The following list of Non-Credit User Experience Courses are offered throughout the year. All courses are completely online. Click here for dates and registration information
Introduction to User Experience
Design is about organizing materials and processes in a productive way. It integrates all kinds of human needs – social, psychological, emotional, technological, biological – into a full picture. It’s about developing a clear understanding of the current state in order to look for possible futures and an ideal state. User Experience, or UX, applies these principles in the digital world. Investing in UX design will help you and your organization differentiate your offerings and create successful, delightful interactions with your users.
During this six week course, students will be introduced to the main functional areas of UX. Homework assignments each week will build upon each other and take students through a complete digital design project to address a problem statement they find interesting, ex: pet care service, gift exchange, book delivery.
Introduction to Usability
Is your website as usable as it should be? If not, your users are only a click away from getting a better experience from a competitor. In this six-week course you’ll learn the principles, methods and tools for evaluating your website’s usability—and recommending key improvements. Lessons each week will examine a different principle of usability, and students will evaluate their website based on the criteria covered that week. Participants will come away not only with a working knowledge of the factors that contribute to (or detract from) a website’s usability, but also with a full Usability Evaluation of the website of your choice.
Designing for Accessibility
Almost every day, people with disabilities encounter barriers that hinder them from using websites or mobile applications. By designing and developing with accessibility in mind, we can help people get equal access when we take into account various disabilities such as restrictions with hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive abilities. This course will present the core concepts of accessibility as they apply to UX design for web and mobile applications. We will learn how to incorporate accessibility requirements into personas for various types of disabilities and learn about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0*. Then, we will learn about design and development techniques, development and testing tools, and how to put them all together to create apps that are accessible and are better for search engine optimization. At the end of the course, you should have a firm understanding of web accessibility, how to design, develop, and test for accessibility, and incorporate accessibility as part of UX process.
* Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is developed through the Web Accessibility Initiative by the World Wide Web Consortium in cooperation with individuals and organizations around the world, with a goal of providing a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments internationally.