Abstract:

Within the engineering degree in industrial design and product development in the technical school of Vilanova i la Geltrú, we have been working on the inclusion of human centred design methodologies inside the curriculum for the last four years. In the first academic year, we have an “Accessibility and Innovation” subject where students follow the model process engineering approach by taking into account the design of interactive systems and design for all approaches [1]. During the third academic year, there are a set of subjects in user centred design. The subjects are: “Human-System interaction”, “User centred design and inclusive design” and “Usability and accessibility engineering”. The “Human-System Interaction” subject shows the basic methods and tools from the point of view of interaction design. Finally, during the last academic year, these engineering design students have the possibility to begin the International Design Project Semester beside international students.

The International Design Project Semester (IDPS) is an innovative training program which addresses the new professional demands that future engineers will to face. The IDPS will enable students to apply technical knowledge acquired during the previous years of their engineering education to real, practical projects. The program also offers the opportunity to learn to work in teams in an international and multicultural atmosphere, similar to that found in many companies nowadays.
With the objective to reduce the gap between the research activities of industrial designers and the Human Computer Interaction HCI materials and methods, a Human Centred Design HCD subject is presented in the second section of this paper [2], [3]. The third section explains the use of role playing model inside the Human Centred design subject. This model increases the interaction between designers, users and stakeholders. In this section, we show that is possible to include user experience aspects and measure the system usability scale to the design of new products.

References:
[1] Granollers, T 2013. Model process engineering in usability and accessibility. At URL: http://www.grihohcitools.udl.cat/mpiua/, last visited: 12 th june 2013.
[2] Giacomin, J. 2012. What is human centred design? 10th Conference on Design Research and Development, P&D Design 2012. At URL: http://hcdi.brunel.ac.uk/files/What%20is%20Human%20Centred%20Design.pdf, Last visited: 15 th April 2013
[3] ISO. International Organization: ISO 9241-210 Ergonomics of human-system interaction--Part 210 Human centred design for interactive systems, 2010. Enlace URL: http://www.iso.org/iso/

Keywords:

Curricula design, user, centered design.