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Special Topics (Computer Science): Mobile Media Design
A joint course between University of Arts and Industrial Design Linz and Johannes Kepler University Linz
Course Description
Designing mobile web (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) applications and web-sites is not only about the functional properties of the application but also about the aesthetic appearance and look-and-feel. Current studies show that mobile users are quick to abandon apps that do not provide valuable functionality, are bluntly buggy, or do not match state of the art standards for visual design. Best practices show that achieving all these three goals is difficult. One reason is that there is a gap between the perspective of software developers and media designers when looking at mobile applications.
In this novel course format which is a joint course between the University of Arts and Industrial Design Linz and the Johannes Kepler University Linz, these challenges are discussed from both artistic and technological points of view.
The lecture is targeting students at both universities and aims to connect artists and computer scientists by bridging the gap between different phases of the whole mobile software development life-cycle from understanding user requirements, to designing, developing, evaluating, and testing the mobile application. Hopefully these connections last for life!
Objectives
The objectives of this course are twofold. One the one hand it aims to teach the principles of creative design and the technological foundations of mobile applications and mobile web. On the other hand it creates a mutual understanding of the interests that are driving technology enthusiasts and devotees to aesthetic design.
Outcome
At the end of the course students will gain a clear understanding of the technological, usability and aesthetic requirements of mobile applications and how these can be implemented in a real world web-based mobile application. This understanding will be tested by students through the implementation of a novel interactive web-based magazine.
Grading
This is a project based course. Grading will be done in three stages: (1) Small exercises to show their of the principles and technologies used to build engaging mobile web applications. (2) Throughout the course students will have the opportunity to present their intermediate results and get input from the course instructors and their peer students and (3) final project delivery which will be evaluated by other students who will act as the end users of application.
Attendance
Since almost all lectures will contain interactive parts with input from course instructors and other project groups attendance is required for all lectures. If there is a need to skip a class or two please assure that at least the intermediate and final results presentations can be performed by each group.
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