Design Perspectives – Spring 2015 – Designing Interactive Solutions for Our Community

Course Info

Course Title & Number: Design Perspectives in IMM – IMM 280-02

Professor: Warren Buckleitner
Email: warren@childrenstech.com
Office Address: AIMM 311
Office Hours: by appointment

Class Meets: Thursdays, 9:30am – 12:20pm
Room: AIMM 206

Course Title & Number: Design Perspectives in IMM – IMM 280-01

Professor: Mark Thompson
Email: thompsom@tcnj.edu
Office Address: AIMM 312
Office Hours: Wednesdays, 9:30-12:30 or by appointment

Class Meets: Thursdays, 9:30am – 12:20pm
Room: AIMM 222

Course Description

This class is interdisciplinary, bringing together the various bodies of knowledge that inform the field of interactive design, including content design, interface design, technical design, usability and project management. The class provides an overview of concepts necessary both to create and evaluate interactive multimedia projects. You’ll apply these ideas to a series of individual writing and production assignments, and ultimately to a collaborative project addressing a real-world design problem — a project that spans most of the semester.

To the extent possible, we’ll develop this semester’s projects in consultation with community organizations and businesses in Trenton — particularly the Trenton Free Public Library — considering ways in which interactive and digital media applications might empower them and the people they serve. Our collaborations will be coordinated with the help of the TCNJ Bonner Center.

This class is one of at least three writing intensive courses required by the College.

Course Materials

Readings

Three books are required for the course, two of which are available in the TCNJ bookstore:

Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro
Communicating Design by Dan Brown
Chapter 2 of Technology Enhanced Libraries by Warren Buckleitner and Carol Wachter

Both books are also available in electronic format, but Communicating Design in particular is very visual, so the print version is more effective.

The third book, Tech Enhanced Public Libraries, is currently being written by Warren Buckleitner and Carol Wachter. Digital Excerpts will be provided to the class over the course of the semester.

Other readings will be made available on this blog, the Google Community, or possibly on reserve in the TCNJ library. Additionally, your midterm research paper will require you to do additional research and reading beyond what’s assigned week-to-week.

Online Resources

For the project management side of this class, there are a number of tools we’ll be recommending you use for designing your functional prototypes.

There’s no one software package or web site that offers everything we need for this class, so you’ll be expected to use specialized systems for certain tasks, and keep track of the necessary login information. These tools include:

Our class Google Community for project materials, deliverables, class discussion and online communication
TCNJ Qualtrics for research surveys and peer feedback
Balsamiq for project mockups
Draw.io for project diagrams
NJMakersday.org (March 21) and the signup form for Mediatech

Other Resources

The Trenton Free Public Library
The Free Library of Philadelphia
Mediatech Foundation in Flemington NJ (open from 3 – 5 PM weekdays).
The New York Public Library
The Princeton Public Library
The Mercer County Library
Your Local Library

Course Requirements

Design Notebook – 5%

Background Research – 10%

Project Proposal Presentation – 10%

Midterm Paper – 15%

Project Deliverables – 30%

Design Brief
User Personas
Content Map & Wireframes
Style Guide
Dynamic Prototype
User Testing Plan
User Testing Report

Final Project – 30%

Functional Prototype
Presentations
Project Recap

Course Purpose & Learning Goals

Students will:

Learn to effectively present and promote their ideas for an interactive media project, as well as reflect on their process of developing that project, both face-to-face and in writing;
Get acquainted with the variety of roles, processes and technical tools involved in producing an interactive multimedia project;
Explore techniques for managing long-term collaborative projects and adapt those techniques to their own project;
Consider the implications of their own work and trends in the field within the context of everyday contemporary culture, and also draw connections between current trends and historical advances in media and technology.