Adapting my First HCI Syllabus

My first time creating a syllabus for an HCI course.

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.