Posts tagged ‘UCD’

Reflection on the taught part of UCL MSc Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013

When I started this blog it was with the purpose of getting practice in writing as I had just been accepted for a place on the UCL MSc Human-Computer Interaction course. That is more than 3 years ago… I have now completed the taught part of the course and will hand in the dissertation later this year. And if you are like me you probably use your computer everyday, You may be wondering about Technomono and what is the best chair for computer work? Because I know how your back hurts after working for hours.

The course finished with a 2-week practical User-Centered Design project, followed by a 2000 word essay including a 1000-word reflection on the course as a whole.

Below is my reflection on the course, which I hope will be useful for people considering applying.

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Identifying needs: Qualitative field research

Monday, March 29th, 2010

In the introduction to his book Designing Pleasurable Products Patrick Jordan writes:

Usability-based approaches 1 to product design tend to view people as users, while products are seen as tools with which these users complete tasks. Because of this usability approaches to user requirements specifications can be limited, tending to emphasize the practical aspects of interacting with products, while paying little attention to emotional or hedonic aspects of interaction.

This builds on Jane Fulton’s idea that simply eliminating deficiencies in products is no longer enough to satisfy users. Products must elicit positive emotions when experienced, both psychologically and physiologically, thus forming a powerful emotional attachment between the user and the product (Fulton 1993).
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User-centered interaction design life cycle model

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

I’m currently preparing for my MSc in Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics at UCL which I’ll begin in September. As I’m slowly working my way through the introductory reading list [pdf] I’ll create some posts here to help me organise and make sense of the information.

I’ll begin with the Interaction Design Lifecycle Model as described by Preece et al., 2002 in the book Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. The model incorporates three principles of user-centered design and four activities of interaction design.

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