Measuring Experience Design
This course introduces students to the HEART framework, a publicly accessible Google tool that helps to think through, plan, and implement user-centric metrics for products. Students learn about other metrics and learn to develop their own metrics for a wide variety of touchpoints and integrate these into their measurement metrics.
Future and Emerging Technologies II
Students deal with past, present, and future innovations in this course, which presents their social influence and opportunities, as well as risks, while a critical examination—as well as students’ own impulses—are stimulated in connection with the innovation in question. All aspects of the user experience, technology, and business model have to be taken into account.
The course ‘Value Management’ (VM) first presents terms and definitions according to the EN12973 standard. This is followed by an overview of fields where VM can be applied and the difference with value engineering (VE) as a project-oriented approach. After this comes an introduction to the crux of VE, namely the function analysis to identify the functions of the VE object. The next step is to start the extensive case study based on the VE work plan for a VE product prepared. In this case, function costs are determined in the function-cost matrix, formulated as a project objective in the target system with regard to levels of function fulfillment and target costs. In the next step of idea generation, alternative product variants are developed. In a cost-benefit analysis, the variants are evaluated comparatively and winners are determined. These are then proposed as project results, and the selection is justified according to value-analytical aspects.
Post Industrial and Process Design
We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us’ (McLuhan, 1994). In the meantime, the boundaries between the physical and the digital-virtual sphere have become blurred to the extent that these boundaries can be regarded as non-existent. Products are becoming digital and are combining more and more to create hybrid worlds of experience and information, voice, and gesture control, while smart materials are making interfaces increasingly invisible. As well as esthetic questions, these possibilities for transforming reality also open up philosophical and ethical challenges. Digital media adhere to complex cultural and technological forces of gravity. These technologies’ range of requirements and their depth of implementation require the design of the design process itself. How have media changed, and how do design processes need to be adapted to this new reality? These are some of the questions addressed in this course.
Ethical Understanding and Application
This course introduces the general concept of ethics in the context of strategy development. Ethics, the understanding of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ decisions, and awareness of the consequences of these decisions is a cornerstone of human factors and therefore inherent in human-centered organizations. Applying human-centered approaches offers professionals a broad spectrum of normative ethics that can be used in applied professional ethics. In conjunction with the principles of socially responsible organizations as set out in ISO 26000, ethics in strategic design can be integrated into various phases of defining projects in experience design. Students learn methods and approaches to make ethics tangible in project/strategy decision-making, such as Potter Box, MEESTAR, etc.
Human Resources Strategies
Continuous change has more influence than ever on a company’s HR strategy. In this course, the topic ‘HR Strategy’ is examined based on organizational change and issues surrounding change management. Students gain extensive knowledge of the influences on a company’s ‘HR strategy’, the importance of continuously developing this strategy, and the tools themselves to go into the design of such a strategy. There is also a focus on leadership and visionary work.
New Work and Employee Experience
This course examines the entire ’employee experience’ spectrum, with a focus on new work. In the first phase, students learn why the employee-experience approach is needed today, and which environmental and general conditions lead to dealing with trends, especially new work and overaging. In the second phase, the focus is on the field of new work, analyzing HR strategy, labor law, personnel development, recruiting, and the most wide-ranging current and future concepts of new work. The course aims to provide students with a holistic view of the topics of HR, experience, and new work, and to show them the most wide-ranging spheres of influence.
Sustainability in Experience Design
This course introduces the principles of sustainability according to the ISO definition in Guide 82, where sustainability is defined as ‘the state of the global system, encompassing the environmental, social and economic subsystems, in which the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.’ Students learn about the various sustainability goals set by the United Nations (SDGs), as well as the relationships and dependencies between them. The most significant effort in terms of sustainability strategies is to develop a solid understanding of how these goals can be made tangible in direct and indirect aspects of project characteristics. Sustainability aspects within the life cycle of a product, system, or service are also addressed as part of ISO 9241-210.
In this practical project, students acquire the ability to formulate recommendations and action strategies for their own company. This transfer project can serve as a feasibility study for the master’s thesis. A real-world company representative reflects on the developed strategies with the students.
Change Management for Systems
The course ‘Change Management’ deepens understanding and application of the principles of change management. The change-management process for strategies includes goals, key outcomes, and adjustments to existing tasks in implementing strategies. A holistic approach to understanding the need for change, based on Thomas S. Kuhn’s paradigm shift, recognizes that every step in an attempt at change needs to be falsifiable, making change management an iterative process. Plus, core objectives that support needs-based change management and are based on human-centered design help to shape and guide change management towards a human-centered (ISO 27500) and socially responsible (ISO 26000) organization.
Company-wide Experience Strategy
The course explores the reasons to have a company-wide strategy. Creating a new strategy requires in-depth knowledge in order to implement it positively and sustainably. Different questions are explored: Who do you create this strategy with? How can you reach a consensus between all parties involved? Who are your partners for bringing about far-reaching change? The crux of this course is to lead a company towards a ‘customer-first’ or ‘customer-centric’ culture.
Methods and tools are explained in detail, including KPIs, team goals, individual goals and measurement systems, tools for customer or employee feedback, and measuring progress towards a customer-oriented organization.
