Curriculum

The Interaction Design Programme takes place over a full calendar year and is roughly divided across three tiers: foundations, investigations and a final project. These tiers are complemented by industry projects and OPEN Lectures in the theoretical and practical aspects of interaction design.

Students publish their work throughout the year and will participate an end-of-year exhibition accompanying their examinations.

Foundations
The first tier consists of short, skills-based courses designed to provide students with the fundamentals they will need throughout the rest of their studies. Previous courses have included:

* Team Building & workshop skills [1-2 weeks]
* Computational Design [2 weeks]
* Video Prototyping [1 week]
* Physical Computing [2 weeks]
* Theory of Interaction Design/Introduction to Interaction Design [1 week]
* People Centred Research [2-4 weeks]
* Toy View [1 week]
* Interactive Data Visualisation
* Flash/Actionscript
* Crafting Interactive Spaces [1 week]
* Performative Design/Wearable Computing [2 weeks]

Investigations
The second tier consists of three longer workshops in which students pursue more in-depth design projects on briefs related to particular human needs and contexts. Each investigation focuses on a specific medium of interaction:

* Graphical User Interfaces [4 weeks]
* Tangible User Interfaces [4 weeks]
* Service Design [3-5 weeks]

Final Project
The third tier consists of the Final Project which occupies students for the last months of the programme. This project is conducted on a topic of the student’s choice – providing an opportunity to explore an area of interest and to combine design work with reflection and knowledge generation. While this project is self-directed, resident and visiting faculty act as advisors up until the exams.

Industry Projects
In these intense two-week innovation workshops, students work with industry partners on briefs of mutual interest. Taking place at two points in the curriculum, they provide grounding in a business context and provide companies with inspiration and new design concepts. Previously we have collaborated with Danish and international companies including DSB, Intel, Nokia and Novo Nordisk.

Industry Visits
This is a series of one-day on-location visits, when students will work on a question or topic of the company interest. In the past, students have had the opportunity to visit Lego, Danfoss, SPIRE, Bang & Olufsen and Novo Nordisk.