All students enrolled in Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) courses are required to have a laptop they can use in classes and for their studies. HCDE recommends the following minimum laptop specifications:
- Intel® or AMD processor with at least 2 cores and 64-bit support; 2 GHz or faster processor or ARM-based Apple Silicon processor (M1)
- 8GB of RAM (16GB recommended)
- 256GB storage space or larger
- 1280 x 800 and 1 GB of VRAM
- A newer graphics card is strongly recommended for some photoshop features such as an nVidia GeForce GTX 1050 or equivalent
- Windows 10 2004 or greater, or Mac OS X version 10.14 (Mojave) or greater
UW computing resources courses
- UW Information Technology (UW-IT): Free courses, workshops, and online tutorials.
- UW-Learning and Scholarly Technologies: Free online courses on Computing Fundamentals (e.g, Security, Networking); Design and Graphics (e.g., Photoshop, Illustrator); Digital Audio (e.g., Audacity, Garageband); Document Creation (e.g., Word, InDesign); Spreadsheets and Databases (e.g., (Excel, Access); and Web Publishing. Some in-person workshops.
Computer labs on campus
- Odegaard Learning Commons: The Odegaard Learning Commons, with hundreds of workstations, provides access to learning technologies in the heart of the undergraduate library.
- Media Studios on Campus in Odegaard and Mary Gates: The Media Studios serve as a boutique studio space for students working on media projects. Visit one of our Media Studios for access to special hardware and software geared toward video and audio editing.
- Engineering Student Computer Lab The College of Engineering supports a computer lab located in the basement of Wilcox hall, room 73.
Inexpensive or free software (and student discounted software and hardware)
- Aptana Studio 3: A complete code editor for HTML, CSS3, JavaScript, and more. The full version is a free download.
- ATLAS.ti: Students get a discount on ATLAS.ti.
- Axure RP Pro: Free for Students.
- Tableau: Free for Students.
- Usertesting.com: HCDE has basic licenses that can be issued to students on a quarterly basis. Please email the computing manager if you are interested in using one of these licenses.
- UW Bookstore Tech Center: Student discounts on hardware (e.g., computers and accessories) and software (e.g., Parallels, Adobe Creative Cloud).
- UWare: Software from UW at reduced cost or free (e.g., Microsoft, Apple, Sophos, SAS, SPSS).
- VMware Products: All HCDE students, staff, and faculty have access to VMware academic program, which provides licenses for VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion.