ICT Innovation (EIT Digital Master School) – Human-Computer Interaction and Design

Study objectives

The Human-Computer Interaction and Design (HCID) master’s programme is an interdisciplinary programme where our User-Centred Design approach places the users at the centre of the design process. By combining human aspects (both at a cognitive, aesthetic and sensory-motor level) to technological and business aspects, we create new products and services with great usability and user experience, and a solid customer demand, which often translate into commercial success.

HCID serves as the bridge to new products and services. Students learn how to design and define how people interact and live with the modern ever changing technical world.

Career opportunities

Graduates from the Human-Computer Interaction and Design master’s programme qualify for jobs in international and local organizations in both technical and business roles. Graduates could become:

• User experience (UX) or interaction designer
• UX Architect
• Usability engineer
• Interactive systems engineer
• Human factors expert
• Business developer
• Product manager
• Consultant

Through their multidisciplinary attitude, HCID graduates are valuable in open innovation settings where different aspects (market, users, social aspects, media technologies) come together. They can choose to work within companies that provide value-added products and services, such as game companies, e-learning, web developers, and entertainment. An alternative path would be to start your own company to provide product or technology development, media content, business development or consultancy services.

Language of instruction

The language of instruction of the programme is English.

Tuition fees

See the programme website for information on tuition fees and scholarships.

Study contents

The programme is a double degree programme, which means that you will study at two European universities and in two different countries. The programme has an integrated technical content (Technical major) and business content (Innovation & Entrepreneurship – I&E minor). The I&E minor is shared between all programmes. An integral part of the second year is a Master’s thesis (30 ECTS).

The double-degree programme is implemented jointly by leading European universities. The students can select their favorite first (entry) and second (exit) year universities. Each university has a unique specialisation area, which allows students to select their own second year area of expertise.

Structure of the studies

Please note that both ENTRY and EXIT universities might be subject to changes. Kindly check before applying.

The first year of the programme is offered by Aalto University, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden, University Paris-Sud, France, University of Twente, The Netherlands, Technical University of Madrid (UPM), Spain, and Polytechnic University of Milan (Polimi), Italy. It comprises of the courses in the following core areas, complemented with the courses of the entrepreneurial minor:

• Introduction Human-Computer Interaction
• User-Centred Design Methods
• Programming of Interactive systems
• Evaluation techniques
• Multidisciplinary Design Project

During the second year of studies, the student chooses a spesialisation option offered in one of the seven exit point universities: Aalto University, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden, University Paris-Sud, France, University of Twente, The Netherlands, Technical University of Madrid (UPM), Spain, Technical University of Berlin, Germany, and University of Trento, Italy. The specialisation option offered at Aalto University is Computational Interaction.

• Aalto University offers a specialisation in Computational Interaction. Students learn to apply methods from computer science, engineering, and mathematics to inform understanding of human-computer interaction and to design and adapt human-computer interfaces. Such methods build on for instance machine learning, optimisation, statistical modelling, natural language processing, control theory, signal processing and computer vision, among others. Emerging application topics include computational and data-driven design, interactive AI, conversational agents, interactive visualization, cognitive and behavioral modeling, and novel user interface technology.

Mandatory course of the specialisation option is:

• Machine Learning: Basic Principles (5 ECTS)
• Computational User Interface Design (5 ECTS)

Elective courses of the specialisation option can be selected e.g. from the following list:

• Intelligent Computational Media (5 ECTS)
• Information Visualization (5 ECTS)
• User Research (5 ECTS)
• Advanced Topics in User Interfaces (3 ECTS)
• Deep Learning (5 ECTS)
• Algorithmic Methods of Data Mining (5 ECTS)
• Reinforcement learning (5 ECTS)

See the Human-Computer Interaction curriculum at Aalto University on the student portal Into. Please note that there may be some changes to the curriculum for 2020-2022. The new curriculum will be published in April-May 2020.

Admission to the EIT Digital Master School majors

The ICT Innovation programme has separate application periods and admission procedures from the rest of the Master’s programmes offered by Aalto University. Further information on the admission is available on the EIT Digital Master School website for prospective students (masterschool.eitdigital.eu).