World Interaction Design Day Classroom Resources

As educators, we can play an important role during World Interaction Design Day and beyond. In order to use interaction design for social impact, educators can facilitate activities with students that support dialogue and positive outcomes. In this year’s important theme of diversity and inclusion with design, we invite you to access some of the helpful resources below to share with your students.

Design thinking introduction and workflow

Before your students dive into the design process, ask them first to empathize with their intended audiences through the design thinking process. Check out these resources from the Stanford d.School and IDEO to deliver an introduction to design thinking and discover activities to work through with your students to scaffold the design process.

Lessons

Design Principles: As students familiarize themselves with design thinking, teach them the basic design principles. Use this lesson to introduce how to use design principles and typography to evaluate and inform designs.

Getting Started in Adobe XD: This lesson is a great introduction to Adobe XD, a vector-based tool for designing and prototyping user experiences for web and mobile apps. Once students have mastered Adobe XD, they will be equipped with the tools to design for social impact.

Designing with Adobe XD: Adobe XD can be used to switch easily from wireframing, visual design, interaction design, prototyping, preview and sharing, all in one powerful tool. In this lesson, students will review the roles of UX and UI designers, be introduced to wireframes, how to design in XD for their intended audiences, and use this to create a mobile app portfolio prototype.

Prototyping and user testing with Adobe XD: Adobe XD allows student designers to create prototypes by adding interactive animations to static designs that simulate the flow of an app. XD also allows students to use a variety of options to share your interactive prototypes with important audiences. In this lesson, students will take an app they designed in XD design mode and turn it into an interactive prototype, share for feedback, as well as test the app and record the interactions.

Projects

Creating a mobile app prototype: After students have worked through the design thinking process and interviewed key audiences, guide them to prototype a mobile app that fits their audience’s needs. In this project, students will wireframe, design, and iterate a mini-portfolio app prototype. They will turn their app into an interactive prototype, share for feedback, test the app, and finalize the design.

User experience design with Adobe XD by Mark Shufflebottom: With your students, prototype, test, and design the user experience. Then refine that interface further, taking it to a high-fidelity prototype, and eventually the full, finished user interface.

UX to UI design: Student events by Pierfrancesco Filippo: Share this project to inspire students with examples of prototyping for events using Adobe XD. Pierfrancesco created an app for the International Journalism festival that contains the program of events, news, and schedule changes through a notification system. Your students can begin to prototype apps that support other events in your community or institution.

Join the livestream

Your students can join in IxDD right from the classroom. Follow our 10-hour livestreaming marathon from Adobe Live, with eight guests who will share how they address demographic diversity and foster a culture of inclusion in their work.

We look forward to seeing what your students create with Adobe XD and beyond! Share your creations on Twitter with #CreateEdu, or reach out to us with other examples on Facebook or Twitter.