This course provides the theoretical grounding, practical knowledge, and hands on experience needed to shape computing systems for the 21st century.
As computing becomes ever more pervasive and reaches out into everyday life, academia and industry recognise that successful systems development increasingly relies on our ability to place people at the centre of the digital revolution.
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a distinctive branch of computer science dedicated to understanding the relationship between people and computers, and to enabling systems designers and software engineers to develop computing applications that better respond to the needs of customers, clients and end-users. Related terms include human-centred design, interactive systems design, user experience design, user interface design, and usability engineering.
HCI is a key area of computing, promoted globally by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and nationally by the British Computer Society (BCS). The course addresses core areas of the ACM SIGCHI Curricula for Human-Computer Interaction and is intended for students with diverse disciplinary backgrounds and experiences, including computer science, engineering, natural science, social science, and art and design.
Whatever your background, whether you are a software engineer seeking to further develop professional skill and competence or someone with little or no experience of systems design, if you believe that people should be at the heart of computing and are interested in shaping our digital future to meet human need, then this is the course for you.
The course comprises 180 credits, split across 120 credits’ worth of compulsory and optional modules and a 60-credit research project. Please visit the online prospectus for detailed module information.
There is an increasing need in industry for graduates with an understanding of the human element in systems design. The MSc Human-Computer Interaction provides you with skills and knowledge essential to design companies that appreciate the value of human-centred design. The course will equip you with the knowledge and skill sets necessary to shape the development of new technology that puts people at the heart of computing, including core HCI techniques for identifying user needs, shaping systems design, and evaluating developed systems and applications. It provides a pathway to careers in interactive systems design, user experience design, user interface design, and usability engineering.
The MSc HCI is also good starting point for students who wish to study for a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction and the associated area of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW). Beyond academia, PhD students in the Mixed Reality Laboratory have also taken up internships in world-leading industrial labs across Europe and America, including Xerox, Microsoft, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard, where they have gone on to develop their careers.
If you're an international student or working professional with an undergraduate degree, our Evening Certificate Programs can help enhance your skills and credentials.
These certificates offer a specialization in a specific field—in business, art, design or behavioral health sciences—and practical skills that you can apply immediately.
Our certificates offer as much academic rigor as a graduate program but can be completed in less time. In addition, certificates allow you to focus on topics most relevant to your career and avoid the extra coursework required for graduate degrees. Most of our certificates can be completed within one year.
Courses are offered in evenings and on weekends in locations in San Francisco and Berkeley, communities very close to Silicon Valley's creativity and innovation. Take courses and network with U.S. professionals, and immerse yourself in California culture.
Learn to design digital products that solve business challenges and satisfy user needs.
If you're not designing your product to meet your customer's needs, somebody else will. The need for qualified, trained user experience (UX) designers is growing as businesses increasingly invest in UX design. Knowing this skill is mission-critical for success. In this program, you get the training needed to develop a portfolio and prepare to enter the field. Our instructors are experienced designers who present real-world challenges to show the theory behind UX. Learn essential user-centered design principles, interactive design techniques for multiple interfaces, prototyping software, content strategy, and decision making based on user research and user feedback. Ultimately, you learn to design digital products that solve business challenges and satisfy user needs.
Required Courses
Sample Elective Courses
A distinctive focus on digital media practice and theory sets this course apart from traditional communication design courses, preparing you for an exciting career in a range of design roles.
MA Communication Design is the study of information and interface design, the course combines creativity with critical analysis of contemporary media and knowledge of the latest methodologies and tools. In our modern, well-equipped studios you’ll learn how to develop effective concepts and prototypes for current and emergent platforms, informed by user experience design principles. Your practice will be supported by excellent facilities including a recently launched Interaction and Prototyping Laboratory (iLab), 3D printing and laser cutting as well as traditional design and print equipment. You’ll learn from academics with industry experience in graphic design, interaction design and design for broadcast media. The course culminates in a practice-led research project, which is an exciting opportunity for you to engage with key debates shaping the design industry and scholarship. When you graduate you’ll be ready for a career in established and emerging design fields, such as, interaction design, user experience design, data visualisation, digital product design and publishing.
This course will be of interest to recent graduates or those with professional experience who wish to extend their creative skills and design knowledge into the realm of digital media, user experience design and design research. While a working knowledge of Windows and Adobe software is required, it is not a technical course; the focus is on how you effectively research users and contexts, develop innovative concepts and produce lo- and hi-fidelity prototypes.
Click here to download the full Programme Specification.
You’ll graduate with a portfolio of high-quality design work and the professional skills you need to secure employment, start your own businesses, or pursue further research.
The degree opens up a wealth of opportunities in the digital, media and design sectors. Depending on your interests there are opportunities to specialise in interaction design, data visualisation or digital product development, publishing or design research.
Past graduates have gone on to work for:
The User Experience Design MSc is a flexible course that you can tailor to your own professional interests. It will help to train you for roles that range from usability, interaction and interface design through to general project management and consulting.
The course is for designers and software developers wishing to enhance their knowledge of user-centred design and usability evaluation of software-enabled products.
Course content has been designed for maximum relevancy to the marketplace.
Upon completion, you'll be able to apply your knowledge and interaction design skills to novel interaction paradigms; make effective use of a broad range of design methods; obtain in-depth knowledge of developments in mobile, ubiquitous or wearable systems and understand the commercial contexts of interaction design.
The course can be studied full-time or part-time.
For full-time students the academic year is divided into three 15-week semesters.
The taught element of the course is delivered during the first two semesters. Modules involve approximately 20 per cent classroom teaching and 80 per cent individual or group work. The third semester focuses on your major project.
Part-time students study alongside full-time students with a minimum attendance of one half day per week, depending on the number of modules taken.
On the course, you will study four core modules, two of which will require you to complete individual design projects.
You will also choose from a range of optional modules. These will allow you to specialise in the areas of the discipline that interest you the most.
Modules
Options (subject to change):
Graduates have gone on to work as commercial interaction designers on both software and software-enabled physical products, as well as using this as a starting point for a research career in human-centred interaction design.
Our graduates are working in roles that include:
At the end of the taught element there is the possibility of a placement with a digital media company for the major project module. This puts real experience on your CV as you consolidate your expertise.
Brighton is acknowledged as a major digital media cluster.
There are plenty of opportunities to network with companies and organisations in the sector both through the course through external speakers and taking your own initiative. The course cohort has regularly attended the annual conference UX Brighton and students can attend the many digital media events organised in the city.
The course is aimed at both professional practitioners wishing to pursue a sustained period of time developing new ideas or recent graduates wishing to focus their studies and refine ideas at an advanced level. The course will also consider students from a non-industrial / product background, providing they can offer clearly articulated and informed reasons for wishing to study Product Design at an advanced level.
A student defined placement module in the second semester of studies allows the student to further explore areas of relevance to their studies, either through arranged placement, collaborative activity or research visits. As well as ‘hard skills’ such as modelling, new product development, styling and product graphics, they are now also beginning to embrace the ‘soft skills’ of branding, user interface design, trend spotting and forecasting. Spin offs of these activities can now be seen as production management, new start up initiatives / own product development, corporate identity and qualitative market research
Students will be supported by staff input through a series of design activities during semester one that are designed to identify an area or interest that can then be fully explored through the following two semesters. Complementary to the design modules are two research modules that provide theoretical underpinning. There are opportunities to explore issues through a dynamic research experience that again is defined and structured by the individual. The final semester of studies allows students to bring together all that has been developed and researched during the course.
We have well equipped studios and workshops, supported by highly skilled technical staff. Supporting the craft workshops and design studios, we have excellent suites of high spec computers for CAD, assignment writing and image manipulation. The University has excellent library / study facilities with a very extensive collection of design books and periodicals, together with many e-resources and support.
Graduates have developed successful careers within a wide range of design related disciplines, including designer / maker, freelance or in-house designer for manufacturing, teacher, design buyer and design manager to name a few.
Design Informatics combines Data Science with Design Thinking in a context of critical enquiry and speculation. We build a value-aware, reflective practice at the interface between data and society by combining theory and research with an open-ended process of making and hacking.
Human activity is being constantly shaped by the flow of data and the intelligences that process it, moving towards an algorithmically mediated society. Design Informatics asks how we can create products and services within this world, that learn and evolve, that are contextualised and humane. Beyond that, it asks questions about what things we should create, speculating about the different futures we might be building and the values behind them.
The central premise is that data is a medium for design: by shaping data, we shape the world around us. Data Science provides the groundwork for this, with Design Thinking underpinning reflective research through design. You will use this in working with the internet of things and physical computing, machine learning, speech and language technology, usable privacy and security, data ethics, blockchain technologies. You will connect technology with society, health, architecture, fashion, bio-design, craft, finance, tourism, and a host of other real world contexts, through case studies, individual, and collaborative projects. You will understand user experience in the wider socio-cultural context, through an agile programme of hacking, making and materialising new products and services.
Please be aware that the structure of the programme may change.
Throughout the programme, you will be working both individually and in teams of designers and computer scientists. Everyone will have to write code during the course, and everyone will have to make physical objects. Several courses, including the dissertation, will involve presenting the artefact, product, service, or interactive experience that you have created to the general public in a show.
In the first year, you will study:
In Design with Data and Design Informatics Project, you are likely to work with an external partner, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, Amazon, Edinburgh City Council, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh or the National Museum of Scotland.
MSc and MA students then undertake a dissertation in the summer before graduation.
MFA and Advanced MSc students take a summer placement with a relevant digital organisation then return for a second year of study, comprising:
Elective courses are drawn from the Masters Programmes of the School of Informatics, Edinburgh College of Art, and Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences. Courses are typically 10 or 20 credits.
This programme will put you at the cutting edge of the intersection between data science, design, and information technology, opening a host of opportunities in working with companies, charities, and the public sector. We encourage entrepreneurship. For those who wish to stay in academia, the course provides a solid foundation for a PhD in related areas.
Design Informatics combines Data Science with Design Thinking in a context of critical enquiry and speculation. We build a value-aware, reflective practice at the interface between data and society by combining theory and research with an open-ended process of making and hacking.
The central premise is that data is a medium for design: by shaping data, we shape the world around us. Data Science provides the groundwork for this, with Design Thinking underpinning reflective research through design. You will use this in working with the internet of things and physical computing, machine learning, speech and language technology, usable privacy and security, data ethics, blockchain technologies. You will connect technology with society, health, architecture, fashion, bio-design, craft, finance, tourism, and a host of other real world contexts, through case studies, individual, and collaborative projects. You will understand user experience in the wider socio-cultural context, through an agile programme of hacking, making and materialising new products and services.
The Advanced MSc programme offers students a unique opportunity to deepen their learning through an additional 6-10 week internship, followed by an additional two semesters at Design Informatics where students can develop further as reflective practitioners, makers, and innovators.
Please be aware that the structure of the programme may change.
Throughout the programme, you will be working both individually and in teams of designers and computer scientists. Everyone will have to write code during the course, and everyone will have to make physical objects. Several courses, including the dissertation, will involve presenting the artefact, product, service, or interactive experience that you have created to the general public in a show.
Year 1:
Compulsory Courses:
In Design with Data and Design Informatics Project, you are likely to work with an external partner, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh City Council, or the National Museum of Scotland.
Elective Courses:
In addition to the compulsory courses, you can choose 1-4 elective courses from the Masters Programmes of the School of Informatics, Edinburgh College of Art, and Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences.
Students in the Advanced MSc programme will complete a 6-10 week internship with a company, charity, government, or third sector organisation over the summer.
Year 2:
Compulsory Courses:
Elective Courses:
In addition to the compulsory courses, you can choose 2-4 elective courses from the Masters Programmes of the School of Informatics, Edinburgh College of Art, and Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences.
This degree will put you at the cutting edge of the intersection between data science, design, and information technology, opening a host of opportunities in working with companies, charities, and the public sector. We encourage entrepreneurship. For those who wish to deepen their research practice, the course provides a solid foundation for a PhD in related areas.
Design Informatics combines Data Science with Design Thinking in a context of critical enquiry and speculation. We build a value-aware, reflective practice at the interface between data and society by combining theory and research with an open-ended process of making and hacking.
The central premise is that data is a medium for design: by shaping data, we shape the world around us. Data Science provides the groundwork for this, with Design Thinking underpinning reflective research through design. You will use this in working with the internet of things and physical computing, machine learning, speech and language technology, usable privacy and security, data ethics, blockchain technologies.
You will connect technology with society, health, architecture, fashion, bio-design, craft, finance, tourism, and a host of other real world contexts, through case studies, individual, and collaborative projects. You will understand user experience in the wider socio-cultural context, through an agile programme of hacking, making and materialising new products and services.
Please be aware that the structure of the programme may change.
Throughout the programme, you will be working both individually and in teams of designers and computer scientists. Everyone will have to write code during the course, and everyone will have to make physical objects. Several courses, including the dissertation, will involve presenting the artefact, product, service, or interactive experience that you have created to the general public in a show.
Compulsory Courses:
Elective Courses:
In addition to the compulsory courses, you can choose 1-4 elective courses from the Masters Programmes of the School of Informatics, Edinburgh College of Art, and Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences.
This degree will put you at the cutting edge of the intersection between data science, design, and information technology, opening a host of opportunities in working with companies, charities, and the public sector. We encourage entrepreneurship. For those who wish to deepen their research practice, the course provides a solid foundation for a PhD in related areas.
Our programme centres on the exploration of problem spaces, understanding that much of what product designers do is redefine and reinterpret products and their contexts, enabling people to lead engaged, productive and meaningful lives.
Product design is a broad discipline, which we understand through an ethnomethodological lens. At the heart of our programme are people; particularly those who currently struggle with existing objects in identified circumstances. We embrace a variety of approaches to people-centred design practice including participatory action research; affective design; design for disruption and inclusive design. The core of our approach is to speculate and build preferred futures, based on design-led evidence constructed through observation and engagement with others. Our aim is to understand the agency of objects and configure intended impacts on communities of people moving through and across various services and systems.
You will join a vibrant, international community of creative practitioners and researchers. We are involved in a variety of research interests relevant to design production, maintaining partnerships in allied disciplines such as engineering, informatics, anthropology, sociology, health and business.
There are two semesters in your first year, each providing the opportunity to engage three courses: one core requirement, and two elective options from supporting programmes relevant to the ethos of the programme.
Core courses foster exploration and development of ethnomethodological approaches to product design research and development, with a strong emphasis on action research, ethnographic observation, participation and prototyping, driven through a strong iterative approach to practice.
One-year MA degree
If you choose to pursue the one year MA degree, you will engage your dissertation in the summer period following the first year of study, focusing on the development of an individual project which emphasises product theory in context.
Emphasis on the MA degree pathway is to prepare students with interests in design management, policy or direction, or pursuing further academic research programmes such as the PhD.
Two-year MFA degree (Under review for 2018 entry)
Students enrolled on the two year MFA degree demonstrate interest in pursuing a career as autonomous designers, often establishing their own studios of practice.
In Year 2 of the MFA, you will undertake an additional four courses, with a core component in semester 1 entitled "Incubator", which is designed to help develop your skills in researching, developing and delivering a practice-led thesis.
The MFA dissertation takes place in your final semester, and culminates in the presentation of a significant body of work presented in exhibition format, showcasing exceptional skills in making, prototyping and manufacturing of high-quality, proof of concept models which articulate your understanding of theory in practice through artefacts, images and text relevant to people-centred design.
The professional knowledge, skills and abilities developed on this programme will prepare you for a rewarding career as a product/industrial designer, designer-maker, user-experience designer, user-interface designer, design manager, production manager, or a variety of other related roles within design-related industries.
Our graduates have an excellent track record moving into employment in a variety of sectors following graduation.
This is a unique programme of study that addresses the growing need for professional education in digital technology applied to design, including its social, cultural and philosophical implications.
Based in a lively studio environment, the programme develops wide skills in digital techniques and a critical framework to appraise the application of these technologies to design.
The programme addresses the needs of practitioners, managers, decision-makers and educators who want to be informed by first-hand knowledge of the technical possibilities of digital technology and an awareness of social, cultural and business contexts.
Our programme is design and technology led and there are significant demands on our students to create innovative work across a range of creative contexts including visual design, user interface and experience, interactive media, mobile web applications, animation, gaming and virtual environments.
Teaching is through a combination of lectures, seminars, tutorials, practical sessions and studios. Projects encourage original thinking and independent achievement within a framework of team-working and creative ability.
Students will:
The prospects for employment are diverse. Recent graduates are now working in multimedia and web design for architectural and urban design practices, computer system design and management, and tertiary-level teaching. The programme is also ideal if you are considering continuing on to advanced research at a doctoral level.
This programme teaches students the skills required to manage a software project by producing criteria to monitor the project's progress and measure outcomes. Students learn how to formulate requirements for a business system and are given an underpinning in the nature of software development and its inherent complexity. The programme also covers system modelling and user interface and database design. Students learn to develop a system from determining its requirements and graphic user interface to database implementation.
This programme is of particular interest to those with a first degree in business or with business experience. Students are given an understanding of the information technologies upon which e-commerce is built and how these technologies provide us with new ways of organising and managing business. On successful completion of this programme, students should be proficient in the development of Internet, web and database technologies. They should also have the project management skills required for IT consultancy and strategic decision making.
Through our short course centre opportunity may also be provided to study for the Microsoft Technology Associate Exams.
Year 1
Students are required to study the following compulsory courses.
Students are required to choose 30 credits from this list of options.
Students are required to choose 30 credits from this list of options.
Year 1
Students are required to study the following compulsory courses.
Students are required to choose 30 credits from this list of options.
Students are required to choose 30 credits from this list of options.
Year 2
Students are required to study the following compulsory courses.
Students are required to choose 30 credits from this list of options.
Students are required to choose 30 credits from this list of options.
Students are assessed through examinations, coursework and a project.
This degree is accredited by the British Computer Society (BCS). This programme has the following accreditation: partial CITP. Your programme can therefore lead to partial exemption of the BCS Chartered IT Professional (CITP) status.
Graduates from this programme can pursue careers as business analysts, IT consultants and IT managers. Opportunities exist to develop a career working as independent consultants or within teams in diverse areas such as business and IT, internet and e-commerce applications, teaching and training.
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