Building User Experience (UX) Capacity to Support Digital Transformation: A Case Study of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Full Paper
MacDonald, Villaespesa, Kingberg, Kisicki, and Jackson (2023)
To take full advantage of the potential offered by the digital space, museums and cultural institutions must be able to consistently apply User Experience (UX) methods to create enjoyable and understandable digital interfaces. Unfortunately, many of these organizations lack the resources and in-house expertise to consistently and effectively apply UX methods when designing (or re-designing) their digital products and related services. Our solution to this challenge is to engage in UX Capacity-Building (UXCB), a process through which any organization can gradually create a more UX-friendly culture and build a sustainable and effective internal UX practice. In this paper, we present a case study of implementing a UXCB initiative for Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, over a nine-month period. We provide a detailed description of our UXCB process, an analysis of how our work impacted the museum’s UX capacity, and reflections about the applicability of our model to other museums and cultural organizations.
EduCHI 2023: 5th Annual Symposium on HCI Education
Workshop/Symposium
Gray, C. M., MacDonald, C. M., Lallemand, C., Oleson, A., Carter, A. R. L., St-Cyr, O., and Pitt, C. (2023)
EduCHI 2023 will bring together an international community of scholars, practitioners, and researchers to shape the future of Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) education. Held as part of the CHI 2023 conference, the one-day symposium will feature interactive discussions about HCI educational research, pedagogical innovations, teaching practices, and current and future challenges facing HCI educators. In addition to providing a platform to share pedagogical strategies and continue to build a scholarly knowledge base for HCI education, EduCHI 2023 will also provide opportunities for HCI educators to learn new instructional strategies and deepen their pedagogical knowledge.
Developing a Faculty-Led, Student-Driven UX Consultancy and Research Lab to Support HCI Teaching and Learning
Full Paper
MacDonald, C. M., & Villaespesa, E. (2023)
Integrating real-world projects into courses has long been a common feature of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) education, as they are a proven method for building HCI students’ knowledge, skills, and confidence. However, the rapid growth of the User Experience (UX) profession has led to increased enrollment in practice-oriented HCI programs while simultaneously introducing a variety of specialties within the industry. As a result, educators are confronted with the unique challenges of (1) providing learning experiences that offer students practical experience with various design and research methods and (2) providing enough of those experiences to support increasingly large cohorts of students. In this paper, we describe one institution’s efforts to address these challenges by developing an education-focused research center devoted to coordinating and facilitating a variety of course-based partnerships for graduate-level UX students.
Editorial: Teaching and learning human–computer interaction (HCI): current and emerging practices
Commentary
MacDonald, C. M., Girouard, A., Granollers, T., Joshi, A., Kang, J., Kharrufa, A., & Slegers, K. (2023)
Human–computer interaction (HCI) is the academic discipline dedicated to understanding how humans interact with technology. Since technologies play such a prominent role in our daily lives, ensuring that they are designed to reflect the full spectrum of human abilities, skills, and experiences is more important than ever. Between higher education HCI courses and degrees and practitioner-oriented UX training programs, there are more opportunities than ever to teach and learn HCI, but HCI can be taught from various disciplinary perspectives at different academic levels, in different modalities, and in different institutional contexts. Therefore, for educators, what does it mean to teach HCI? For students, what are the most impactful and effective ways to learn HCI?
“It could be better. It could be much worse”: Understanding Accessibility in User Experience Practice with Implications for Industry and Education
Full Paper
Putnam, C., Rose, E. J., & MacDonald, C. M. (2023)
While accessibility is acknowledged as a crucial component in design, many technologies remain inaccessible for people with disabilities. As part of a study to better understand UX practice to inform pedagogy, we analyzed 58 interview sessions that included 65 senior user experience (UX) professionals and asked them “How do you consider accessibility in your work?” Using transitivity analysis from critical discourse analysis, our findings provide insight into the disparate practices of individuals and organizations. Key findings include the growing role of design systems to structurally address accessibility, and the range of organizational strategies, including dedicated teams. We also found that the categories of accessibility consideration were somewhat superficial and largely focused on vision-related challenges. Additionally, our findings support previous work that many practitioners did not feel their formal education adequately prepared them to address accessibility. We conclude with implications for education and industry, namely the importance of implementing and teaching design systems in human-computer interaction and computer-science programs.
Teaching Design Systems: Towards a flexible and scalable model for the UX classroom
Full Paper
Rose, E. J., MacDonald, C. M., & Putnam, C. (2022).
One of the most important emerging trends in the field of user experience (UX) is the creation and use of design systems, which are a collection of documented elements that embody an organization’s design rules and principles. While design systems are becoming ubiquitous among organizations, especially those with mature design practices, few academic programs teach students how to use or create them. In this experience report, we share details on how we incorporated design systems into assignments and courses in three different academic programs. In this experience report, we provide a definition of design systems and introduce a scalable and flexible model for teaching them. We reflect on our motivations, insights, and lessons learned from implementing this model.
Editor’s Message: Special Issue on Human-Computer Interaction
Commentary
St-Cyr, O., and MacDonald, C. M. (2022)
We are very pleased to welcome you to this special issue of EngageCSEdu Open Educational Resources (OERs) on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). HCI, as its name indicates, is the study of how humans interact with computer systems. Traditionally, HCI was known as the discipline focused on the design of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) for computer applications. Today, this view no longer holds. In fact, as many societies have moved toward advanced computerized technologies, more devices and systems are under the umbrella of HCI.
Analysis of visual browsing and inspiration seeking patterns on museum online collections using eye-tracking
Report
Villaespesa, E., MacDonald, C., Tankha, M., Crider, S. Miklaszewicz, M. and Korshakova, E. (2022).
This study provides insights into the browsing experience of artists and creative professionals seeking inspiration from museums’ online collection using the Art Institute of Chicago as a case study. Data was collected during ten user testing sessions combining retrospective think aloud and eye-tracking methods. The evidence from this study highlights the importance of a visual-led experience and the effect of a masonry layout to browse through the artworks. The findings indicate that suggested tags and filters options create a successful entry point for users without a specific purpose for their visit. However, too many filtering options and unclear nomenclature impacts the usability and therefore having a hierarchy of the feature options and clear language is recommended. The results of this user research contributes to design guidelines for museum websites and may be of assistance to researchers and cultural heritage practitioners that want to use eye-tracking to evaluate online collections.
EduCHI 2022: 4th Annual Symposium on HCI Education
Workshop/Symposium
MacDonald, C. M., St-Cyr, O., Gray, C. M., Potter, L. E., Lallemand, C., Vasilchenko, A., Sin, J., Carter, A., Pitt, C., Sari, E., Padhi, D. R., & Pillai, A. G. (2022).
EduCHI 2022 will bring together an international community of scholars, practitioners, and researchers to shape the future of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) education. Held as part of the CHI 2022 conference, the two-day symposium will feature interactive discussions about trends, curricula, pedagogies, teaching practices, and current and future challenges facing HCI educators. In addition to providing a platform to share curriculum plans and teaching materials, EduCHI 2022 will also provide opportunities for HCI educators to learn new instructional strategies and deepen their pedagogical knowledge.
An industry in flux: where does UX go from here?
Commentary
MacDonald, C. M., Rose, E. J., and Putnam, C. (2022).
The UX industry is complex to both practice in and teach about. Through interviews with practitioners, we identified five challenges facing the field: misconceptions about UX, untested education models, added complexity, increased systematization, and ever-changing job roles. To move forward, we need more dialogue between industry and academia.