SYSEN 5720 - The Art of Innovation: A Hands On Approach

Fall, spring. 2 credits. Letter grades only.

Permission of instructor required.

S. Simoncini, T. Brandenburg.

This hands-on course will prepare you to be future innovators by teaching you the human-centered design methodology known as “design thinking.” You will work in a cross-disciplinary team where you will be immersed in the entire design thinking cycle: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. Class challenges will have real sponsors who will give us a complex problem they face in their daily work. You can expect to learn the following: 1) ethnographic techniques for building empathy in order to understand human needs and desires; 2) how to build a design vision based on deep insights gleaned from fieldwork; 3) effective brainstorming techniques; 4) rapid prototyping; 5) how to test prototypes with real users and make multiple iterations based on user feedback.