Selective elective course (6 credits)

New digital technologies, and the internet in particular, have changed the ways of production and consumption of screen-based media. The internet itself is undergoing a sea-change, from primarily static and closed systems to systems where openness, information sharing, collaboration and creativity are key ingredients. The emergence and spread of easy-to-use systems for recording, editing and distributing user-generated content means that users are simultaneously producers and consumers.

These developments create sophisticated and complex design challenges, which we will explore in a range of workshops, projects and with external collaborative partners.

The course will provide students with appropriate practical skills, design methods and design thinking tools, enabling them to tackle advanced screen-based design issues, and leading to the creation of engaging and effective interfaces.

Students will

• gain an insight and understanding of the fundamental challenges in the design of screen-based interavtion design, and apply this to the design of engaging social user-experiences
• improve their technical and production skills
• explore media convergence from a web-based perspective, by using independent, reflective and critical approaches to the course subject
• be able to use tools and methods for prototyping interaction concepts and problems
• develop their skills at communicating their concepts and ideas in an engaging and convincing manner
• understand the roles and opportunities for the designer in a technologically driven environment
• gain experience at collaboration within and across disciplines

The course will start with a series of initial smaller modules and workshops to introduce the students to the methods, processes and tools that will form the core of the term. This will be followed by two longer projects, where the students will develop more indepth conceptual frameworks.

These modules and workshops will reinforce students’ understandings of the key underpinnings of screen based interaction design, with an increasing emphasis on online and networked/social media environments.

These will be broad in nature, covering practical and theoretical design issues related to the theme of the course.

Students will work alone or in pairs during the course.  The main project deliverables will include:

• several minor deliverables from intial workshops
• a personal project experimenting with the possibilities of the media
• 2 main projects
• course blogs

Evaluation will be based on the following elements in percentage:

• 50% To the minor design projects, presentations, online deliverables, workshops and appropriate presentations
• 50% The two main final project with appropriate exhibition and presentation material for the end of term AHO-works exhibition.

Projects will be assessed for their creativity, expression, innovation, usability and appropriateness of design.

The semester has an 80% mandatory general attendance and a 90% attendance at lectures and workshops.

The course will be assessed by an external sensor/examiner.

Tentative dates for project deadlines and evaluation criteria will be distributed at course start.

The course is assessed as pass/fail, subject to the Regulations for Master’s degree programmes at Oslo School of Architecture and Design, § 6-14. 

Mandatory reading  

• Compendium will be handed out at course start

Anderson, C. (2006). The long tail: how endless choice is creating unlimited demand. London: Random House.  

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.  

Saffer, D. (2010). Designing for interaction: creating innovative applications and devices. Berkeley, Calif.: New Riders.

Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: the power of organizing without organizations. New York: Penguin Press.  

Recommended reading  

Anderson, C. (2006). The long tail: how endless choice is creating unlimited demand. London: Random House.  

Ariely, D. (2009). Predictably irrational: the hidden forces that shape our decisions. London, Harper.

Barabási, A.-L. (2003). Linked: how everything is connected to everything else and what it means for business, science, and everyday life. New York: Plume.  

Davis, C. and M. Parrinder (2010). Limited language: rewriting design : responding to a feedback culture. Basel, Birkhauser Verlag AG.

Granovetter, M. S. (1995). Getting a job: a study of contacts and careers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  

Hara, K. (2008). Designing Design. Baden: Lars Müller Publishing.  

Isaacs, E., & Walendowski, A. (2001). Designing from both sides of the screen: how designers and engineers can collaborate to build cooperative technology. Indianapolis, Ind.: New Riders.  

Jenkins, R. (2004). Social identity. London: Routledge.  

Laham, S. M., Forgas, J. P., & Williams, K. (2005). Social motivation: conscious and unconscious processes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  

Leadbeater, C. (2008). We-think. London: Profile Books Ltd.  

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Press.  

Manovich, L. (2001). The language of new media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.  

Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart mobs: the next social revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Basic Books.  

Røys, H. G. (2009). Delte meninger om nettets sosiale side. Oslo: Universitetsforl.  

Saffer, D. (2008). Designing gestural interfaces. Sebastopol,CA, O´Reilly.

Segaran, T. (2007). Programming collective intelligence: building smart Web 2.0 applications. Beijing: O'Reilly.  

Smith, G. (2008). Tagging: people-poweres metadata for the social web. Berkeley, Calif.: New Riders.  

Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies, and nations. London: Little, Brown.

Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2006). Wikinomics: how mass collaboration changes everything. New York: Portfolio.  

Weinberger, D. (2007). Everything is miscellaneous: the power of the new digital disorder. New York: Times Books.