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Human-Computer Interaction: The Foundations of UX Design

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How This Course Will Help Your Career

The entire discipline of UX Design is built on the foundations of the long-established field of HCI, Human-Computer Interaction. If you want to become a true, user-focused UX Designer and set yourself apart, you need to learn the very foundations of your discipline. That’s why we’ve built this course for you.  

What You Will Learn

  • How to create intuitive user experiences that will delight your users

  • How to create customer experiences that will elevate customer loyalty, brand value, and ultimately business profitability 

  • How to concretely carry out the design process involved in interaction design, navigation design, and screen design

Interactions between products/designs/services on one side and humans on the other should be as intuitive as conversations between two humans—and yet many products and services fail to achieve this. So, what do you need to know so as to create an intuitive user experience? Human psychology? Human-centered design? Specialized design processes? The answer is, of course, all of the above, and this course will cover them all.

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) will give you the skills to properly understand, and design, the relationship between the “humans”, on one side, and the “computers” (websites, apps, products, services, etc.), on the other side. With these skills, you will be able to build products that work more efficiently and therefore sell better. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts the IT and Design-related occupations will grow by 12% from 2014–2024, faster than the average for all occupations. This goes to show the immense demand in the market for professionals equipped with the right design skills.

Whether you are a newcomer to the subject of HCI or a professional, by the end of the course you will have learned how to implement user-centered design for the best possible results.

In the “Build Your Portfolio: Interaction Design Project”, you’ll find a series of practical exercises that will give you first-hand experience of the methods we’ll cover. If you want to complete these optional exercises, you’ll create a series of case studies for your portfolio which you can show your future employer or freelance customers.

This in-depth, video-based course is created with the amazing Alan Dix, the co-author of the internationally best-selling textbook Human-Computer Interaction and a superstar in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. Alan is currently professor and Director of the Computational Foundry at Swansea University.    

Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate

Use your industry-recognized Course Certificate on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.

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Our courses and Course Certificates are trusted by these industry leaders:

Our clients: IBM, HP, Adobe, GE, Accenture, Allianz, Phillips, Deezer, Capgemin, Mcafee, SAP, Telenor, Cigna, British Parliament, State of New York

Is This Course Right for You?

This is a beginner-level course suitable for newcomers and experienced practitioners alike:

  • UX designers who want to gain in-depth theoretical knowledge to augment their experience

  • Project managers looking to understand how to build products that work intuitively

  • Software engineers who want a solid understanding of Human-Computer Interaction and UX design

  • Entrepreneurs looking to create well-designed products that stand out from the competition

  • Marketers who want to gain a deep understanding of customers

  • Newcomers to design who are considering making a switch to HCI or UX design

Courses by the Interaction Design Foundation are designed to contain comprehensive, evidence-based content, while ensuring that the learning curve is never too steep. All participants will have the opportunity to share ideas, seek help with tests, and enjoy the social aspects afforded by our open and friendly forum.

Learn and Work with a Global Team of Designers

You’ll join a global community and work together to improve your skills and career opportunities. Connect with helpful peers and make friends with like-minded individuals as you push deeper into the exciting and booming industry of design.

Course Overview: What You'll Master

  • Each week, one lesson becomes available.
  • There's no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines.
  • Estimated learning time: 17 hours 52 mins spread over 6 weeks .

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 13 mins.

Lesson 1: Human-Computer Interaction: The Foundations of UX Design

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 44 mins.

Lesson 2: Learn How to Build Systems That People Can Use

Available anytime after Apr 16, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 8 hours 9 mins.

Lesson 3: How to Design Screens that Meet Users’ Needs

Available anytime after Apr 23, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours 45 mins.

Lesson 4: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up

Available anytime after Apr 30, 2025.

How Others Have Benefited

Miriam Glaser

Miriam Glaser, Germany

“Alan is really passionate about these topics and his examples always help a lot to understand some things in the real world and also the difficulties. The course is a great size/length to start with HCI!”

Susana Perez

Susana Perez, Czech Republic

“This course was beautifully produced. I really liked that what the instructor said was emphasized with text and animations, truly combining listening/reading. Also, I really enjoyed the very practical examples, such as Gmail and the microwave controls. It's a great introduction to HCI, and I wish I had taken this as my first IxDF course, but even as my 16th, it was enjoyable and helped cement my learning.”

Michael Stilwell

Michael Stilwell, United States

“Very thorough explanation of concepts. I really like how he explains things as his communication style meshes well with me.”

See other reviews

How It Works

  1. Take online courses by industry experts

    Lessons are self-paced so you'll never be late for class or miss a deadline.

  2. Get a Course Certificate

    Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to prove your skills.

  3. Advance your career

    Use your new skills in your existing job or to get a new job in UX design. Get help from our community.

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Join us to take “Human-Computer Interaction: The Foundations of UX Design”. Take other courses at no additional cost. Make a concrete step forward in your career path today.

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Human-Computer Interaction: The Foundations of UX Design
Closes in
12
hrs
56
mins
32
secs
48% booked

Human-Computer Interaction: The Foundations of UX Design

0.1 - Welcome and Introduction

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  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:35

    I'm guessing the reason you're watching this video   now at this moment is because you've got  an interest in human-computer interaction.   However, that doesn't perhaps mean  you know exactly what it is. Maybe you   just guessed. Or you just think it sounds like a  good idea. So what is human-computer interaction?   Well, it's got two sides to it. On one side,  there's an academic discipline which is about   studying the way people interact with technology,  and in particular the computer technology.  

  2. 00:00:35 --> 00:01:04

    Nowadays, computers are in virtually everything.  It's quite hard sometimes to tell the difference.   But then there's another side to it, which is the  design discipline and I think probably quite a lot   of you watching this video will be from a design  side – you're interested in user experience design   and interaction design. One side of Human-Computer  Interaction is the academic discipline and the   other is the applied design discipline, which  is about how you create interventions with  

  3. 00:01:04 --> 00:01:31

    technology that make a difference to people. So,  one side is studying that computer technology   and how it has an impact on people  – so the way in which it works.   The other is more about saying that, how do  we practically change that academic study,   that interesting information we have  about the way people work, into action? The two of course interact, so on  one hand the professional experience  

  4. 00:01:31 --> 00:02:01

    informs the academic discipline. And you'll  probably notice that I use lots of examples,   some from my own experience, some from  stories I know about from elsewhere.   I use those from all sorts of times in order  to inform my general understanding. Because it works the other way around. The academic  understanding, that more generic understanding,   feeds back into the design discipline too. So, if  I understand how people interact with individual  

  5. 00:02:01 --> 00:02:34

    computers, how people interact together in a group  when they're using technology, how environments   change the way people are – if those environments  have technology in. Then I'll be in a better   position to be able to design things effectively  for them. So, these two are intermingled. So, if you want to understand Human-Computer  Interaction, if you want to be part of this, what   kind of things would I like you to know about?  What would I hope you would learn from studying HCI?

  6. 00:02:34 --> 00:03:00

    Well, first of all is bare facts. Facts about  the nature of computers. There's facts about the   nature of human psychology, physiology – a whole  range of things – social interactions. There are facts that you can read in a book, and I've got  my own textbook that I produced on this. And there are many, many others. Also on the web there are  vast amounts of material. So, in some sense the  

  7. 00:03:00 --> 00:03:30

    facts are easy to get and then you will get some  of those. Now hopefully when I talk about   HCI you get some of those facts. However, perhaps  there are other things which are more important. The second thing I hope you learn from HCI  is about analysis. It's about looking at a   situation and trying to make sense of it:   what's going on there. Because if you understand   a situation then you can apply the facts to  the situation.

  8. 00:03:30 --> 00:04:00

    So, it's about analysis, about picking some things apart. Picking the problems  that you're having or picking the opportunities apart. And then of course, once you've done that  analysis, together with the facts and knowledge from that, you can then do a design job. So  you can bring these things together in order   to synthesize them, in order to create something  that will be a solution to somebody's problem. But perhaps more important almost  than all that: obviously you need  

  9. 00:04:00 --> 00:04:34

    the knowledge side and you need the skills to  do it. But perhaps the most important thing   within HCI, particularly if you think of it in  terms of moving on into design, is an attitude   of mind. An attitude that focuses on people that  sees real users, real situations as center place.   That is seeking to understand people  however different they are from you. And to do things which are good for them and  makes sense in their lives. So, that's sort of what  

  10. 00:04:34 --> 00:05:04

    our purpose is in a way, particularly as we move  from just studying people to actually saying, "How do we design something for them?" So, what kinds of things might you want to know about these? And the sort of things I'll often talk about in  this context? One set of things is about the basics of design, you know. So, this goes from sort of the processes that people use when they're doing design and you may be using yourself, to  methods of evaluation to understand the nature  

  11. 00:05:04 --> 00:05:33

    of human experience. However, undergirding that  is fundamental, undeniable, underlying knowledge and theories. Some of those, particularly  about the human, about human perception,   cognition, emotion – that also leaks into how  to understand the way computers work as well,   to the extent that it's important from the  point of view of their interactions with people. And then from a sort of practical point of view,  

  12. 00:05:33 --> 00:06:00

    you also need to think about and  be aware of the issues that happen   when systems are implemented. Again, that's partly  about the way they're implemented in the computer,   but also the way in which they get deployed into  the world. This will vary from place to place,   but some of the general principles of how you make  sure that this wonderful system that you designed   actually gets used by people in the real  world and makes a real difference to people.

Human-Computer Interaction: The Foundations of UX Design

2.3 - What is Design?

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  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:33

    So we know we're not just designing  interfaces, we're designing interactions.   We're not just designing interactions,  we're designing interventions.   That's your job. However, what do  we mean by design? What is design?   This is one of those things that there'll  be 50,000 answers to this question. I'm going to give you one but  hopefully it's one that's helpful.  

  2. 00:00:33 --> 00:01:01

    So I'm going to say, first of all, that design  is about achieving goals within constraints.   So there's some sort of goal or purpose that  you're after. In interaction design that might   be about an enjoyment goal for people,  about giving... having somebody in   to be able to see a film or be able to listen  to music. Or to be able to engage in a social   relationship. It might be a work goal  like achieving something efficiently,  

  3. 00:01:01 --> 00:01:32

    being able to produce videos easily. But there's a goal there. And this is true   probably of design in general. Even if you're  designing pure art, you have some sort of goal, which might be, again, it might be aesthetic  or it might be about helping people understand meaning. There's a purpose that you have there. And it's about trying to achieve that purpose. However, there are constraints to that. You  do not usually have total freedom, otherwise   you become a magician, not a designer. Those constraints are critical.

  4. 00:01:32 --> 00:02:02

    Some of those design constraints might be about the kinds of medium that you have to work with. If you're a painter, whether you're using oils  or watercolors, but as an interaction designer,   it's about your computers that you're using,  what kind of device somebody is likely to have.   What kind of platform they're on. Is it for an Apple or an Android,   if it's for a phone or something else? These are  sort of broad questions. And sometimes you might have choices on those. So that becomes part of your design remit, to make those choices. 

  5. 00:02:02 --> 00:02:30

    Other times they're given to you. This  is going to run in this organization and   everybody has this kind of computer, full stop  [period]. There's also constraints about time   and money. What's available to you? You do not  usually design with unlimited money or time.  You make choices there. So because  there are constraints, you have to   make choices and trade-offs between some of your  constraints. But constraints are usually given.  

  6. 00:02:30 --> 00:03:03

    So the trade-off you often have to make is  between different goals and purposes.  Which of multiple goals are you going to achieve?  If I'm designing some video editing software,   I want to make it obviously  as pleasurable and enjoyable   to use by the person editing as I can. I don't want them to have a horrible job. However, I also might want to produce the highest-quality video that is possible, because that's going to improve the experience ultimately of a person like yourself watching this video.  

  7. 00:03:03 --> 00:03:33

    It could be that I have to trade these off. I have to have something that's going to take   more effort and possibly not very interesting and  enjoyable effort by the person doing video editing   in order to produce a better quality for you.  There is a trade-off. I cannot usually achieve   all of my goals and constraints. Trade-offs are essential to design.   The second of those constraints, one of the core  constraints you have is your materials.

  8. 00:03:33 --> 00:04:03

    In an art setting that might be about the kind of paint  you're using or what you're using, whether you're   painting or whether you're doing sculpting. Clearly that makes a difference. If you're a sculptor and if you're using stone or wood, that is going to change the nature of what you produce.   This is also true of physical design, and  it's also true of interaction design.  So in a physical sense, I often – I won't do it  now – but I can lift up chairs and things like this and say, ah, look, this chair is made of  metal.

  9. 00:04:03 --> 00:04:33

    If you take the design of a chair that's made of metal it will often have thin legs. If you make that in wood, the legs would break. But similarly, if you take a wooden chair, that's  a much more solid one, and made it metal, it would probably be too heavy to move. The materials  used change the fundamental nature of design. That's true of physical design, but it's also  true of digital design. You have to understand   the nature of materials you're using. So if you  design something that is initially designed for  

  10. 00:04:33 --> 00:05:01

    a desktop computer and just take the same design  and squash it into a phone, it won't work. If you take a design that is designed for  your phone and then try and put it without   sufficient changes onto a voice interaction, it  won't work. You have to understand your materials.   So what are your materials? I've already given you some of them,   the kind of platform you're on. Your computer  is part of the materials. You have to understand  

  11. 00:05:01 --> 00:05:36

    the nature of what's possible. Some of  that's obvious, like the screen size,   the thing I was just talking about. But also, what computation is possible? Say you're   the designer, you're not a builder yourself. Say  to the person who is actually constructing this:   "Oh, this this has to work like this. Is that  possible?". Or are you making things so difficult   that you will cause problems elsewhere? What are the fundamental capacities of it? You cannot, for instance, ask that for an interactive  video, that you have instant-millisecond

  12. 00:05:36 --> 00:06:01

    timing between two places, distance on the Earth,  because the speed of light constrains you. There are constraints and capacities like that,  but also storage capacity. How much video can   you store on a computer? That's a limited  amount, depending on the kind of device.   The kinds of tools you've got to use,  the kind of platforms you're on... All of these are part of the material that's  available to you as a designer.

  13. 00:06:01 --> 00:06:36

    Now, it might be that some of the details of that are done by other people, but you have to design something that works within those constraints.You have to understand the material,   the digital material. But of course, you also  have to understand people. The other aspect of   it is the people, the other crucial aspect. So  you have to understand the nature of people. Otherwise, you can't design for them. People are  part of your materials. You have to understand   their psychology, their social nature. And of  course, these extra things which are complicated  

  14. 00:06:36 --> 00:07:00

    about the interaction between the people and  technology and between people and each other. So you have a rich picture of materials.  Now, you might be starting to think – and   as I say "materials" and then I put  people into that picture – you might   have been comfortable with me saying "your  computer is a material". Of course... But people as your material, surely that's a  little bit functional way to think about people?  

  15. 00:07:00 --> 00:07:34

    Well, it is. People are not a material in  the same sense as the paint you choose when   you're painting or whether you choose to  use stone or wood when you're carving. It's not the same. People have  individuality. However, what we say   is that if you only treat people as well as you  treat materials, you probably treat them better   than they are often treated in design. So we  treat people at least as good as materials. I'll explain why. How many times have you heard  there's been a big accident, whether it's a plane  

  16. 00:07:34 --> 00:08:02

    accident, train accident or something like  that. People say, "Oh, it was human error,   it was due to human error". The person didn't do the right thing at the right point. They didn't notice something  that was important and things went wrong. You might have said it. It might be in a  hospital situation, industrial situation.   So just imagine instead the wing falls off the  plane because there's metal fatigue where the  

  17. 00:08:02 --> 00:08:31

    wing joined the plane. Now you would say it was due to the metal fatigue, but you wouldn't   say "it was metal error". You would say "it's a  design error". Because the designer of the plane,   the engineers, the detail designers would have  had to – should have – understood the nature of   metal and the fact that you do get metal fatigue  after a while. You should either design it so that where there's metal fatigue, it doesn't  fundamentally mean the plane will crash.  

  18. 00:08:31 --> 00:09:09

    Or you design it so that you can detect  when that metal fatigue is happening   and then take preventive maintenance.  There are a number of strategies you've got   because you understand that metal as a  material has known ways of failing. We as humans have limits and  constraints and ways that we   fail in the sense we don't always do things in the  perfect way. Just like a piece of metal doesn't.   As a designer your job is to understand those  limitations of people as actors in the system.  

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    And ensure that the design of the system as a whole works even when those happen. So whenever   you hear about human error, it was human  error. But typically, it wasn't the operator   or the pilot or the nurse or the doctor in  the hospital. It was typically the designer   of the system that's there. If you treat users as well as a piece  

  20. 00:09:31 --> 00:10:04

    of metal. You are probably dealing with them  a lot better than they usually are dealt with.   So having said that, let's just roll back and  come back to what's the central message here? The central message is that for you as a  designer, the user is at the heart of what you do.   Understanding your users,  and you have to understand   the technology you work with, but understand  those users, understand the nature of them. And as I said, then you'll start to treat them  far better, hopefully, than a piece of metal.

Human-Computer Interaction: The Foundations of UX Design

3.3 - Case Study: How does Gmail use Grouping?

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  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:34

    Let's see how Gmail uses various visual elements to help with grouping crucial elements. First of all, let's look at the whole Gmail window.  And you notice here, instantly there's large areas of different background color. So some sections of the screen have a white background,  but there are two big areas of gray background. One is the search box at the top. But the other is the message area.

  2. 00:00:34 --> 00:01:02

    So obviously within Gmail, why are you using Gmail? It's about email messages. And so the email messages as an area have been given a strong color coding in order that your eye  instantly knows that's separate from all of the other things around it. So that's one major difference. And background color's being used to give that functional separation  between the messages and the rest of the functionality of the page.  What I'm going to do now is I'll zoom into the left-hand side

  3. 00:01:02 --> 00:01:34

    where you have a number of elements. Some of it's about folders and tags; some of it's about messaging. So let's look at that left-hand side. So let's zoom into it. Here the page has got various elements. It's got buttons to compose new messages, but also it's got a list of folders or tags, depending on how you think about them. And also icons and names that have to do with starting a meeting and joining a meeting. Then below that about hangouts. Crucially, for these, it's spacing. These are functional groups,

  4. 00:01:34 --> 00:02:00

    but they're very clearly delineated partly through space.  Interestingly enough, I think maybe if that word "meet" had been a long word, they might have needed to add additional space in order to help it separate. It might be sufficient that it doesn't have an icon. But certainly it's fairly clear that there are functional differences.  However, partly that's done by spacing and by things that are similar,

  5. 00:02:00 --> 00:02:34

    that look similar. You can clearly see they follow each other. But in addition, I'd like to point out that the light gray lines, in addition, using lines both to separate those functional groups on the left-hand side, but also between each mail message, because they go all the way along in a table. And that's a common story. In one sense, those lines are unnecessary. You can see where one group ends – functional group ends – and the next starts. You can, because mostly the mail messages have a long enough subject line. 

  6. 00:02:34 --> 00:03:02

    You don't have a big gap. You can see the line of the mail message. But the gray line just helps. And particularly for any sort of perceptual problems or if you're just acting quickly and stressed, anything that can just help you. They've been done very light[ly], so they're not making a lot of visual intrusion. They're not noisy, but they also can help you along the way.  So here's a good example of ways you can be subtle 

  7. 00:03:02 --> 00:03:06

    about the use of grouping elements, but also very clear.

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