Undergraduate · Studio · 4 credits
Interaction Design
Designing for human experience — from paper to screen
PREREQUISITES
Graphic Design 1 or instructor permission
OFFERED
even spring
LEVEL
300-level
A studio course examining how people interact with designed experiences across physical objects, games, environments, and digital interfaces. Every project begins with analog making before moving to digital tools. Students collect data, test with real users, and iterate based on evidence. This course fulfills the university's Quantitative Reasoning requirement.
Syllabus
Key information — full syllabus available as PDF
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Design interactive experiences across multiple media: physical, game-based, and digital
Apply principles of human-centered design, usability, and interaction — Norman, Sanders & Stappers, Putnam
Prototype iteratively from low-fidelity (paper, cardboard) to high-fidelity (digital) formats
Conduct user research using qualitative methods (interviews, observation) and quantitative methods (usability testing, statistical analysis)
Test designs with real users and collect quantitative usability data
Analyze usability metrics statistically: success rates, task times, error rates, improvement percentages
Create effective data visualizations to communicate research findings
Make evidence-based design decisions supported by quantitative analysis
Understand affordances, signifiers, and mental models as design tools
Present work professionally with data-driven rationale
Document design process comprehensively in a process book
STRUCTURE
3 major projects, sequenced from physical to game-based to community-centered
All projects begin with analog making — paper engineering, hand-built components, physical prototyping — before any digital work
Each project includes structured user testing, data collection, and evidence-based iteration
Quantitative Reasoning (QR) is embedded throughout: approximately 30% of course time is dedicated to QR activities - Process book maintained throughout the semester
Small assignments scaffold each project
Mid-semester and final critiques
ASSESSMENT
Ungraded — students propose their own final grades
Weekly reflections throughout the semester
Mid-semester grade discussion (Week 8)
End-of-semester comprehensive self-assessment
Process book submitted as primary evidence of growth and learning
TEEXTBOOKS
Recommended: Norman, Donald — The Design of Everyday Things (Revised Edition), Basic Books, 2013
Selected readings from Tufte, Edward — The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Selected readings from Lazar, Feng & Hochheiser
Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction
Additional articles and excerpts distributed via course management system.
Projects
Major projects per semester:
ID Project 1: Pop-Up Book
Students design and construct an original pop-up book in which physical interaction is essential to the meaning. Paper mechanisms — V-folds, pull-tabs, rotating disks, lift-the-flaps — become the vocabulary of a designed experience. The project introduces fundamental principles of interaction design: cause and effect, feedback, affordance, and user agency — all through paper.
ID Project 2: Game Design
Students design a complete tabletop game about a real-world issue — a social, political, ecological, or human rights problem that exists in the world. The game must do more than entertain: it must shift a perspective, surface an assumption, or put players inside a system they would not otherwise enter. Two rounds of structured playtesting produce quantitative data that drives iteration from version 1 to version 2.
ID Project 3: Design for Community Resilience
Students identify a real community need related to current social conditions — food access, housing navigation, language barriers, mutual aid coordination — and design an artifact to address it. The medium is not predetermined: an app is not assumed. Research determines form. The project culminates in a studio exhibition where students present their process and findings as a design case study.
ID Project 4: Final - Comprehensive Process Book
A curated, designed document that tells the complete story of the semester — research, process, iteration, data, and honest self-reflection across all three projects. Submitted during finals week and used as the primary evidence in a student-led grade conference.
Course Overview
- Interaction design is not a screen discipline, instead, it is a human discipline. How we hold a cup, turn a door handle, move through a physical space, respond to a game mechanic, and navigate a crisis are all interaction design problems. This course takes that premise seriously. It begins with paper and cardboard, moves through tabletop game design, and arrives at digital and physical community-centered design. The screen is one context among many instead of the default.
I have taught versions of this course — under titles including UX/UI design, web design, and interaction design — at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Northwest Missouri State University, and Buena Vista University. My MFA focused on game design and the interactions people have with designed objects and environments. My first job was as a web designer in the 90s. That research foundation shapes every project in this course: interaction is always about the relationship between a person and a system, whether that system is a paper mechanism, a set of game rules, or a community resource network.
These projects were designed in direct response to the current cultural moment — the advent of AI-generated design. Each project in this course requires something a prompt cannot produce: physical making, iterative testing with real people, and design decisions grounded in embodied experience and measurable evidence. The pop-up book must be held and opened. The game must be played at a table with other humans. The community resilience artifact must be tested with real community members whose real needs shape what the design becomes. These are not nostalgic choices, they are a deliberate argument about what design is and who makes it.
Quantitative Reasoning (QR) is embedded throughout the course as both a formal institutional requirement and a genuine design methodology. Approximately 30% of course time is dedicated to QR activities. Students collect user-testing data, calculate improvement percentages between design versions, analyze probability mechanics, create data visualizations, and make design decisions supported by measurable evidence. The QR thread is most intensive in Project 2, where game mechanics require probability analysis and two rounds of structured playtesting produce a statistical comparison between version 1 and version 2. Design intuition and quantitative evidence are not opposites in this course — they are partners.
Course Reflection
- The central argument of this course is simple and has significant implications: before you can design for human experience, you have to understand what human experience is. That understanding does not come from looking at screens. It comes from making things with your hands, testing them with real people, watching what breaks or fails, and making them again, and testing again. This iterative process is paramount to designing for and with people.
Donald Norman's framework of affordances and signifiers, which is the way designed objects communicate their own use without instruction, is the theoretical foundation of the course. A door handle that affords pulling when it should be pushed has failed as a design. A pop-up mechanism that requires explanation has failed as an interaction. A game rule that no one understands after reading it twice has failed as communication. These failures are legible because they can be observed, measured, and corrected. That is what this course teaches students to do. I have taught web design many times, and have always considered the best methods to step into web or UX design so that the students truly understand interactive experiences. Game design naturally flows into screen-based interactions, as the rules and affordances are designed implicitly in a game, whereas assumed on the screen. The lessons in game design lead into screen-based interactions. However, pop-up books represent a novel approach, offering a unique learning experience that complements digital design by emphasizing physical interaction, analog creation, and tactile engagement. This shift in perspective fosters creativity and problem-solving skills applicable across various design domains.
The analog-first methodology is the real work of creation, leading to faster design solutions. The pop-up book teaches cause-and-effect, feedback, and affordance through paper mechanisms that students build, test, break, and rebuild. What I observed in the first semester with this project was striking: students who made a sampler book (testing and trying multiple mechanisms before committing to their final design) produced work that was significantly more resolved than students who moved directly to construction. The iterative process, built into the brief as a requirement, produced better work. That finding carries through every project in the course and is itself a lesson about interaction design: systems that are tested with real users and revised based on evidence are better than systems designed in isolation. The student comments are a testimony to the strength of the analog-first approach.
The game design project is where the Quantitative Reasoning requirement becomes most intensive and most meaningful. Students design a tabletop game about a real-world issue, playtest it twice, collect data on play time, rules clarity, and enjoyment ratings, and calculate improvement percentages between version 1 and version 2. The data drives the design decisions. Students who discover through their playtest data that players ask an average of seven rules clarification questions per session understand something about clarity of design better than a lecture can demonstrate. The numbers are evidence of real human experience, which leads to better design information.
The community resilience project asks students to identify a real community need, conduct primary research with real community members, build and test a prototype, and iterate based on evidence. Research determines the appropriate form. Human-centered design means that the medium must serve the community and an app or website may not be the best solution. Students must justify their medium choice through research. A student who chooses to design a printed resource map rather than a mobile app because their research showed that the community they are designing for has low smartphone ownership has learned something essential about design: that the most sophisticated solution is not always the most appropriate one. Victor Papanek's argument, that designers have a moral responsibility to design for real human need rather than for the marketplace alone, is the ethical framework of this project and of the course.
These projects were designed with AI explicitly in mind. In a moment when prompts can generate logos, layouts, and interface mockups on demand, this course asks students to do the things AI cannot. Students build physical objects, test them with people, sit with community members and listen to what they need, make design decisions that are grounded in evidence rather than generated from pattern-matching. This is a forward-looking position rather than reactionary. The designers who will matter in the next decade are not the ones who can operate AI tools most efficiently — they are the designers who understand human experience deeply enough to know when those tools are appropriate and when they are not.
Selected Student Self-Reflections
"Another major takeaway from these projects is how much I have grown in understanding design as a combination of creativity and logic. I did not expect to use mathematical thinking so often in a graphic design class, but it became essential in both the pop-up book and game design. Whether it was calculating spacing, balancing systems, or testing interactions, I realized that design often depends on invisible structures that support the visible outcome. As I move toward my senior graphic design capstone, I see these three projects as the foundation of my work moving forward. They each represent a different part of my design identity: storytelling and emotional narrative in the pop-up book, systems and interaction design in the tabletop game, and community-focused UX/UI design in the farming project. For my capstone, I want to continue building on these strengths by creating work that combines all three areas. I am interested in developing projects that are not only visually engaging but also interactive, educational, and socially relevant." - QB, 2026
"This semester helped me understand interaction design in a much more practical way. At the beginning, I mainly thought design was about making things look good, but over time I learned that good design is mostly about how users interact with it. Through my three projects, I practiced user research, prototyping, testing, and improving my work based on feedback. ... Some of my biggest learning moments came from seeing how much user testing can change a design. I realized that small changes, like clearer labels or better navigation, can greatly improve user performance and satisfaction. I also learned that users do not always think the way designers expect, so testing is important instead of assuming what will work. One of the most important shifts in my thinking was moving from focusing on visuals first to focusing on user experience first. ... Paper prototyping was very helpful for my learning. It showed me that I do not need perfect visuals to test ideas. Users were still able to give useful feedback even with simple sketches. It also helped me quickly see problems in navigation and flow that I might not have noticed in digital designs. Because of this, I understand why analog prototyping is an important first step in the design process, and I would continue using it in the future." - JJ, 2026
"This entire class allowed me to experiment with what I was able to do with my design, and that is one of the things I excelled at throughout the class. That experimentation was also something that I was able to consistantly do, and I was able to use that experimentation to constantly improve my designs beyond what I would have been able to do beforehand... I enjoyed my time with this class, and a large part of it was the analog side of the design. It was far more difficult than working digitally, and was far messier, but it resulted in me stepping out of my creative comfort zone, and resulted in some of my favorite work I’ve ever made. I will certainly continue to use physical prototyping in my future works wherever I can, especially since I plan on making more games in the future...This class has been hugely enjoyable, and I am a better designer for it. I want to thank you once again for giving me the opportunity to learn from you." - SG, 2026
"This semester i have been pushed to do what i have learned is one of the hardest tasks a person can take on: play. Playing with my hands, with real tangible supplies, with markers, with glitter, with paper and scissors and glue sticks!! Who knew you could learn so much from reverting back to an elementary art class. I found the little artist i used to be, before i was afraid of messing up. Before my dad told me I shouldn’t be showing people my drawings until they’re actually good. Before my mom told me I was using the wrong colors and going too far outside the lines. I got to hang out with the girl who loved sketching before she learned to make line art on Illustrator, who loved to color before she had studied the color wheel and memorized hex codes. And it turns out, she is a much better artist than she gives herself credit for.
I feel like this semester I have shifted from viewing myself as a designer who loves art but isn’t artsy myself to an artist with a passion for creating digital media. A very wise woman once told me, “Designers are more than just decorators.” This semester, I learned what that actually means to me, and how I can carry that forward into my future projects and career. I am officially declaring myself an analog warrior, and it is now my mission to find a way to sneak physical mediums into every piece of art I create going forward. Overall, the move to analog has revealed some of my greatest strengths as a designer. I love texture, I love intrigue, I love a piece that has a lot to see and enough to keep people looking and finding new details. this semester i learned. a lot. i really truly grew as an artist, a student, and a person. so really, i achieved the goal of schooling. and no matter what letter grade this semester culminates to, i am proud that i am ending more knowledgable than i started. i would never be able to say that without your endless reasurance and mentorship, so thank you so much miranda. have a wonderful summer, i’m so grateful i still have a whole year of learning from you to go :)" R.E., 2026