Programming may be the best way to learn computational thinking and gain skills transferable to many domains but the kind of programming we have been doing doesn’t capture the full breadth and excitement of computer science.  We spent the day talking about a hot area of research and development: human-computer interaction.  The goal was to expose you to some of the different kinds of challenges that software designers face and get you thinking about less well-known career opportunities.  We saw that interface designers need a broad range of skills and so come from fields as different as graphic design, psychology or informatics.  If you enjoy thinking about technology but aren’t sure programming is for you, you may want to look into becoming a usability expert.

We talked about some of the theory behind interface design and usability and looked at various examples of bad interfaces.  Paper prototyping is often used to cheaply lay out different options for an interface.  Since it is one of the most important stages in the design process, we did a couple of paper prototyping exercises.  I encourage you to look at the software and hardware you use on a daily basis through the eyes of a designer: what decisions were made?  Why?  What could have been designed differently?

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