Kunne Exphil: Co-designing with first-year interaction design students

Abstract

Digital learning aids in education have become a debated topic and even the culprit for the decline in performance among Norwegian teenagers after recent assessments. Nonetheless, digital natives entering university in 2024 are inherently accustomed to technology. Concurrently, academic publishers in Norway are facing decreased textbook sales, driven by factors such as digitalization and the influx of English literature. This master's project, in collaboration with Universitetsforlaget, involves working with their digital learning platform, “Kunne”, and co-designing with first-year interaction design students to enhance digital learning experiences. This thesis focuses on evaluating the participatory process and participatory result; looking at our final design result in light of contributions from the first-year students and design activities in the MIX100 course at the University of Bergen. The final prototype is a motivational learning platform for ex.phil. students, featuring multiple learning modes and a personalized learning path informed by the students' input. This thesis examines the extent to which the introductory course in media- and interaction design (MIX100) facilitated a productive co-design process, how the students’ contributions influenced our final design and to what extent the result may be considered participatory.