Leah Pistorius
August 11, 2025
Each winter, master’s and certificate students in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) take a deep dive into usability testing and user-centered research in HCDE 517: Usability Studies.
In this hands-on course, students work in small teams to plan and run usability studies from start to finish—with real clients, real products, and real users. Over the quarter, they define research goals, create test protocols, recruit participants, conduct moderated sessions, analyze findings, and present actionable recommendations to their industry sponsors.
While the course often focuses on digital systems, the methods students learn apply broadly across software, hardware, and service design. Along the way, they gain experience not only in usability research, but also in working with stakeholders and turning user insights into design decisions.
The following five projects, completed in Professor Sean Munson’s Winter 2025 Usability Studies course, highlight how HCDE students deliver meaningful insights to client teams across a wide range of products and domains.
Sponsor a usability studies project
HCDE welcomes usability study proposals from industry and academic partners. In HCDE’s usability studies course, students engage in product and user research, formulate an appropriate usability study, conduct the study, and analyze and report on their findings.
How it works
- Team size: 3–4 students
- Duration: 10 weeks (January–March)
- Student level: Master’s
- Expected output: Report and presentation summarizing findings and recommendations
Sponsor commitment
- Introduce the product
- Provide access to users or potential users and the product
- Cost: There is no cost to propose a usability studies project