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Rethinking HCI Education for Design: Problem-BasedLearning and Virtual Worlds at an HCI Design StudioPanayiotis Koutsabasis a & Spyros Vosinakis aa University of the Aegean , Syros , GreeceAccepted author version posted online: 26 Apr 2012.Published online: 21 Jun 2012.

To cite this article: Panayiotis Koutsabasis & Spyros Vosinakis (2012) Rethinking HCI Education for Design: Problem-BasedLearning and Virtual Worlds at an HCI Design Studio, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 28:8, 485-499,DOI: 10.1080/10447318.2012.687664

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Intl. Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 28: 485–499, 2012Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1044-7318 print / 1532-7590 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10447318.2012.687664

Rethinking HCI Education for Design: Problem-Based Learningand Virtual Worlds at an HCI Design Studio

Panayiotis Koutsabasis and Spyros VosinakisUniversity of the Aegean, Syros, Greece

The practice of teaching and learning human–computer inter-action (HCI) design has to develop its own approaches that balancemethod and technology use with reflective and situated practice.This article presents our HCI design studio course that makesa combined use of constructivist pedagogies and virtual worldsaiming to aid students critically review and reflect on the useof related methods and technologies in design and to cultivatemore general skills like self-directed learning, intrinsic motiva-tion, and critical thinking. Our HCI design studio course can bethought of as an iterative and incremental teaching and learningprocess that blends HCI methods, design practice, and technologybetween a real and a virtual design studio. The course introducesproblem-based learning to the pedagogies of project-based learn-ing and studio-based learning currently employed in most HCIdesign studios. The positive student responses and our reflectionand experiences focusing on a number of challenges for furtherimplementation are also outlined.

1. INTRODUCTIONHuman–computer interaction (HCI) education is expanding.

Up until a decade ago, HCI was a single course in the cur-riculum of computer science academic departments and theprincipal concern of HCI educators was to integrate related the-ory and methods to software engineering (Faulkner & Culwin,2000; Manaris, 2003). Now, HCI programs are emerging thatare centred on training students to become HCI professionals(Greenberg, 2009). Furthermore, HCI courses are now embed-ded in a wider set of multidisciplinary curricula in engineering,management, and design. The demand for HCI courses in manyacademic programs will probably increase in the near futurebecause that technology continuously penetrates many humanactivities, and the large corpus of HCI user-centered methodscan be of use to multidisciplinary (e.g., Winograd & Klemmer,2005) and transdisciplinary (e.g., Nordahl & Serafin, 2008)educational programs.

Address correspondence to Panayiotis Koutsabasis, University ofthe Aegean, Department of Product & Systems Design Engineering,Hermoupolis, Syros, GR-84100, Greece. E-mail: kgp@aegean.gr

There is increasing interest in informing HCI education withpractices from other learning approaches and methods in sci-ence and engineering education, and especially from designlearning in studios (or studio-based learning [SBL]). In scienceand engineering education a number of constructivist or induc-tive pedagogies have been employed with encouraging results(Prince & Felder, 2006), including Problem-Based Learning(PBL; e.g., Chang & Wang, 2011; Xiangyun et al., 2010),Project-Based Learning (PjBL; e.g., Capraro & Slough, 2009),and inquiry-based learning (Bernold, 2007; Olson & Loucks-Horsley, 2000). In addition, the instructional design of HCIdesign studios needs to combine cohesively the large corpusof related theory and methods within the reflection-in-action(Schon, 1985) practice found in design disciplines like archi-tectural and product design studios. Furthermore, making useof technology is imperative for HCI teaching for many reasons,including that students and tutors are already making use of var-ious technologies for their work; there are many technologicaltools that can mediate HCI design in various phases and stages(e.g., tools for prototyping of the user interface, remote usabilityevaluation, online survey; card sorting, etc.); the outcome of theHCI design process is a technological artifact of some sort, asoftware or user interface prototype.

The need for considering new pedagogies in HCI educa-tion that creatively synthesize HCI theory and methods, designthinking-in-action, and technology has been identified by many(e.g., Blevis, 2010; Cennamo et al., 2011; Faiola, 2007; Kolko,2010; Lundgren, Eriksson, Hallnas, Ljungstrand, & Torgersson,2006). In this respect, Faiola (2007, p. 30) argued that “ped-agogical models employed by many HCI and design programswill risk becoming increasingly short-sighted if they do not pro-vide students with knowledge domains that can account forunderstanding design, social context, and business strategiesin addition to computing.” In addition, if we want to developdesign-oriented, multidisciplinary HCI courses, to simply adoptthe studio approach to HCI teaching will not suffice. In thisrespect, Blevis (2010) noted that

design studio–style learning fosters a number of very desirablequalities, but it also suffers from some perceived limitations: lack ofscalability, possible lack of rigor (primarily in the failure to include

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486 P. KOUTSABASIS AND S. VOSINAKIS

core concepts and methods of HCI as curricular material), and a per-ceived lack of structure and specificity for assignments that is outsideof the comfort zone of many students (and professors) who are usedto the lecture style of teaching. (p. 64)

Thus, the practice of teaching and learning in HCI designstudios has to develop its own approaches that balance methodand technology use with reflective and situated design practice.

We present our HCI design studio course that is differentfrom other courses in two dimensions. First, it adds the PBLpedagogy (Barrows, 1986; Savery, 2006; Wood, 2003) to theactivities of current HCI design studios with the aim to culti-vate student generic skills and attitudes, such as self-directedlearning, team working, intrinsic motivation, and critical think-ing. Second, it proposes the experiential use of Virtual Worlds(VWs) in the form of virtual design studios, that is, 3D digitalplaces equipped with tools that enable collaborative design tocontribute to students’ technology design competence. The pro-posed approach introduces new pedagogical and technologicalelements in an HCI design studio, thus adding new possibilitiesfor HCI design educators to choose from.

2. AN OVERVIEW OF HCI DESIGN STUDIO COURSESA considerable number of educators are designing HCI

courses in order to connect them to design practice in vari-ous ways: Some propose design-centered HCI course contentand curricula (e.g., Faiola, 2007; Nordahl & Serafin, 2008),others enhance the traditional project-based approach of HCIcourses with teaching methods that promote design practice(Biskjaer, Dalsgaard, & Halskov, 2010; Harrison, Back, & Tatar,2006), and others have developed HCI design studio courses(Blevis, 2010; Greenberg, 2009; Hundhausen, Fairbrother, &Petre, 2010; Reimer & Douglas, 2003).

The principal pedagogy—that is, the study of the processof teaching and of strategies or styles of instruction, of learn-ing in design—is SBL. Learning in studios has a long traditionin art and design schools and has been studied in depth inthe design disciplines—especially in architecture and prod-uct design. It involves work in open-ended design domains,a number of structured conversations of critique, and somekind of public presentation of the work throughout the learn-ing process (Shaffer, 2007). The principal strength of thedesign studio according to Schon (1985) is the “desk crit”:a loosely structured and extended interaction and collabora-tive work between the designer (the student) and the expert(s)or critic(s) (the tutor—and/or perhaps other students) duringdesign-in-progress. Learning in studios requires the interchangeof creative thinking methods about the design problem andacting by expressing ideas and sketching.

There is a growing corpus of HCI design studio coursesthat present different approaches on teaching, learning, andtechnology use (Table 1).

Reimer and Douglas (2003) proposed teaching HCI with thestudio approach by integrating HCI lectures with studio courses.

In their course they provide students with a set of projectshighlighting design issues that students should focus and theylet students work in groups to deliver design solutions. Theirapproach combines the traditional PjBL approach to HCI withSBL with the teacher to take up many roles including coaching,providing resources, and reviewing student work.

Harrison et al. (2006) presented a PjBL approach to HCIcourses that emphasizes the student exploration and self-identification of method use in their projects. Despite that thereare no studio sessions the approach takes many assumptionsmade in SBL, and it has been applied in three undergraduateand postgraduate courses in the area of HCI and design. The“it’s just a method” method consists of two parts: (a) providinga “tidal wave” of methods of many sorts without commitment totheir underlying principles, and (2) to drive reflection followingtheir use. The role of the teacher is that of the reviewer who pro-vides critique in terms of the results of the method. The “it’s justa method” method could be applied in a studio setting allowingcritique during design-in-action; this is an orientation that wehave followed in our approach.

Greenberg (2009) picked the best practices of design stu-dios, including sketching, desk crits, and portfolios, within acomputer science department by mixing lectures with studiosessions. In this course, students are introduced to “four quitedifferent state-of-the-art interaction domains, each chosen tominimize students’ pre-conceived notions of what comprises a‘standard’ design within these domains and they are given sub-stantial freedom to design projects within these domains” (p. 3).Students work in groups, and the role of the teacher switchesbetween that of a tutor (when giving lectures) and of the expert(when providing critique).

Blevis (2010) proposed Design Challenge Based Learning(DCBL) with the core idea to present designers with human-ity and life-centered issues-based design research and design-concept challenges in the arena of HCI and design. In the DCBLapproach, design research and concept projects are assignedeach week individually. Students deliver sketches of designconcepts based on research they carry out on their own. Thenstudents work in large groups to discuss the concept designsand vote for the most compelling ones, and then continue tothe analytic design and prototype development of the prevail-ing concepts. The DCBL approach allows for multidisciplinarydesign education and rests on increased student motivation, self-confidence, and creativity. The teacher role is rather detouchedand acts more as a facilitator of the whole process.

Hundhausen et al. (2010) presented the “prototypewalkthrough” as a form of design crit in HCI design studios.In the prototype walkthrough, a group of students presents theirlow-fidelity prototype to the class, having one of their membersplay the role of the user who thinks aloud. Other students caninterrupt at any time with questions and comments. Hundhausenet al. suggested that prototype walkthroughs create ideal con-ditions for learning about design. The proposed method is avariation of the pluralistic walkthrough (Bias, 1994) method for

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488 P. KOUTSABASIS AND S. VOSINAKIS

the evaluation of user interfaces. The prototype walkthroughcan be an interesting activity in an HCI design studio courseand might also be employed incrementally from ideation toevaluation. In addition they have developed a software tool forlow-fidelity prototyping to support the design process.

All these HCI design courses are quite different and presentdiverse ideas in their conception and process. But they have onething in common: They provide a design orientation for HCIeducation that mixes and adapts the traditional PjBL pedagogyof HCI education with SBL pedagogy of design education.In typical HCI courses lectures are the norm, design is taughtin the form of “examples,” and projects are given to studentsas “homework”; while in these aforementioned courses, designhappens in a studio allowing reflection-in-action during interac-tion with the teacher. On the other hand, the SBL pedagogy isnot taken “as is” in all the aforementioned courses: In all coursesstudents work in groups (this is a major requirement for an HCIdesign studio in contrast to SBL, as that the development ofinteractive systems is essentially a team process) and in most ofthem it is required to make use and reflect on HCI methods; alsothe role of the reviewer passes on to students as well. Last butnot least, in these courses technology is an integral element ofthe process, both a material of design and a tool that mediatesdesign work.

3. EMBEDDING THE PBL PEDAGOGY IN THE HCIDESIGN STUDIO

The constructivist or inductive pedagogies like PBL, PjBL,case-based learning, inquiry-based learning, discovery learning,and so on, are relevant for an HCI design studio. Prince andFelder (2006) noted in the context of engineering education that“inductive methods are consistently found to be at least equal to,and in general more effective than, traditional deductive meth-ods for achieving a broad range of learning outcomes” (p. 1).They further identified a set of common characteristics for thesepedagogies, namely, that they all arelearner-centered, in thesense that they place more responsibility on students for theirown learning; are constructivist, in the sense that they acknowl-edge that students create their own view of learning and reality;are collaborative, in the sense that they require from students towork in groups; and promote active learning by requiring thatstudents discuss questions and tackle problems in class.

Currently, HCI education is penetrated by the PjBLpedagogy (Ayas & Zeniuk, 2001; Barron et al., 1998; Thomas,2000). PjBL organizes learning around the notion of projects.According to Thomas (2000),

projects are complex tasks, based on challenging questions orproblems, that involve students in design, problem-solving, decisionmaking, or investigative activities; give students the opportunity towork relatively autonomously over extended periods of time; andculminate in realistic products or presentations. (p. 1)

The PjBL tradition is common in schools of management,computer science, and engineering. In PjBL, the teacher can

take up many roles during the lifetime of the course—such ascoach, project member, reviewer—while students work witha high degree of autonomy. In PjBL, it is assumed that themethodology for carrying out the project is given and that stu-dents are called for applying known methods with accuracy andprofessionalism.

PjBL has often been related to PBL ; this is mainly due to therealistic and authentic context for problems/project provided inboth approaches. Barron et al. (1998) identified four principlesfor designing PjBL and PBL curricula: (a) defining learning-appropriate goals that lead to deep understanding; (b) providingscaffolds such as “embedded teaching,” “teaching tools,” sets of“contrasting cases,” and beginning with problem-based learn-ing activities before initiating projects; (c) ensuring multipleopportunities for formative self-assessment and revision; and(d) developing social structures that promote participation anda sense of agency.

In PBL, students are presented with an authentic problemand context and work in groups and autonomously to identify aroute to a solution. PBL should not be confused with problemsolving, which involves the derivation of a single correct answerfrom a well-defined problem, using a formal and rigorous pro-cess. On the contrary, in PBL the problem is authentic andrelated to practice, the process of inquiry needs to be identifiedby the learner, and the outcome is essentially a unique proposalto tackle the problem. According to Wood (2003), studentsuse triggers found in the problem to define their own learn-ing objectives. Then they do independent, self-directed studybefore returning to the group to discuss and refine their acquiredknowledge; thus they take responsibility for their own learning.Savin-Baden (2000) remarked that PBL “can help students tolearn with complexity, to see that there are no straightforwardanswers to problem scenarios, but that learning and life takesplace in contexts, contexts which affect the kinds of solutionsthat are available and possible” (p. 5). Nelson (2003) argued thatPBL can be employed to restructure computer science courses,programs of study, or entire institutions provided that professorsconceptualize curriculum as problems, place students in the roleof designers, and reconfigure classrooms as design studios.

In our approach we were concerned with marrying the PjBLand the SBL pedagogies in order to aid students reflect on theuse of HCI methods. In addition, we felt that the multidisci-plinary nature of HCI and design requires the cultivation ofmore general student skills like self-directed learning, learn-ing how to learn, intrinsic motivation, and critical thinking.Notwithstanding that PjBL and SBL can contribute to the devel-opment of these generic skills to some extent, we decided toinject the PBL pedagogy into some of our HCI design stu-dio activities to address some of the known shortcomings ofthese approaches as well. For example, a number of drawbackshave been identified for learning in studios, mainly the stress-ful process of design criticism for learners and the danger ofexcessive subjectivity from tutors (Frederickson & Anderton,1990); these can be addressed by injecting a PBL approach to

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RETHINKING HCI EDUCATION FOR DESIGN 489

studio sessions that requires from (groups of) students to reflecton their designs and try to identify learning issues themselves.In addition, in PjBL it is common that the methods for projectdevelopment are given—we did not want to do that, but we letstudents make justified decisions on the use of HCI methodsand take responsibility for their own learning; this is what theywill do in practice, after all. In Table 2, the main elements of thethree aforementioned pedagogies are summarized.

4. THE STUDIO COURSE FOR HCI DESIGN

4.1. Course Context and GoalsThe HCI design studio course is offered at the MSc program

of Design of Interactive and Industrial Products and Systems,at the University of the Aegean, Greece. This is a transforma-tion postgraduate program that accepts candidates from a widevariety of disciplines related to design (e.g., computer science,engineering, and architecture) and provides them with the skillsthat enable them to make creative use of technology, scientificmethods, and the arts in order to contribute to the design offunctional and usable products and services. The HCI designstudio course is offered at the second semester of study, justbefore students begin their MSc thesis. At that point or inparallel to this, students are attending courses related to HCItheory and methods, informatics, ergonomics, and advanceduser interfaces.

The goals of the HCI design studio are related to knowledgeand skills, the design project, and use of technology.

Knowledge and skills. The course aims to cultivate generalskills to students (a) to develop critical thinking through reflect-ing on their (group) work as well as on the use of methods foundin HCI and design literature, (b) to learn to work in groups, (c)to develop intrinsic motivation and responsibility about workand learning, and (d) to learn how to learn through the practiceof self-directed learning. Students have to make justified use ofHCI and design methods in their projects; in this respect theyhave to try to make use of various methods and reflect on theirusefulness for their project.

Design project. A design project has to be developed fromideation to user evaluation that can be added to their portfolioas well as a design report. The project is authentic and related topractice and requires field research and design work. Thus stu-dent learning is centered to this design project that has neithera single correct line of inquiry or methodology to be followednor a unique solution. Students work in collaborative groups toidentify what they need to learn in order to solve a problem andcome up regularly with presenting their progress to get feedbackand critical criticism.

Use of technology. Students have to make selective use ofa number of technologies to make project work more effec-tive, including (a) the VW design studio developed for thispurpose; (b) a wiki space for communicating texts and doc-uments; and (c) other tools like online survey tools, onlineprototyping tools, usability evaluation tools, card sorting tools,

and so on (an indicative list is given to students at the start ofthe course). The role of technology use is significant for HCIdesign studios because it contributes to digital design compe-tence. According to Arvola and Hartman (2008), in HCI designstudios it is important that students gain digital design compe-tence, that is, “ability to confidently and critically design digitalmedia for other people’s confident and critical use of that mediain their fulfillment of certain socially relevant purposes” (p. 79).In addition, technology can be considered as core material ininteraction design studios (e.g., Lundgren et al., 2006).

The HCI design studio meetings took place at a computer labthat had extra space for student work in sketching and notingwhen required. The students’ working studio space was nextto the computer lab, but meetings were not held in that roombecause there were not personal computers for all students andteachers available; the use of the web and other technologieswas required during the meetings. In addition, students workedin the VW studio, which allowed for extra sessions with teacherparticipation before the presentations of intermediate results ofmajor project phases.

4.2. Design Project and PhasesThe design project given to students was defined as follows.

Design a (multi-) touch interactive table or kiosk for a pub-lic place like a cafeteria, cinema or theatre. Consider alternativeinstallations, e.g. on top of cafeteria tables or cinema seats, at theentrance, etc; the location of the installation will affect the utilityof the installation and goals of the software multimedia application.Type of services of that application may be “business services” likebrowsing/searching the product catalogue and ordering/booking,and “entertainment services” like web browsing, games and com-munication with others (e.g. other tables in the cafe). The designshould take into account “tangible requirements” like table form,table dimensions, etc.; however it should focus on the aspects ofthe software user interface and user interaction techniques. Youshould make careful and justified use of design methods to delivera brief design report that will show off the design models createdand an evaluated prototype of the designed artifact using some HCIevaluation method and/or the VW.

The available time for the HCI design studio course was 3 hrevery week for 12 weeks; so this was the time available todeliver the project. We knew that this time would probably notsuffice for course meetings, so we held four additional sessionsin total in the VW. The course had the following schedule.

Introduction (1 week). The 1st week of the course was usedto explain the approach and technology and to provide contextto the design project for each group. A total of 10 students par-ticipated in the course, and two groups of five students withranging backgrounds were formed by the teachers. For eachgroup a specific context for the project was determined: mainlythe specific client for the project who would provide the fieldfor research and potential content. The first team decided todesign an information kiosk for the theatre nearby the univer-sity, and the second team decided to design a multitouch tablefor a specific cafeteria, which is a popular student haunt. For

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RETHINKING HCI EDUCATION FOR DESIGN 491

both projects, stakeholders and potential users could be reachedeasily. Also, the technologies to be employed in the course werepresented with a focus on the VW.

Research and inquiry (∼3 weeks). The phase of researchand inquiry was set as the first problem that students wouldhave to address. This phase requires use of HCI research andrequirements methods. Students were provided with bibliogra-phy on the following methods from which they could chooseor adapt: interview strategies, observation strategies, contextualinquiry, and models of contextual design (Beyer & Hortzblatt,1998), user segmentation strategies and personas, content inven-tory tools and methods, competitor analysis strategies (Garrett,2003), mood boards, designing brand identity, and goal-settingmethods (Cross, 1998).

Design (conceptual and analytic) (∼ 5 weeks). The phaseof conceptual and analytic design was set as the second prob-lem that students would have to address. This phase requiresthe use of HCI and design methods for articulating design con-cepts and solutions. Students were provided with bibliographyon the following: (a) “design process” methods: brainstorming(Cross, 2008); scenario-based design (Carroll, 1995); interpre-tation sessions (Beyer & Hortzblatt, 1998); “design modeling”methods like visioning (Beyer & Hortzblatt, 1998), conceptmodeling (Brown, 2007), and storyboarding and informationarchitecture methods; and prototyping methods: paper proto-typing (Snyder, 2003), wireframes, screen designs, and virtualprototyping. They also used free sketching of ideas, and theyadapted these models according to their requirements.

Evaluation (∼ 2 weeks). The phase of evaluation was setas the third problem that students would have to address.Students had to make use of an HCI evaluation from prototypewalkthrough in the VW, paper prototyping (Snyder, 2003), pro-totyping with online tools, and user testing methods in the casethey had devoted time to reach to a fully working demo.

Final presentation and assessment (1 week). The last weekof the course was devoted to the final project presentation aswell as to course and peer assessment.

The main phases of the project development during the HCIdesign studio course were considered as problems of HCI anddesign methods use. In this respect a considerable time of eachsession was devoted to collaborative work on the identifica-tion of areas of further study and the assignment of atomicresearch and learning tasks for each student by all group mem-bers. It needs to be noted that students were free to identify anduse other methods than those provided in the selected bibliog-raphy, provided that they could find them in their self-directedstudy and elaborate on their decision during studio meetings inthe lab.

4.3. Course Process and ActivitiesThe HCI design studio course process was iterative and

incremental, blending HCI methods, design practice, and tech-nology. The main activities conducted during the course werepresentation, critique, reflection, and design. Of course, theseactivities had to be continued by students alone through theweek, for example, design was refined, presentations were pre-pared, and so on. In addition, individual, self-directed learninghad to be conducted in the form of research (in the field and/orbibliography) during the week that fed through all stages ofthe course process. These activities and process are depicted inFigure 1.

The style of presentations differed depending on its scopeand purpose. Typically the course started with student presenta-tions that had to be kept short—not more than 20 min. Somepresentations took much longer, however, because they wereinteractive and teachers were allowed to intervene and providecritique and questions. Most of the presentations were held in

FIG. 1. Outline of the iterative process and activities followed during each human–computer interaction studio course work. Note. VW = Virtual Worlds.

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492 P. KOUTSABASIS AND S. VOSINAKIS

FIG. 2. Presentation in the Virtual World (color figure available online).

the VW studio (Figure 2)—this was suitable for students tomaintain the corpus of presentations in the digital space as wellas for teachers to provide questions and critique with digitalannotations.

It is important to note that during the critique sessions in theHCI design studio we tried to avoid coaching and correcting stu-dents work, but we attempted to provide a set of questions aboutthe fundamentals of HCI and design method use in the contextof their project. This is because we wanted to act as facilita-tors and guide students in the learning process, pushing them tothink deeply, and to identify the kinds of questions that studentsneed to be asking themselves, thus forming a cognitive appren-ticeship according to Collins, Brown, and Newman (1989). Forexample, during the first phase of research and inquiry, thefirst team (information kiosk at theatre) made use of contex-tual design models for representing requirements, whereas thesecond team (multitouch cafeteria table) rested on interviewsfrom potential users and started sketching concepts of the table.We were interested in having students explain why they madethese choices, being clear that what is important is for them tounderstand why they followed these methods. It turned out forthe first team that the stakeholders of the theatre wanted to putan emphasis on ticket booking and selling through the kiosk—and thus an organizational view of the theatre was required andthe contextual design approach was preferred. The second teamfound from interviews that the user experience of “hanging out”in the cafeteria was the driving design issue of their work, sothey felt like experimenting from the very start with sketch-ing and concepts of the user experience of interacting with amultitouch table.

After the presentation and critique, which lasted for about1 hr in each week’s time frame, the third activity that was takingplace during the course time was reflection. This was modeledas a simple PBL tutorial process (Wood, 2003), where studentselect a chair and a “scribe” to record the group outcome of the

discussion and teachers facilitate the process with posing ques-tions. The aim of this activity for each group was to completea PBL whiteboard similar to that of Hmelo-Silver (2004), withthe following steps:

1. Work on your own for each issue for 5 minutes to identifyFacts (1st column). Be brief!

2. Present your findings to your teammates. 2 minutes each. —No critique at this phase.

3. Rework your Facts for 5 minutes on the basis of yourteammates’ presentations.

4. Re-present them to your teammates. — Now discuss themand prepare an agreed, neat list of Facts — 8 minutes

5. Do Steps 1–4 for each of Learning issues (2nd column),Ideas (3rd column), Action plan (4th column).

We note that the duration just listed proved short during thefirst (research and inquiry) and thrird (evaluation) phases of theproject. These phases required additional planning, and espe-cially at the first sessions, time was running out fast becausethat students were not acquainted to the process. However, dur-ing the conceptual and analytic design (second) phase of theproject, this PBL table was not used much and changes ofmodels happened in “sketching mode”; it was partly used fordocumenting comments and corrections made within the teambased on teachers’ critique.

The last activity of the HCI design studio course was the col-laborative design of the product of the next week’s phase, as thiswas revealed through the action plan. As previously noted, thecontent and duration of the design activity varied a lot betweenteams and depended on the phase of the project. The designactivity took the form of action planning for the first (designand inquiry) and third (evaluation) phase of the project and theform of free-form sketching during the second (conceptual andanalytic design) phase of the project. In addition, during theweek sketches and models (e.g., personas, concept models, sto-ryboards, wireframes, etc.) were transferred to computer-basedmodels using the VW studio and tools like MS Visio and AdobePhotoshop. Furthermore, prototyping and evaluation activitiesoccurred in the VW: One of the two teams opted to create avirtual prototype of the information kiosk for the theatre insidethe VW and conducted a usability evaluation with remote users(Figure 3). The other team opted for paper prototyping becausethey wanted to focus their evaluation on the gesture-based inter-action techniques designed for their multitouch table, so theyworked much with paper sketches and compositions.

All in-course activities required atomic research (self-directed learning) that occurred during the week interval.Of course, students groups also had a number of extra meetingswithout us in their studio, and there were a couple of times thatwe visited them on their request. Furthermore, we held a num-ber of virtual world sessions to discuss various issues usually acouple of days before the final presentations of each phase.

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FIG. 3. A user approaching the interactive virtual prototype of the info-kiosk(color figure available online).

4.4. The Virtual HCI Design Studio: Supporting RemoteCollaborative Activities

To support the virtual studio activities, we have installeda VW in the department’s servers and we have developedadditional content in the form of constructed places and inter-active objects (tools). We used the OpenSimulator platformand MySQL database to set up a stand-alone VW server andinstalled the Freeswitch server to provide voice communica-tion support. Students and tutors could log in to the VW usingthe Hippo browser that was installed in the labs or any otherSecond Life–compatible browser to connect from their homes.The software we used for our virtual studio in both client- andserver-side was open source. Furthermore, we decided to keepour VW stand-alone, and thus isolated from other regions, andto provide restricted access. Only students and tutors were pro-vided user accounts to log in to the 3D environment, and theyhad to use their real names as avatar names. The reason for thesedecisions was to be able to better monitor the students’ workand progress; for example, we could easily track the owner ofeach object that was uploaded in the environment, to record chatsessions of group meetings or class presentations, and so on.We decided to use OpenSimulator instead of the most popularSecond Life environment, because (a) we had more freedomto configure the environment, control user access, and storethe user-generated content for future reference and use; (b) thenature of the HCI design studio requires a lot of images to beuploaded to the VW (e.g., sketches, models, concepts, proto-types) and Second Life charges a price per image upload; and(c) most of the features of Second Life are already supported bythe OpenSimulator platform.

Before the beginning of the virtual studio we constructed anumber of places to be used for student activities:

• Classroom. There is one single classroom in a cen-tral place in the VW to be utilized for class activities.This room is used during the presentation sessions

to let groups display their progress and explain theirdecisions to the rest of the class. It is designed as ameeting space: It has a display screen on one walland a large table with chairs around it for studentsand tutors to occupy. In the entrance there is a spacefor tutors’ announcements about the course and theprojects. Furthermore, any notes created by the tutorsduring class presentations and any drawings on thephysical whiteboard of the labs are added as digitalcontent in the classroom space.

• Private rooms. Each user has her own private room forwhich she has exclusive control of the entrance, so shecan decide when to allow other users to enter and whento isolate it. The reason for using private spaces is to letstudents bring their own resources and freely developtheir own ideas and concepts before presenting them tothe rest of the group.

• Group collaboration rooms. There is one room foreach of the two groups to be used for collaborativedesign and learning activities. Initially, it is equippedonly with appropriate interactive tools and sample fur-niture objects (tables, chairs, etc.), and groups areencouraged to design their space according to theirown needs and planned activities. The role of theserooms are to support group meetings, to be used asplaces to collaboratively construct and present sketchesand models, to store resources (web pages, papers, etc),to place comments and notes on the project’s progress,and so on.

• Prototyping rooms. Again, there is one room for eachof the two groups, and its role is to be used for virtualprototyping. The room is initially empty and studentsare asked, using the appropriate tools, to construct afunctional prototype of their designed concept and toplace it in a realistic context. This prototype is thenevaluated by other users that interact with it as avatars.

We have also developed a number of interactive tools (e.g.,Figure 4) using the Linden Scripting Language in order to aidstudents through their activities. The tools were freely availablein a specially reserved place in the classroom, and any studentcan make copies and use them in the world’s private or publicplaces.

To support group presentations we have built two specialtools, the Projector and the Projector Controller. The Projectoris used as a display screen with a “laser pointer” feature (i.e.,if one clicks on it, a red dot appears in that place), and thesecond is used to connect to the projector and control a pre-sentation. During group sessions each student can use her ownprojector controller to upload the presentation images, displaythem on screen, and move forward or backward through herpresentation.

Group collaboration is supported in multiple ways. Studentsmay use the Annotation object to store notes or comments

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FIG. 4. Virtual World tools (color figure available online).

and place them in the environment. For simpler one or twoline notes there also a Short Annotation object that displaysthe message floating above it, so other users do not have toclick on the object and open the note to read it. A collabo-rative text-only whiteboard is supported through the MessageBoard object, which can be used for storing ideas, facts, orsimply group meeting notes. Students can quickly present newconcepts to each other using a Sketch Board, through whichthey can directly draw sketches on a white surface. To cre-ate more sophisticated and accurate drawings, they can use theDrawing Board object that displays Google Docs drawings inthe VW and lets visitors immediately connect and edit the doc-ument. A Post-it Board object is also available as a tool in theVW. Students may add new text messages on it in the form ofcolored Post-it notes. Finally, a Chat Recorder object allowsstudents to record chat sessions, play them back, or save them asannotations.

Students also need to store the resources they find duringtheir research to communicate them to others and for later ref-erence. Given that most resources are available on the web (e.g.,scientific papers, information pages, images, e-books, etc.), wehave added the Resource object for this purpose. It displays ashort description of the document it points to and opens thehyperlink in a new browser window when clicked.

Finally, we have designed and implemented the InterfaceElement tool to be used for the implementation of the functionaluser interface prototype. Using multiple copies of this object,students can progressively construct windows containing ele-ments such as buttons and images and define their behaviorusing simple commands. Currently, interactivity with the UIprototypes is limited to simple mouse clicks. Each workingelement can have one or more of the following functions: (a)operate as a Button, which can send events to other elements (oritself) when clicked; (b) operate as a Window, which can con-tain other elements and it can show or hide based on the eventit receives; and (c) operate as an Image Container, which con-tains a number of images and it may display the next, previous,or any indexed image based on the event it receives. The toolswere designed with the specific phases and activities of the HCIstudio course in mind (see Table 3).

In research activities, students may use Resource objects tocollect and organize documents in their private room and toshare them with the rest of the group. They may also discussabout their findings inside the world and store their discussionsfor later reflection using the Chat Recorder object.

During the design activities, the VW’s tools can be usedin various ways (e.g., Figure 5). Sketch Boards, MessageBoards, and Post-it Boards may be utilized either in group

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TABLE 3Tools and Places of the Virtual Worlds Used During Project Activities

Activities Actions Tools Places

Research Collect and organize resources Resource Private RoomShare resources Resource Group Collaboration RoomDiscuss about findings Chat Recorder Group Collaboration Room

Design Communicate ideas Sketch Board, Message Board,Post-it Board

Group Collaboration Room

Create and refine concepts Drawing Board, upload images Group Collaboration RoomPresent solution Projector, Projector Controller Group Collaboration RoomExplain proposed solutions Annotation, Short Annotation Group Collaboration Room,

Prototyping RoomConstruct prototype Interface Element, 3D object

buildingPrototyping Room

Discuss/comment on (aspects of)proposed solution

Annotation, Short Annotation, ChatRecorder

Group Collaboration Room,Prototyping Room

Presentation Present solution Projector, Projector Controller ClassroomCritique Comments on presentation Annotation, Message Board, upload

imagesClassroom

Comments on concepts/solution Annotation, Short Annotation Group Collaboration RoomCritique of prototype Annotation, Chat Recorder Prototyping Room

Reflection Discuss about critique Chat Recorder Group Collaboration RoomFill PBL whiteboard Message board, upload images Group Collaboration Room

Note. PBL = problem-based learning.

meetings or asynchronously in order to record and re-collectideas and remarks. Graphs, drawings, and diagrams that presentproperties and aspects of proposed concepts can be either in-world created using the Drawing Board object or using anexternal program (e.g., Photoshop). In the second case they canbe uploaded in the VW as images and be attached on exist-ing objects (e.g., boards). Individual members may present theirideas to the rest of the group using a Projector and a ProjectorController object, and they can explain parts of the pro-posed solutions by attaching annotations to them. The InterfaceElement is being used to construct the interactive prototypes.Comments and suggestions on the proposed solutions can bemade by the group members either by posting annotations orusing a Chat Recorder during real-time discussions.

Presentations of group progress to the rest of the class arebeing made using Projector Controller objects by the presentersthat connect to the classroom’s Projector. During and after thepresentations, the group work is being criticized by the instruc-tors and by the rest of the class using annotations and MessageBoard objects that contain the comments and suggestions thatwere made. Furthermore, drawings and sketches made in thephysical whiteboard of the lab are being instantly photographedand uploaded to the VW. The concepts and prototypes createdby the groups can also be commented by the rest of the classusing annotations. Finally a Chat Recorder object may also beused to record a user’s reactions and comments while evaluatingthe interactive prototype.

Finally, we have to note that we did not restrict our studentsto use the tools exclusively for their intended purpose; ratherwe let them improvise, and in a few cases we were surprised tofind that some of the tools had been used successfully in quiteunexpected ways.

4.5. Student AssessmentThe holistic student assessment at an HCI design studio

course is a complex issue. This is especially true for theapproach followed here, as we wanted to simply evaluate notonly the quality of the group project outcome but also the pro-cess followed by each group and the individual general studentskills and attitudes in group work. The assessment of PBL isalso an open issue, and it is generally dealt with with varioustypes of formative and summative assessment tools and meth-ods usually encoded in complex assessment rubrics (O’Grady,2004).

We articulated a mixed schema for the summative studentassessment that consisted of two types of assessment:

1. Project assessment (60%). This was provided by the teach-ers of the course on the basis of a weighted set of criteriareflecting the whole process, method use, and outcome. Thecriteria were marked quantitatively and they were followedby individual teachers’ explanations for our marks.

2. Assessment of individual student skills and attitudes (40%).This was provided partly by the teachers (10%) and largely

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FIG. 5. Sketches and models of the design project created in the virtual design studio with the use of the sketch board and drawing board tools (color figureavailable online).

by the students themselves (30%), who provided peer andself assessments for their groups. Again, this was based ona set of qualitative criteria adapted from Yip and Ghafarian(2000). Only the summary assessment was provided tostudents, not the detailed rubric.

We need to note that students’ response to self- and peerassessment was consistent for all students, especially those (onein each team) that were left behind and did not contribute

much—they sincerely identified that themselves, as well as theirteammates.

5. DISCUSSION: REFLECTION AND EXPERIENCESWe have presented our approach to the instructional design

of an HCI design studio course that adds the PBL pedagogy tothe activities of current HCI design studios and makes experi-ential use of VWs in the form of virtual design studios. The

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motivation behind this framing was developed due to reasonsthat stem out of pedagogical goals and concerns, research andexploration, and necessity. We wanted to emphasise an active,PBL approach to learning in this HCI design studio becausethat this is the last course of a postgraduate program in inter-active product design and students should be in a position totake responsibility for their own learning in authentic prob-lems and contexts. In addition we wanted to inform our HCIdesign course with practices from design learning in studios,and because that HCI design studios are not widely established,we wanted to explore the known benefits of learning in stu-dios in conjunction to PBL approach. Furthermore, we wantedto make experiential use of technologies in this course mainlyfor allowing students to gain technology design competence,but also to compensate for a priori limitations in space, time,and existing asynchronous learning technologies (Koutsabasiset al., 2011) that could not effectively support the designstudio approach; therefore we have developed VW design stu-dio in which students performed many collaborative designactivities.

The experiences gained from this course are reported withrespect to course results, student responses and assessment,coordination issues, and allocated resources. To start withcourse results, we were very pleased with the process fol-lowed throughout the course as well as with the final outcome(i.e., the student projects). The PBL approach enabled studentsto take responsibility for their own study and follow differ-ent routes to their learning and project development. Thesedifferent routes to research, study, and development emergedin-groups and between-groups and allowed students and groupsto contribute with different methods to the course content cor-pus. This generated opportunities for us to discuss and createawareness about the more generic skills required for multidis-ciplinary design. In addition, students responses to the coursewere overall very positive, recognizing the novelty and valueof the approach, despite that a couple of students complainedat first about the “lack of guidance” regarding use of methodsand “lack of corrections” on their design proposals; however,they got used to that approach, especially after they saw theirteammates cope well and deliver interesting results. We alsofound that this HCI course requires tight coordination and addi-tional time within the course so that all activities are conductedeffectively, and between courses—this was addressed in partdue to additional sessions in the VW. In addition, the resourcesto develop and maintain a VW are significant not only interms of making open source interoperable but also in creatingtools for collaborative design; on the other hand, this is a veryinteresting research dimension that complements with otheractivities.

The VW has been used successfully during the course in twoways: as a prototyping tool and as a collaboration environment.A notable advantage of the use of the VW compared to the morecommon approach of letting the group decide about the tools touse lies in the integration and awareness. The group progress

was visible to all, so both the tutors and the groups could beaware of the activities that took place and could observe andcomment on the documents and solutions that were proposed.This integrated environment allowed remote users to collabora-tively construct solutions and communicate in real-time usingvoice or text chat. In the second case they could also recordtheir discussion for later use. Furthermore, the VW and thetools created for the course offered asynchronous collaborationcapabilities that allowed the group to work on their solutionin parallel and exchange opinions and ideas through messages,drawings, and sketches. Finally, the creative freedom offered bythe VW in the sense that students could modify their appear-ance and construct and decorate their own collaborative spacewas highly engaging for the majority of them.

On the other hand, there were technical issues faced duringthe use of the VW that were quite restrictive. The 3D model-ing capabilities of the environment were not as sophisticatedas in commercial applications, and the rendering quality wassignificantly lower, as expected. This difference caused somefrustration to the more experienced students with a backgroundin the arts or architecture. In addition, some students felt thatit was an extra burden to convert and upload to the VW thedocuments that they created using familiar applications, such asPowerpoint and Photoshop and they would like to have a lesscomplicated interface between the VW and external applica-tions. Finally, some users found the Interface Element objectquite difficult and time-demanding to use, because every singlecomponent of each screen should be represented as a differ-ent object having its own behavior, and this process couldbe quite painstaking in the case of more complicated userinterfaces.

We are currently applying and refining our approach ina wider range of projects and paths in the multidisciplinaryarea of HCI, interaction, service, and collaborative design(Koutsabasis, Vosinakis, Malisova, & Paparounas, in press)involving more students and groups on the basis of the expe-riences gained. In addition we are working to address several ofthe issues identified and to set up learning and design problemsthat will also include customers as users of the environmentto allow for more possibilities for collaboration and prototyp-ing. We are also working on the incorporation of specific VWtools for carrying out design activities in the VW like affinitydiagrams (taking into account related tools in tabletops, likethat of Mohamedally & Zaphiris, 2009), as well as to the for-mulation of a qualitative approach for the evaluation of HCIdesign learning activities in VWs with emphasis on issues ofassessing critical reflection and intrinsic motivation of students(intrinsic motivation has been identified in other studies like forinstance in Shin, 2009, but not with respect to PBL and HCIdesign learning). We expect that in the near future the over-all picture of research in HCI design education will emphasizemultidisciplinary and constructivist learning combined withthe experiential use of purposefully designed technologies tosupport active student learning.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORSPanayiotis Koutsabasis is a lecturer at the University of theAegean, Greece. His work focuses on studies of the user

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experience in human–computer interaction, mainly concerningusability, accessibility, aesthetics and collaboration, and inthe human-centred design of various types of interactive sys-tems in e-learning, e-business, decision and design support,and so on.

Spyros Vosinakis is an assistant professor at the Universityof the Aegean, Greece. His work focuses on the design andstudy of platforms, algorithms, and software architecturesrelated to Virtual Worlds and Intelligent Virtual Agents and ontheir application in culture, education, and collaborative design.

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