On Thursday 20 March 2008 15:47:12 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > A question for experienced Interaction Designers:
A forewarning, I think I'm more academic than professional and I had a few years experience before going through my program, so not everyone in my program would have the same opinion as me. I got an M.S. in Interaction Design and Information Architecture from the University of Baltimore (iat.ubalt.edu) > what academic courses have proven to be the most valuable in providing you > with the conceptual and practical skills to succeed at your profession?? *Sequential Visualization and Analysis* Teaches students to use sequential visual narratives -- story boards, flowcharts, prototypes, and simulations -- as analysis tools for the development of information systems. The course draws on theoretical approaches to film as well as other forms of visual storytelling including animation, illustration, and comics. Through a series of practical analytical and creative projects, students learn to apply story boards and limited multimedia prototypes both to interface design and to content development. This was one of the more primary classes, but I feel like the creative projects exercised critical thinking skills more so than other classes. We were asked to solve problems outside the webpage world which I think is valuable for those who have never worked on products outside the browser. *Humans Computers and Cognition* Introduces students to concepts, theories, and methods drawn from the fields of cognitive psychology and human-computer interaction that support user-centered system design. Issues relating to problem solving, knowledge representation, structure of knowledge systems, and problems of interface design are emphasized. This course prepares students to understand and analyze research based on empirical study of human behavior and on models of learning and understanding. I particularly liked the assignments: after every reading (case study/research paper) we had to write a position paper and include outside research to support it. A good exercise in critical thinking and literature review. I blame the inner geek for loving this class because I think it is the least favorite in the program. > what academic courses were not valuable? *Information Architecture* Teaches students to gather requirements data, model information structures, and develop a variety of documents to communicate the information architecture to other participants, including technical experts, usability experts, clients, and users. Students learn to determine a target audience, develop personas or user profiles, refine and validate requirements, create site maps, functional specifications, wireframes, etc. This class was a little disappointing to me. I think I was expecting a more Library Science approach to the topic, while it was very applied and practical. Since I had some experience already and was currently working, the entire semester was just a drawn-out client project. *Research Methods for Interaction Design* Introduces user research methods such as contextual inquiry, ethnographic field studies, card sorting, image collaging, and usability testing that provide the foundation for user-centered interaction design. Personally, I was expecting something to learn how to formulate research questions and create a research plan, especially for difficult to test products. Instead, it was very applied -- which was good practice for students who had never done those activities before -- but not as useful for those who had experience implementing a research design and wanted to learn how to create the research design. I learned more about research methods in my other classes (we did cognitive interviews, user testing and field research in some of my other classes). > Your guidance may help the next generation of students tailor their degree > programs more accurately.? My program had a mix of people who had previous experience and were new to IxD/IA. As a result, I think it effected the class stress level by being too hard for newbies and not challenging enough for experienced professionals. The classes which had the biggest impression on me were ones who still manages to challenge and exercise critical thinking skills outside of a skill performance level. I think I tended to favor the theoretical classes while the student body as a whole liked the more practical and applied classes. In the end, I think that is the goal decision of the department on how they want to approach the subject: churn out researchers or churn out professionals. ~ Celeste -- Celeste 'seele' Paul www.obso1337.org ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
