👋 TGIF — Introducing … Interaction Nerds
Hey there, we just redesigned one of the single most important parts of UXA – this newsletter. (Maybe you noticed the new header, new name – Interaction Nerds – and updated formatting 😎)
In brief, our mission is to keep you IN the loop! We aim to provide you with information about HCI at CMU IN-depth and everything experience design-related IN-breath.
And of course, we will make sure to you know what’s happenINg at UXA.
✌️ The Students’ Voice — Demystify BHCI programs with Michelle, Ahana, and Patricia
Looking for info about HCI undergraduate programs beyond the official program page? Hear insider views from active members across different BHCI programs.
Q: What drove yinz to join BHCI?
Something about slaving over an algorithm, running it, fixing bugs, running it, and repeating that over and over again to yield just the right results really fascinated me. But missing from that process were a couple things that, after a lot of reflection, I realized I strongly valued — those things being the integration of how problem solving impacts or affects human beings and the openness to go beyond binary.
— Michelle Lee
I’ve always been interested in design but never thought I’d get a chance to explore the more artsy side of tech. I was initially inspired to do HCI after viewing my friend at Google’s portfolio. His projects were a way of reimagining and illustrating the future that he wanted to see. HCI leaves so much room for creativity in a way that purely studying CS or AI does not. For CS classes, we don’t have much room to decide what it even is that we want to implement. We’re given a problem that we have no say in and usually told to solve it without much real-world context given. HCI projects are completely grounded in the real world with a focus on the user of our products. There’s also a strong emphasis on teamwork, which is critical for post-graduation.
— Ahana Mukhopadhyay
The reason I chose the HCI minor was because it was something very unique to CMU and combined knowledge in design, technology, and business — a very interdisciplinary field that I was not only interested in pursuing but also where my strengths lied. HCI is also helpful in designing UIUX as well as research, which are major fields that design is growing into in the modern day.
— Patricia Yu
Kudos to Michelle, Ahana, and Patricia for sharing their beautiful thoughts.❣️ We also highlighted information about all programs. Check it out through the link below!
👌 The Directors’ Vision — Demystify BHCI education with Prof. Vincent Aleven and Prof. Skip Shelly
Interested in hearing some advice from our lovely program directors @HCII? What’s their point of view on a successful BHCI education? How would they describe BHCI students?
There are many aspects to a successful HCI education but two of the most important ones are understanding processes of user-centered research and design, as well as being able to function well in interdisciplinary teams. These two go hand-in-hand.
— Vincent Aleven
More design activities, more processes of making are turned into ready-made commodities. Our HCI education pushes students to the fuzzy front end, to be comfortable with ambiguity.
— Skip Shelly
👍 The Practitioner’s View — Demystify a day in the life of an HCI practitioner
UX Design
UX designers focus on designing the experience of a product and how it functions. They strive to understand the user flow, or the path, that a typical user takes to complete a task on an app, website, or other platforms. At Google and many other companies, interaction designers are a specialized type of UX designer.
UX Research
UX researchers conduct studies or interviews that examine how people use a product. UX researchers often identify pain points that users are experiencing and explore how products can help solve those problems. They also explore the usability of existing products, by asking users to complete tasks in an app or website, for example.
And … More
The UX field includes much more job genres in addition to these two of course! Some other careers include UX writing, UX engineering, product design, and front-end development. If you would like to know more about these careers, we have compiled a page that introduces them in more detail!
🤌 The Recommendations — An article a day keeps the doctors away
Designing micro-interactions with Figma interactive components
The Interview Balancing Act: How to Build Rapport with Participants
🤟 The End — Stay tuned and dive in
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Who’s behind the scene? 🙈
Thanks for reading this week’s Interaction Nerds by the CMU User Experience Association! The editors behind this work are Neeha Kurelli, Sunniva Liu, Rebecca Jiang, and Bill Guo. Subscribe and stay IN the loop!
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