[gautambay]

The goal of this Learning Path is to list helpful resources into a curriculum that a motivated beginner can follow to learn the essentials of UX Design.

Designers of Hacker News, we'd love your help on 2 things:

1. We'd love your feedback on the curriculum itself. e.g. Do the topics and flow look right? Are the projects sufficient?

2. If you're a UX designer who loves to teach and mentor new professionals, I'd love to talk. We're planning a learning experiment that combines the power of the internet with one-on-one human contact.

[paulojreis]

Well, I can't find references/materials on Human-Computer Interaction.

It seems rather strange that there isn't a single reference to HCI in a UX curriculum. I know it may sound like the "hard"/science-y part, but HCI is fundamental - quite a few principles (such as Fitt's law or the 10 Nielsen & Molich heuristics) came from HCI research and stood the test of time - they're still valid, today. Usability testing was also built out of HCI research. Also: cognitive modeling, the focus on the user, and so on.

tl;dr: You should introduce HCI from the start. There's open courseware on the subject. You can't claim to know (or teach) the essentials of UX design without a good knowledge of HCI as a subject.

[seanmcdirmid]

HCI itself has little bearing on design even if the HCI community wished otherwise. Fitts' law came from the experimental psychology field...given that HCI didn't even exist in the 50s and 60s. Most of its lessons are codified into easy digest principles. Don't forget Hick's law, which is also useful when designing menus (also experimental psychology).

[paulojreis]

I can't agree with you. HCI has a lot of impact on design, in spite of not being acknowledged (or even known) by most of the practitioners. What the aspiring UX designers are reading (in Smashing Magazine & others) is, mostly, rephrasings of HCI knowledge.

Most UX methods and guidelines come from HCI (and HCI, of course, comes from other disciplines).

[seanmcdirmid]

I'm betting you are on the HCI side and not the design side right? I'm a researcher, I know lots of HCI researchers, I know lots of designers, and the overlap in what the two do is so is slight. Most work on HCI is at the test, measure level, very much a science, while design is a different method from science in its own right.

Is knowing some HCI useful for design? Sure, but necessary? The best designers I've worked with have none, while going from HCI to design requires a drastic shift in mindset. Keep in mind that HCI first and foremost is a computer science discipline practiced exclusively by computer scientists. Design is mostly practiced by those trained as designers, in design school by people who have never been remotely near HCI. They are definitely analytic, but are not data driven (well, google, and in the web world where engineers have taken over, but that's a new trend and not necessarily a lasting one), their method is design thinking rather than the scientific method.

[paulojreis]

> Most work on HCI is at the test, measure level, very much a science

Most work on HCI was at the measure level. If you follow HCI research, you may notice a trend: lots of publications based on ethnographic methods, qualitative approaches and the like. HCI (as in "HCI academic research") is, nowadays, much closer (methodologically) to design thinking than to experimental psychology.

> I'm betting you are on the HCI side and not the design side right?

I do both. I work in the industry (UI design, front-end dev, evaluation) and I'm a PhD student.

> Keep in mind that HCI first and foremost is a computer science discipline

I've the opposite opinion on this. From all the disciplines that "inform" HCI, CS would be the least important. But ...

> practiced exclusively by computer scientists.

I guess you're right on this, at least in the academia. I do have the impression that most HCI researchers have a CS background. But, at least in my country, this is mostly because CS departments have much more funding to hire researchers than the others.

[seanmcdirmid]

> lots of publications based on ethnographic methods, qualitative approaches and the like. HCI (as in "HCI academic research") is, nowadays, much closer (methodologically) to design thinking than to experimental psychology.

Just because HCI researchers are trying to do design doesn't mean they have mastered it yet. CHI also doesn't yet know how to handle work from real designers (vs. HCI researchers talking about what they think those designers should be doing). It is more of an aspiration for the community at this point; they haven't asserted much leadership in the field yet (in terms of practice).

> I do both. I work in the industry (UI design, front-end dev, evaluation) and I'm a PhD student.

Did you go to design school? Can you sketch? How about your storyboarding skills? What is your experience with color? Do you have a portfolio ready to show off at any moment? I know I sound harsh, and I'm not trying to say you aren't a real designer, but CS people who say they practice design rarely cross those lines above. I'm a CS researcher, not a designer, and my wife (visual/interaction designer, design school background) calls out my BS all the time.

> I guess you're right on this, at least in the academia. I do have the impression that most HCI researchers have a CS background. But, at least in my country, this is mostly because CS departments have much more funding to hire researchers than the others.

As far as I can tell, there is very little HCI content that is geared toward designers. Those HCI courses that pre-exist are all aimed at computer scientists; the designers in the meantime have their own programs (e.g. interaction design departments) that are quite separated from what the engineers are doing.

[nchlswu]

> Most UX methods and guidelines come from HCI (and HCI, of course, comes from other disciplines).

I don't think you can simplify it to HCI preceding UX or UCD methodologies.

As you point out, HCI of course comes from other disciplines and just like the field of UX, it's borrowed a lot. HCI, Human Factors, Psychology, etc., all borrow techniques from others (as you've acknowledged)and a lot of what they do has been developed in parallel.

A lot of UX and design methods were developed in parallel by designers with at traditional design background or others without formal research backgrounds. Despite UX being characterized as a science or more rigorous than traditional design, it is largely a pragmatic practice.

[rrrx3]

I agree somewhat, however I wouldn't place a large emphasis on it at the first section... maybe section 2 or 3. There are some parts that are valuable to keep in mind all the time from HCI, but I don't think the hard numerical science is really salient for most people looking to break into the field. Find the threshold of academia vs practical application and stay firmly in the latter when sharing course materials.

[gautambay]

Which parts of HCI do you think are the most important to include in a curriculum like this?

[rrrx3]

Fitt's law, Hicks' law. Accessibility for sure. Light Ergonomics, relating to the mediums (mobile and desktop, probably)

[seanmcdirmid]

Both Fitt's and Hicks' law were found in the 50s by experimental psychologists. They are hardly exclusive to HCI.

BTW, a good application of Hicks' law is in a book called "The psychology of menu selection: Designing cognitive control at the human/computer interface" (POMS) by Kent Norman. There is an online version:

http://lap.umd.edu/POMS/

[gautambay]

Thanks for the feedback. The author did include an HCI course in the extra recommended resources, right at the end. The challenge (I think) was that the HCI course on Coursera, at ~100 hrs of work, would be as long as the rest of the curriculum.

Are there topics within HCI that you think are more fundamental than others?

[paulojreis]

I think you could summarize, instead of focusing on specific topics.

- Introduce HCI as a discipline (multi/transdisciplinary origins);

- The Human (cognitive, social and motor aspects);

- The Computer (I/O devices and modalities, interface types);

- The relation (importance of context, tasks);

- Usability (what it is? Start with ISO 9241 definition - "The effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments". Refer also to e.g. Sharp, Rogers & Preece "usability objectives", mostly to introduce safety as part of usability);

- Guidelines (heuristics, design "rules");

- Introduce evaluation (testing/empirical vs. inspection/analytical; method examples and when to use which one; you may also introduce the usage physiological measures).

I may be missing something, but I think this would give a clear overview of the the field - what's at stake when you design interfaces.

[gautambay]

Thanks, super helpful!

[darushimo]

I'm a little confused--is the first video in the 3rd section ("intro to the design of everyday things") really an entire course? If so, i think the time-to-complete estimate (1 hr) should be changed...If it's not, it'd be great if the particular videos to be watched were noted.

[parul]

Seems like "Design of Everyday Things" is a really short course, with only 3 Chapters and each video of 1-2 minutes. The total video lecture time for the entire course could well be ~1 hour. The project (timebank) is what will take more time and the estimate for that in Section 3.3 is 8 hours.

[jdebari]

The course Design of Everyday Things is short. There are around 5 short videos is each of the three sections, but there are exercises too.