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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Interaction Design Methods

Interaction Design Methods

The tools and techniques used to shape the potential of interaction.

“
Interaction designers design for the possibility of interaction. The interaction itself takes place between people, machines, and systems, in a variety of combinations … All interaction is a form of communication.
—Dan Saffer

Objective & Outcomes

This course introduces methods for modeling the dynamic nature of interactions and prepares students for practice that goes beyond artifact-driven design. Students will learn how to model and evaluate actions and conditions of user and system activities, and posit them amid user needs and the increasing interdependencies of complex systems. Foundational theories and principles of interaction design will be introduced, as well as cognitive foundations of interaction design such as mental models and metaphor.

Upon completing this course, students will learn to apply responsible frameworks for their roles as designers of interactions within services, communities, and platforms. Students will also be able to articulate the various roles of products, human agents, and organizations in dynamic interaction designs.

Typical Schedule

  • Session 1: Historical Development & Precedents of Interaction Design
  • Session 2: User-Centered Design for Interactions
  • Session 3: Activity-Centered Design for Interactions
  • Session 4: Systems Design for Interactions
  • Session 5: Principles of Interaction Design
  • Session 6: Cognitive Foundations
  • Session 7: Final Project Presentations

See all MDes Courses