Get Realistic! - UCD Course Design and Evaluation.

There is an increasing demand for software, suitable for large segments of users with different needs and competences. User-Centred Design (UCD) methods have been used in the software industry and taught to software developers to meet the various needs of users. The field of UCD covers a broad set of topics that can be covered in a range of courses with various content. In this paper we describe the design of a two-week course focusing on teaching UCD methods to students with various backgrounds that are useful for the students in the future. The course schedule included lectures and workshop activities where the lecturers taught UCD topics and coached the students in developing skills for using the selected UCD methods during the course to design and evaluate an interactive system. Additionally, we describe two types of course evaluations that we conducted: qualitative weekly evaluations and a post-course survey. The results show that students were in general positive about the course content and the combination of lectures and workshop activities. Hi-fi prototyping was the UCD method that the students rated as being most useful for the course and their future. They particularly liked how realistic these were for the users. The least useful method in the course and in the future was “Walking the Wall”, where students read an affinity diagram and make design suggestions. Finally, we suggest changes for a prospective course, based on the results of the evaluations.