Keywords: Human-center Design; UX Systems Thinking; Experience as Interface; Spatial and Embodied Interaction; Generative Behavior

How do people actually behave in a space or system, and how should that behavior shape interface and experience design decisions?
What changes when an interface moves off the screen and into physical space, movement, time, and social context?
How can research insights be translated into clear interaction logic across UI, spatial cues, and system behavior?
When should a system respond consistently, and when should it vary its behavior to support understanding, trust, or engagement?
How do design choices across screens, space, and systems work together to form a coherent experience over time?

Overview

This course introduces students to the principles and practices of experience design across screens, space, and systems. Students will learn how user experience (UX), interface design (UI), and experiential design (EX) work together to shape how people understand, navigate, and interact with designed environments.

Through lectures, studio exercises, and a semester-long team project, students apply human-centered research methods to observe behavior, identify needs, and inform design decisions. They translate research insights into interface design in Figma and experience prototypes using spatial and embodied techniques such as Wizard-of-Oz simulations. Emphasis is placed on clarity, usability, and meaning in experience design rather than technical implementation.

By framing experience itself as an interface, the course encourages students to think systemically about interaction as something that unfolds over time, space, and context. Students learn to connect research, design intent, and system behavior to create coherent, human-centered experiences that extend beyond a single screen or device.

Objectives

• Apply human-centered design methods to identify user needs, define experience goals, and inform design decisions.
• Design clear and usable 2D digital interfaces that demonstrate effective hierarchy, accessibility awareness, and visual communication principles.
• Translate interface logic into spatial or embodied interactions, using physical space, movement, and Wizard-of-Oz techniques to prototype experiences beyond the screen.
• Design and articulate simple generative behaviors, explaining how system responses influence user understanding, trust, and engagement.
• Integrate UX, UI, and experiential design into a coherent experience system that works across multiple modes of interaction.
• Collaborate effectively in interdisciplinary teams, contributing individual ideas and synthesizing them into shared design solutions.
• Communicate design intent and process clearly through sketches, prototypes, walkthroughs, and reflective documentation.

Course Materials

Lecture slides and materials provided in class.

Course Organization

Lecture + Lab