Higher Education Program: Master in Computer Engineering

Professor: Franca Garzotto

Web Site: http://hoc13.elet.polimi.it/aui_interaction/

Description:

Computing has now gone beyond conventional devices, involving digital artefacts that are constantly carried on by people, embedded within appliances, vehicles, walls, furniture, and pervasively used in most human activities. Multimedia information are displayed on large and small displays, embedded in the physical space or in wearable miniaturized devices like smart watches or eyeglasses. Users can communicate with devices using gestures, body movements, speech, or manipulating physical objects.

Thinking “out of the box” and understanding human needs is crucial to exploit the full potential of these novel technologies and to develop ground-breaking interactive applications and services. This course will stimulate this attitude and will provide students with technological and methodological know-how that will facilitate their becoming carriers of innovation in the ICT arena.

In this course you will learn:

  • a set of interaction paradigms “beyond the desktop” (mobile, motion-based, touch/touchless, tangible, robot-based), understanding the rationale and the “vision” of each paradigm, design principles, and main application domains.
  • general methodologies of Human Computer Interaction for requirements, design, and prototyping, and how to apply them to design innovative interactive applications
  • up-to-date implementation technologies to develop interactive applications that offer novel services and advanced user interfaces
  • systematic evaluation method to assess application quality for a User eXperience (UX) perspective

The learning approach is mostly project-based while the teaching format comprises ex-cathedra lessons, industrial seminars, practical exercises and a supervision of project work. Industrial seminars will involve representatives of major worldwide ICT players (including Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Intel) as well as small start-ups producing interactive technologies and services.