I had the opportunity to teach Introduction to Inclusive Design to students at the Cuyahoga Valley Career Center (CVCC). The first goal of the class was to help future designers, developers, quality assurance professionals, managers, and analysts understand the importance of including a spectrum of end users early in the design process, before development begins. The second goal was to highlight the value of rapid ideation and show that a low-fidelity prototype can be just as valuable as a high-fidelity prototype, depending on the research goals. I recently talked about the Goldilocks Theory during a UX Pathways quick take. The third goal was to reinforce that the work does not stop there. Ideas need to be usability tested with a range of end-users to understand their viability. Usability testing helps reduce risk, limit development rework, and improve overall user satisfaction.
Overall, this was a great first opportunity to bring Better World Day into the classroom and show students that design can be used to improve the world. User Centered Design (UCD) will continue to be critical as technology continues to grow, and making it easy for everyone to use will be essential. Even in this era of artificial intelligence (AI), the exercise showed students that starting with ideas on paper and then using AI to build on them can lead to stronger designs.
