Technology Design Foundations
This course introduces foundational design and technology frameworks and builds skill sets essential to the design of products, services, and experiences enabled by emerging technologies. It follows a human-centered design process that includes research, concept generation, and prototyping, with an emphasis on iteration and refinement. It also develops fluency across a range of core technologies, from fabrication to micro-controllers, and how to operationalize them within a design context. These activities are supported by regular practice of design critique. Students engage with a highly technical semester-long project to create a product-service system leveraging both hardware and digital technologies that addresses a well-defined need.
Topics
- Students are expected to build fluency in the following skill sets through Technology Design Foundations: ● establishing empathy for users and stakeholders; ● framing complex problems as actionable design opportunities; ● design ideation; ● Iteratively prototyping a range of physical and interactive concepts; ● Validate hypotheses using technical and experiential prototypes, and statistical methods; ● Visually and experientially communicating design concepts to inspire audiences and solicit feedback.
- Upon completing this course, students will be able to: - Lead key steps in an iterative and human-centered design process, including conducting research, uncovering insights, generating ideas, and developing and testing prototypes. - Work effectively in teams with a toolkit of resources to support productive teamwork - Communicate both conceptual and concrete ideas effectively, using a range of visual and verbal presentation techniques - Give form to design ideas through prototyping at a range of fidelities, and using a range of materials and tools, including electronics, to convey specific information about a design idea
Official catalogue course objectives and student learning outcomes
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027