Overview

User Experience of AI (new course under development, piloted in 25FA under the title “Delightful AI”) introduces students to the many ways AI systems can make users feel feel (e.g., joyful, thrilled, more connected to who they are and more like who they aspire to be) and what specific tech design choices can purposefully create these experiences. Complementing foundational courses such as HAI Design, which often focus on designing AI that helps people get things done (efficiency, time-saving), this course offers a deep dive into the cognitive psychology of user experience (UX). It is designed for students who want to become professional tech product designers.

Prerequisite: None.

Human-AI Interaction (HAI) Design (INFO 4460/5460) teaches students to translate technical advances in AI into novel, useful applications, with an eye on their societal implications. With powerful AI capabilities now at everyone’s fingertips, these skills are essential not just for future professional software and UX designers, but for students across majors and fields. The course brings students with technical AI training and those with human-centered training together in project-based learning. Students will dive into concepts that characterize human‑centered AI (e.g., human–AI teamwork, explainability, trust, fairness), learn to work in interdisciplinary teams, and practice creating AI systems that are useful, trusted, respectful of users’ agency, and resilient to bias and manipulation.

Prerequisite: Prior coursework (or equivalent industry experience) in either technical AI or HCI/design. Programming skills (e.g., Arduino, web app dev) are a plus for students in either session, though not required.

Some seats are reserved for students in the AI minor; This course is one of its core electives.

HAI Design Research (INFO 4940/5940/6940) is a research seminar on the fundamental issues of human-AI interaction design and its canonical literature. It also introduces Design as an intellectual tradition and a distinctive way of producing knowledge. Students will engage with scholarship on design challenges that predate AI (collaboration, trust, fairness, creativity), analyze how AI inherits and complicates those challenges, and examine what design research uniquely contributes that social science, engineering, and ethics cannot: knowledge about articulating and realizing a “preferred future” with tech. This is a reading- and debate-based course, not a design studio; students seeking to design AI applications hands-on should consider the HAI Design course instead.

Prerequisite: Prior experience in HCI, design, or AI (whether through research, coursework, or industry practice) is strongly recommended.

Some seats are reserved for Ph.D. students in Information Science; This course is one of the Ph.D. program’s Design core electives.