This book chapter Appeared in Human Factors Issues and the Impact of Technology on Society
Lum, 2021
URL: https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/human-factors/281748

It was written by the following students and instructor in the Interactive Design program:

E. Cooney, L. Kolber (Instructor), N. Martonik, E. Sekely
Duquesne University, USA

ABSTRACT

Human factors is a critical area of study in higher education. It is integral to applied academic programs such as Interaction Design. In this chapter, the authors begin by reviewing precepts of authentic, “real-world” learning. From a human factors and interaction design viewpoint, they then describe an authentic learning project – a mobile application design – that was done by university students in collaboration with a leading global specialty retailer.  Specifically, in terms of the project, the chapter reviews the following:

  1. benefits and challenges of academic and industry collaborations;
  2. human factors and interaction design processes, methods, and principles used throughout the authentic project;
  3. anthropometric features of the project prototype and their implications for usability;
  4. precepts of cognitive information processing (i.e., human attention, perception, and memory) and their importance for the design and usability of the project’s interface;
  5. insights and lessons learned about the use of authentic learning experiences in teaching human factors and interaction design.

DESCRIPTION OF AUTHENTIC LEARNING PROJECT

A leading global specialty retailer provided students in the Interactive Design program at Duquesne University (Interactive Design Studio course) a design challenge (project brief): design a smartphone application that alleviated known pain points within the in-store shopping experience associated with: a) product finding and browsing, b) product try on, and c) value maximization. These are authentic problems faced by many retailers who enable customers to augment shopping tasks with technology. Over a four-week period, student teams of 3-4 individuals created designs that they eventually presented to the retailer’s UX team at the conclusion of the semester.