Adapting my First HCI Syllabus

2025 marked the first year I formally dipped my toes as an educator for undergraduate students. As of writing, I work as a part-time faculty for one of the top universities in the Philippines where I teach a Human-Computer Interaction elective for a class of 40 students. Below you will find the very first iteration of a rough syllabus I adapted and improved for my course. Note that I intentionally left out learning objectives and specifics for each of the entries because I’m still changing things on the fly.

The Syllabus

W1 Jan 7 - Jan 10

• Orientation

W2 Jan 14 - Jan 17

• Good vs Bad Design
• History of HCI
• What is Usability
• User Interviews + Rapid User Interview Activity
• EXERCISE: Task Analysis Benchmark Activity (For IT/IS Students)

W3 Jan 21 - Jan 24

• Task Analysis Exercise Presentations
• Intro to Empathy Maps and Personas

W4 Jan 28 - Jan 31

• Intro to Thematic Analysis
• EXERCISE: Analyzing User Interviews through Thematic Analysis
• MCO1 Working Session

W5 Feb 4 - Feb 7

• Interaction Design + Principles
• Evaluating Interface Usability
• EXERCISE: Micro Usability Testing Exercise (Think Aloud with Userinyerface)

W6 Feb 11 - Feb 14

• Interaction Design, cont’d (Design Guidelines, Types of Interfaces)
• Usability, cont’d (Nielsen’s Heuristics)
• EXERCISE: Crazy 8’s: How to Rapidly Create Ideas for Interface Design
• DEADLINE: Design Challenge 1

W7 Feb 18 - Feb 21

• How to frame a project brief
• Creating a design strategy
• Journey Mapping
• EXERCISE: Lo-fi Interface Design with Figma

W8 Feb 25 - Feb 28

• Human Factors in HCI
• Envisioning the Overall Design
• EXERCISE: Journey Mapping
• DEADLINE: Design Challenge 2

W9 Mar 4 - Mar 7

• Independent Learning Week

W10 Mar 11 - Mar 14

• Prototyping (Lo-fi, Hi-fi)
• EXERCISE: Prototyping Interactions
• DEADLINE: Design Challenge 3

W11 Mar 18 - Mar 21

• Usability Testing

W12 Mar 25 - Mar 28

• DEADLINE: Design Challenge 4

Notes

I will probably flesh this post out further as I complete the rest of my teaching materials. For now, I really wanted to publish this out there for posterity and as an artifact for future iterations of my HCI syllabus.