In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design was folded into Illinois Tech's School of Design & Society.
This website is an archive of the impactful and inspirational work produced by the ID community before that transition.

László Moholy-Nagy opened the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, treating design as a discipline that was teachable, testable, and consequential. Nine decades on, its scope had widened from the things people use to the systems they depend on: hospitals, government agencies, classrooms, supply chains, digital platforms. Along the way, ID community members developed the published research, methods, and frameworks that designers rely on every day.

Chief among them is human-centered design: close attention to how people actually live, and advocacy for what that research reveals. It shaped designers who are comfortable with complexity and ambiguity: curious, rigorous, inclusive, and stubbornly optimistic about design's ability to change the systems that shape our lives.

To every one of them, who taught, studied, built, critiqued, and stayed late in the studio: thank you, and keep designing.

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Evidence-Based Design

Evidence-Based Design

Introduction to the use of analytics to measure the success of design solutions.

Objective & Outcomes

This course will introduce students to the process of collecting and analyzing evidence to make more informed design decisions. Having measurable results can aid a design team in justifying design decisions as well as helping justify the expansion of design efforts. This course emphasizes quantitative metrics while also exploring how qualitative research can help inform tests and how quantitative research findings can help justify qualitative research projects.

Upon completing the course, students can provide evidence to help designers and business partners make better product decisions across different stages of experience creation. They will have conversational expertise to defend design decisions across the spectrum of product considerations.

Typical Schedule

  • Session 1: Class Introduction & Overview of Topics
  • Session 2: Explore the Opportunity
  • Session 3: Prioritizing Opportunities
  • Session 4: Prioritizing Opportunities (continued) & Defining the Initial Solution
  • Session 5: Evaluating Solutions with Metrics
  • Session 6: Optimizing Solutions
  • Session 7: Final Presentations

See all MDes Courses