02.005 Introduction to Human-Centred Design
This course introduces students to the principles and practices of Human-Centred Design (HCD), a multidisciplinary approach that foregrounds empathy, ethics, and contextual understanding in the design of products, systems, and services. Students will learn ethnographic research methods, synthesize user insights through tools such as empathy maps and journey maps, and iteratively prototype solutions with real users. The course encourages students to inhabit a user-centered mindset, but also to move beyond it, by considering broader human, societal, and ecological impacts and by engaging with intelligence-centred design—an approach that integrates human, artificial, and cultural intelligences to create adaptive, ethical, and future-ready solutions.
Through hands-on activities, group work, and reflection, students will build critical capacities in inclusive design, persuasive technology, participatory design, and ethical and speculative thinking. They will explore how human, machine, and cultural intelligences can dynamically co-evolve in the design process, gaining practical skills in qualitative research and low-fidelity prototyping, while developing a thoughtful orientation toward design as a force for positive change. The course culminates in a group project where students apply HCD principles to a real-world challenge within the Singaporean context, laying the conceptual and practical groundwork for more advanced engagement with intelligence-centred design in future studies and professional practice.
Learning objectives
Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:
- Understand and describe the foundational principles and key concepts in human-centred design (HCD), including cultural, ethical, and speculative dimensions.
- Apply ethnographic and participatory design methods, engaging the community to identify user needs and contextual challenges.
- Analyze user data through methods such as empathy mapping, journey mapping, and affinity clustering to frame design problems.
- Create, design and iterate prototypes using HCD principles that respond to real-world human and societal needs.
- Evaluate the ethical, cultural, and emotional impacts of design decisions through reflection and testing.
Measurable outcomes
- Apply human-centred research methods—ethnographic observation, interviewing, empathy mapping—to uncover user needs in diverse sociocultural contexts.
- Analyse and synthesize research insights into actionable design frameworks such as personas, affinity maps, and journey maps to define and reframe design problems.
- Co-create and iterate low-fidelity prototypes in collaboration with community users or stakeholders using participatory design principles.
- Evaluate the ethical, inclusive, and long-term implications of design decisions, including persuasive technologies, accessibility, and sustainability.
- Communicate the value of human-centred design through oral presentations.
Assignments
| Assessment | Percentage |
| Participation | 10 |
| In-class or take-home assignments | 10 |
| Mid-term report | 30 |
| Final Project (Presentation, prototype and poster) | 50 |
Course map
Week 1: Introduction to Human-Centred Design
From user-centered to human-centered. Who is the “human” we are designing for? Dimensions of the human person.
Week 2: Empathy and the Role of the Designer in Cultural Context
Deep understanding of a user in cultural and situational context
Week 3: Ethnographic Observation
Ethnographic methods, field observations. Digital and visual ethnography and related apps. Strengths and limitations of ethnographic observation.
Week 4: Ethnographic Interviewing
Semi-structured in-depth interviews; reflection on positionality.
Week 5: Synthesizing Research and Framing Problems / IdeationAffinity mapping, persona creation, journey mapping, ideation
Week 6: Midterm Project Workshop
Week 7: Midterm break
Week 8: Participatory Design
Principles of and rationale for participatory design. Discussion on design, power, usability and cultural beliefs and values. Iterating with the community to create a lo-fi prototype. Reflection on challenges and benefits of participatory design.
Week 9: Design for Inclusion, Well-Being and Playfulness
Inclusive design; integrating play and delight into design; the ethics of gamification
Week 10: Speculative Design: Tools for Imagining Otherwise
Fictional artifacts, future narratives, critical making to provoke creative and speculative thinking.
Week 11: Beyond Human-Centred: Designing for Humanity
What is “Designing for Humanity”?
Week 12: Final Project Workshop
Week 13: Final Project Showcase + Reflection
Instructors