IO3010-18 -Designing Connected Experiences

IO3010 focuses on how to conceptualize, design and evaluate thoughtful and engaging interactions across an ecosystem of connected devices. In order to be able to participate successfully in this course, students should already have a basic knowledge of product design, interaction design, and tools for prototyping.

Networked thermostats, fitness monitors, and door locks show that the Internet of Things can (and will) enable new ways for people to interact with the world around them. But designing for user experience in a highly connected world brings new challenges beyond conventional interaction design. It requires understanding the complex web of human practices, artefacts, environments, technology platforms, data and cloud services that give form to our connected everyday. This means moving away from apps and screens only, and working with interactions across multiple devices (where even the most mundane object, like a pill dispenser, can become ‘smart’).

At the end of this course you will be able to:
1. Identify, describe and summarize existing examples of cross media interaction design;
2. Rapidly generate, evaluate and revise ideas for cross media interaction design;
3. Design a thoughtful and engaging interaction and user experience across an ecosystem of connected devices;
4. Identify ways to stakeholder value by maximizing the joint outcomes of the cross media interaction design;
5. Assess how to design responsibly in a connected world;
6. Communicate the results of a cross media interaction design process effectively. 

The course is based on principles of lean thinking and iterative prototyping. Each main iteration in the course is intended as a quick feedback loop in which students figure out the problem to be solved, ask simple questions to study the problem from different perspectives, and understand when it is time to make a course correction.

Students are also encouraged to reflect on how to design responsibly in a connected world, by bringing social and ethical considerations to bear on how the ecosystem of connected devices is designed.