What is Human Centered Design & Engineering? UW Professors Share Their Thoughts

Julie Kientz: HCDE has been a really good place to study both the technology side and the people side of things.

Charlotte Lee: So that means taking seriously what people do, how they do it and why they do it.

Beth Kolko: Figuring out how to make technologies that actually makes people's lives better.

Gian Bruno: HCDE is a technology driven program that focuses on people.

Narrator: The Human Center Design & Engineering program at the University of Washington sees the world's challenges through a wide lens. Our faculty and students use innovative techniques to study the intersections between people and technology. By combining traditional engineering concepts with theories from psychology, communication, rhetoric and visual design, we strive to find creative, user centered solutions and have the technical knowledge to put those solutions to work.

Jan Spyridakis: HCDE will give you a unique opportunity to work in a small department with a group of highly invested faculty and students where you will have a chance to make a difference in terms of the designs and the messages that you communicate to make the world a better place.

Charlotte Lee: One of the things I love about this field is that the people who do it are really passionate about it. They've sought out a place where they can do their work.

Mark Zachry: How can we design people and technologies to work interactively in a more productive, fun if you will, manner.

Julie Kientz: I think it means understanding real problems that affect real people and also designing solutions to those problems so, not just studying problems but also figuring out how we solve those problems.

Gian Bruno: HCDE is a small program within the College of Engineering but despite our small size, our students have access to a really wide array of topics, both in research and academics.

Beth Kolko: What we do in this department is we do research to figure out what are the problems that people actually have, rather than assuming we know what the problems are already, and then we build things that actually solve those problems - things that are usable and meaningful, within people's communities.

Jennifer Turns: If you want to be thinking about what people are trying to do all the time and trying to figure out how to help them be more successful, then this is the place to go.