The course is an introduction to the collaborative design competence area. The course gives an introduction to the vocabulary, background and methodology of usability, design ethnography, user experience, co-design, interaction design, service design, accessibility and socially responsible design.

The course addresses visual and narrative approaches to human-centred design to illustrate users, use, concepts and contexts for reflective design, collaboration, evaluation and persuasion purposes. The course gives students skills in illustrating and explicating different aspects of products and the use of products and services by visual and narrative means. The students learn to choose, compose and apply design artefacts for different communication purposes that are necessary for designing material and immaterial concepts and solutions for socio-technical systems. They learn how to create design artefacts that invite contributions and create stakeholders' commitment, material for iterating and annotating the progress of design, to adjust the angle of scrutiny by choosing appropriate representations, to clarify complex relationships and isolate critical issues, to convince their audiences and to justify their solutions, and to contextualize design concepts. They learn how to use visual media to support oral communication and how to create self-standing presentations with media such as drawings, photos, videos, interactive demonstrations, physical props or mock-ups.

This course teaches the basics of user interface design.

Design for Government (DfG) is a practice-based course within the Aalto University’s multi-school Creative Sustainability master’s program available for Collaborative and Industrial Design MA students on the service design track

Designing for services course addresses application of design competence and engagement in the emerging topics of service design.

Designing for Social Change (DSC) courses provide students basic understanding and competences to build design projects aimed towards social change.

Designing for Social Change (DSC) courses provide students basic understanding and competences to build design projects aimed towards social change.

Research and Inspire is an MA level course by Collaborative and Industrial Design programme.

In the course students are guided through the process by which they learn to dive deep in analysing an issue or phenomenon they are interested in, contextualise their interest with relevant past and present cultural and societal changes, and develop insights that communicate the core and context of their interest.

The course will enhance students' design understanding and skills through lectures and projects, emphasizing creativity and practical application with input from industry professionals.

Product Development Project (PdP) is a five-period-long course that invites Master’s students from all backgrounds, but mainly engineering, industrial design, and business, to tackle challenges of collaborating companies. The teams form in September and deliver a functioning prototype in the final Gala in May.

This course is an introduction into programming for designers without requirements for prior programming experience. Its special emphasis is on designing and realizing visions of graphics and interactions in digital products.

During the course, students will apply design to build knowledge of the conceptual propositions, by performing a validation of the concept or a key feature of it.