon, 2013).

Lectures: Course 2: Foundations of User Experience Design – Google UX Course– Week 4: Building a professional presence (26mins)

————————————–Whats the process? – Tools & Techniques Week 3 – (UX) User experience design process (User testing, feedback , and prototypes) Assignment task 1: Blog post and imagery showcasing critical thoughtReadings:– Human-Computer Interaction: Development Process (Sears and Jacko, 2009) – Ch. 7 Prototyping Tools and Techniques– The Design of Everyday Things (Don Norman, 2013) – Ch.6 “Design Thinking”– The Bleeps, The Sweeps, and the Creeps! (Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast, 2017 (https://www.20k.org/episodes/the-bleeps-the-sweeps-and-the-creeps)– Watch: Introduction to Figma  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx2dkpBxst8
UX Case Studies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kodg6tBRsPAhttps://www.uxportfolioformula.com/how-to-write-a-ux-case-study/http://simonpan.com/work/uber/
Lectures: Course 1: Introduction to User Experience Design – Georgia Institute of Technology– Week 3: Designing Alternatives (15mins) – Week 4: Prototyping (35mins) – Week 5: Evaluation (27 mins)  

Assignment task 2: UI Case Study – Uber, AirBnb, Spotify 

————————————–Week 4 – Whats the process? – Data Gathering Readings: 

Lectures: Course 3: Start the UX Design Process: Empathize, Define, and Ideate – Google UX Course– Week 1: Integrating research into the design process (34mins) – Week 2: Empathising with users and defining pain points (15mins) 
Course 2: Foundations of User Experience Design – Google UX Course– Week 3: Joining design sprints (26mins) 

Week 5 – UI DesignReadings: Lectures: 
Week 6 – Networking Readings: Lectures: 
Week 7 Readings: Lectures: 
Week 8 Readings: Lectures: 
Week 9 Readings: Lectures: 
Week 10 Readings: Lectures: 
Week 11 Readings: Lectures: 
Week 12 – Portfolio Readings: Lectures: 
Notes: Google UX courses https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/google-ux-design#courses

The Design of Everyday Things, 2013 edition by Don Norman

Text Books:

Interaction Design by Jennifer Preece, Helen Sharp and Yvonne Rogers (in alphabetical order). There are four editions of this book. I believe any of the editions are a good purchase. This is the book I use in my undergraduate college course.

Human Computer Interaction, 2004 by Dix, Finlay, Abowd & Beale. This is an advance text book.

Understanding Your Users, 2015 edition by Baxter, Courage & Caine. I really like this book because it does what it claims, provides a “practical guide to User Research Methods.”