Office: Huntington 271. Rm 241
Office Hours: By appointment
Email: c.ledantec@northeastern.edu
Class Meetings: Mondays, 1:35–5:05PM
Location: Ryder Hall 236C
Course Description
Experience design is a holistic approach that investigates the human experience in specific situations in order to improve its quality. This course offers an opportunity to learn a human-centered design perspective and develop experience design competency in the complex context of civic interactions. We will investigate the individual and collective civic experience of preparing for, living through, and working to confront precarity, displacement, and disenfranchisement. Through a combination of readings, short design assignments, and a semester-long studio project, we will use design research methods to probe issues of access, adoption, identity, privacy, and participation as they relate to addressing present and complex social issues.
The readings will draw on a diverse body of literature, including perspectives from anthropology, sociology, design studies, human-centered computing, and science and technology studies. Students will be expected to participate in class discussions create compelling experience design projects, and contribute to design critique and discourse.
Course Objectives
This class is designed to help students develop and use critical thinking skills and evaluation techniques necessary to solve real-world problems in Human-Centered Computing, Design, and related fields.
Learning outcomes:
- Demonstrate knowledge, comprehension, and application of the theories and methods presented in the readings.
- Ability to explain human-centered design principles and demonstrate their understanding of the key concepts discussed in the class.
- Be conversant with a range of models and tools that are used for experience design, and be able to apply them to specific design phases.
- Able to conduct ethnographic user research, analyze the findings, and identify the design opportunities.
- Students are able to identify and work with project client/partner to develop requirements, use cases, and evaluation criteria.
- Student are able to design and create digital artifacts that effectively address the requirements, use cases, and evaluation criteria established by client/partner.
Grading
The total grade for the class will be based upon the following factors and weights:
| Participation | 10% |
| Reading Discussant | 20% |
| Design Provocations | 30% |
| Project | 40% |
Late Work
I do not accept late work except in rare instances where arrangements were made ahead of time.
Participation
Class attendance and participation is mandatory. Participation in discussion is imperative because it allows you to explore content and design process collaboratively. Participation in class also challenges you to continuously question, refine, and articulate your own ideas and interpretations.
You have 2 no-questions-asked absences. More than 2 will result in the loss of a 1 letter grade for the class.
Reading Discussant
To help drive discussion and engagement with the readings, each week 2-3 students will be assigned as Reading Discussants. Your responsibility will be to engaged more deeply with the readings that week, develop a set of questions, and to facilitate class discussion.
Design Provocations
Each design provocation will follow the same general pattern. The first deliverable will include six prototype sketches. These will be presented in-class for critique and discussion and handed in. The second (revision) part of each assignment will have you focus your attention on one of your prototypes where you will more fully develop the ideas, taking into account feedback from the critique, and deliver a refined and higher fidelity prototype.
In the first part of each assignment I will be looking for breadth: you will need to present several different ideas that approach the theme from different angles, that play off different constraints, and that challenge and interrogate our notions of mobility with respect to the theme.
In the second part of each assignment, I will be looking for depth: you will need to thoroughly expanded the initial ideas, developing a plausible scenario more thoroughly, providing more depth to the experience and to what the system or application or device would look like. As you select the one or two ideas to further develop, the fidelity should go up—more detail in the mockups, more complete narrative arcs in storyboards, etc.
Design provocations are just that, provocative ways to think through complex social and technical situations. I do not expect working (or near working) systems; I also do not expect you to be fully constrained by current technical limitations. Use these assignments to critically explore ideas by providing a prototype ‘how’ to a speculative ‘what if?’
Each assignment will be centered around a particular theme that should be used as a launching point for the prototypes:
Identity: Notions of self, privacy, safety, individual/collective.
Location: Place/space, environment, boundaries, context, time/temporality.
Participation: Who uses/does not use the technology, consequences of use, inclusion, exclusion.
Design Project
For the semester Design Project, you will design an interactive prototype (system, artifact, service) that further explores the themes of the course. The scope and fidelity of your system will far exceed that of the design provocations. It must demonstrate how your system would work, showing purpose and attention to detail in its execution.
More details about the project will be shared as the semester progresses.
Course Schedule
What follows is an outline for the semester. As the semester progresses, we may adjust dates and materials.
| Week 1 | Introduction & Administrivia
Introductions, Readings, Provocations, Project.
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| Week 2 | Digital/Smart/Civics/Cities
Jennifer Manuel and Clara Crivellaro. 2020. Place-Based Policymaking and HCI: Opportunities and Challenges for Technology Design. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376158 Gordon, E., & Lopez, R. (2019). The Practice of Civic Tech: Tensions in the Adoption and Use of New Technologies in Community Based Organizations. Media and Communication, 7(3), 57-68. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v7i3.2180 Kristine Lu. 2021. Designing Democratic Systems for Civic Collective Action. In Companion Publication of the 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 270–274. https://doi.org/10.1145/3462204.3481792 +Design Provocation #1 Start |
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| Week 3 | MLK Day
No class.
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| Week 4 | Food Systems as Civic Systems
Rosemary Steup, Arvind Santhanam, Marisa Logan, Lynn Dombrowski, and Norman Makoto Su. 2018. Growing Tiny Publics: Small Farmers’ Social Movement Strategies. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 2, CSCW, Article 165 (November 2018), 24 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274434 Sebastian Prost, Clara Crivellaro, Andy Haddon, and Rob Comber. 2018. Food Democracy in the Making: Designing with Local Food Networks. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 333, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173907 Katie Berns, Chiara Rossitto, and Jakob Tholander. 2021. Queuing for Waste: Sociotechnical Interactions within a Food Sharing Community. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 301, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445059 +Design Provocation #1 Crit / Final Due Friday |
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| Week 5 | Surveillance
Philip E. Agre (1994) Surveillance and capture: Two models of privacy. The Information Society, 10:2, 101-127, https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.1994.9960162 Roger Clarke. (1988) Information technology and dataveillance. Commun. ACM 31, 5 (May 1988), 498–512. https://doi.org/10.1145/42411.42413 Emily Troshynski, Charlotte Lee, and Paul Dourish. 2008. Accountabilities of presence: reframing location-based systems. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’08). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 487–496. https://doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357133 +Design Provocation #2 Crit / Final Due Friday |
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| Week 6 | Values in Design
Verbeek, P.-P. (2006). Materializing Morality: Design Ethics and Technological Mediation. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 31(3), 361–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243905285847 JafariNaimi, N., Nathan, L., & Hargraves, I. (2015). Values as Hypotheses: Design, Inquiry, and the Service of Values. Design Issues, 31(4), 91–104. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43830434 Amy Voida, Lynn Dombrowski, Gillian R. Hayes, and Melissa Mazmanian. 2014. Shared values/conflicting logics: working around e-government systems. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 3583–3592. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2556971 +Design Provocation #3 Crit / Final Due Friday Data Ethics, Part 1 |
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| Week 7 | Networks
Mandarano, L., Meenar, M., & Steins, C. (2010). Building Social Capital in the Digital Age of Civic Engagement. Journal of Planning Literature, 25(2), 123–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412210394102 W. Lance Bennett & Alexandra Segerberg (2012) The Logic of Connective Action Information, Communication & Society, 15:5, 739-768, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.670661 Larsen, L., Harlan, S. L., Bolin, B., Hackett, E. J., Hope, D., Kirby, A., Nelson, A., Rex, T. R., & Wolf, S. (2004). Bonding and Bridging: Understanding the Relationship between Social Capital and Civic Action. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 24(1), 64–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X04267181 +Design Project Start |
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| Week 8 | President’s Day
No class.
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| Week 9 | Methods
Lynn Dombrowski, Ellie Harmon, and Sarah Fox. 2016. Social Justice-Oriented Interaction Design: Outlining Key Design Strategies and Commitments. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 656–671. https://doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901861 Christina Harrington, Sheena Erete, and Anne Marie Piper. 2019. Deconstructing Community-Based Collaborative Design: Towards More Equitable Participatory Design Engagements. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 3, CSCW, Article 216 (November 2019), 25 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3359318 Christopher A. Le Dantec and Sarah Fox. 2015. Strangers at the Gate: Gaining Access, Building Rapport, and Co-Constructing Community-Based Research. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW ’15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1348–1358. https://doi.org/10.1145/2675133.2675147 +Design Project Crit |
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| Week 10 | Spring Break!
No class.
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| Week 11 | Data / Justice
Dencik, L., Hintz, A., & Cable, J. (2016). Towards data justice? The ambiguity of anti-surveillance resistance in political activism. Big Data & Society, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951716679678 Anna Lauren Hoffmann (2019) Where fairness fails: data, algorithms, and the limits of antidiscrimination discourse. Information, Communication & Society, 22:7, 900-915, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1573912 Rashida Richardson and Eric Corbett. 2022. Racial segregation and data-driven society. interactions 29, 3 (May – June 2022), 28–31. https://doi.org/10.1145/3529389 +Design Project Crit Data Ethics, Part 2 |
Week 12 | alt.civics
Christine T. Wolf, Mariam Asad, and Lynn S. Dombrowski. 2022. Designing within Capitalism. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 439–453. https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3533559 Vasillis Vlachokyriakos, Clara Crivellaro, Pete Wright, Evika Karamagioli, Eleni-Revekka Staiou, Dimitris Gouscos, Rowan Thorpe, Antonio Krüger, Johannes Schöning, Matt Jones, Shaun Lawson, and Patrick Olivier. 2017. HCI, Solidarity Movements and the Solidarity Economy. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 3126–3137. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025490 Mariam Asad. 2019. Prefigurative Design as a Method for Research Justice. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 3, CSCW, Article 200 (November 2019), 18 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3359302 +Design Project Crit |
| Week 13 | Open Studio
+Design Project Crit |
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| Week 14 | Open Studio
+Design Project Crit |
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| Week 15 | Final Presentations
Schedule TBD.
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General Class Policies
Students whose work meets all criteria outlined for an assignment will receive a grade of C; students whose work meets all criteria and shows additional sophistication, thoughtfulness, research, and creativity will receive a grade of B; students whose work meets all criteria and goes well beyond the expected in terms of sophistication, thoughtfulness, research, and creativity will receive a grade of A; students whose work fails to meet to all criteria outlined for an assignment will receive a grade of D or F.
Two points will be deducted for all typographic, spelling, and grammatical errors in all writing assignments.
Late assignments will not be accepted. Presentations must be given on the designated day.
Lectures or in-class materials will not be posted. It is your responsibility to take notes and remain attentive in class.
If you have questions or concerns about this or any other course policies stated in this syllabus, class assignments, email correspondence, or announced in class, please speak with me in class, during office hours, or via email as soon as possible so that we can discuss your concerns.
Debate, Diversity, and Respect
In this class, we will present and discuss a diversity of perspectives. Although you may not always agree with others’ perspectives, you are required to be respectful of others’ values and beliefs. Repeated inappropriate or abusive comments and/or behavior will be cause for disciplinary action. If you feel that your perspectives are being ignored or slighted, or you in anyway feel uncomfortable in the classroom, please contact me immediately.
The Writing Center
The Northeastern University Writing Center – part of the Writing Program and Department of English in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities – is open to students, staff, faculty, and alumni of Northeastern and exists to help writers at any level, and from any academic discipline, in their written communication.
For information on making an appointment please visit their website.
Students with Disabilities
Students who have disabilities may wish to consult the Disability Resource Center for aid with resources and accommodation. Those who wish to receive academic services and accommodations must present the accommodation letters from the DRC to their instructors at the beginning of the semester so that accommodations can be arranged in a timely manner.
Language Support for Non-Native English Speakers
Global Student Success (GSS) supports the success of international students at Northeastern University. We offer services to students, faculty, and staff. For more information, visit their website.
Scholastic Dishonesty and Academic Misconduct
A commitment to the principles of academic integrity is essential to the mission of Northeastern University. The promotion of independent and original scholarship ensures that students derive the most from their educational experience and their pursuit of knowledge. Academic dishonesty violates the most fundamental values of an intellectual community and undermines the achievements of the entire University. The following is a broad overview, but not an all-encompassing definition, of what constitutes a violation of academic integrity:
- Cheating – using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in any academic exercise
- Fabrication – falsification, misrepresentation, or invention of any information, data, or citation in an academic exercise
- Plagiarism – using as one’s own the words, ideas, data, code, or other original academic material of another without providing proper citation or attribution
- Unauthorized collaboration – instances when students submit individual academic works that are substantially similar to one another. While several students may have the same source material, any analysis, interpretation, or reporting of data required by an assignment must be each individual’s independent work unless the instructor has explicitly granted group work
- Participation in academically dishonest activities – any action taken by a student with the intention of gaining an unfair advantage over other students
- Facilitating academic dishonesty – intentionally or knowingly helping or contributing to the violation of any provision of the University Academic Integrity Policy
For further details, see the complete Academic Integrity Policy.