ASG 150. Designing for All: Accessibility and Technology. 3 Credit Hours.
This course will introduce students to the field of accessibility and disability in the context of design and technology. Students explore how innovations in technology can be leveraged to co-create more inclusive systems. Additionally, students will examine common accessibility challenges, engage with emerging technologies, and design innovative solutions that have implications for change and real-world impact. Through coursework, students will learn foundational concepts in accessibility, disability, and design, further developing their skills to improve experiences in analog, digital, and hybridized environments. Core to this course is understanding the laws, regulations, and policies related to accessibility and disability in different organizations and institutions. Students will also directly engage in project work that helps them better understand how writing impacts the daily experiences of people as they engage in professional, civic, and personal life.
Components: LEC.
Grading: GRD.
Typically Offered: Fall & Spring.
ASG 201. Introduction to Innovation and Society. 3 Credit Hours.
This course introduces students to the innovation and society co-major and its requirements. Students are introduced to design thinking as an iterative practice and learn how research supports a design thinking process. Additionally, students are assembled into teams to complete a design challenge with an organization. As a result, students learn the complexities of innovation and interdisciplinary work.
Components: LEC.
Grading: GRD.
Typically Offered: Fall & Spring.
ASG 301. Foundations of Design Thinking. 3 Credit Hours.
This course organizes students into interdisciplinary teams to learn different approaches for using design and design thinking to solve problems. Each student team engages in a series of design challenges meant to provide an intellectual space to practice current design processes and procedures as a problem-solving technique. As well, students present their ideas to the class and/or panels of experts for feedback. Topics covered include user experience design, design thinking, design sprints, participatory design, community-based participatory research, multilingual and cross-cultural design, speculative design, and more.
Components: LEC.
Grading: GRD.
Typically Offered: Fall & Spring.
ASG 401. What If? Futures and Speculative Design. 3 Credit Hours.
Many courses teach you to solve the problems of the present. This course asks harder questions: Which futures are worth designing for, and who gets to decide? In this advanced experiential learning course, you will develop the critical making practices and frameworks necessary to prototype, interrogate, and argue for alternative futures. Working at the intersection of design, rhetoric, ethics, and emerging technology, you will produce speculative artifacts (e.g., physical and digital objects, systems, and scenarios) that make possible futures tangible, debatable, and consequential. This is not a course about predicting what comes next. It is a course about developing the expertise to shape what comes next. Success in the course doesn’t depend on your ability to predict the “right” future or to produce highly polished visual artifacts. Success in this course is about the clarity of your thinking and ethical reasoning.
Components: EXP.
Grading: GRD.
Typically Offered: Fall & Spring.
ASG 501. Innovation and Society Capstone. 3 Credit Hours.
In this course students spend the semester on a team-based interdisciplinary research and design project that involves working on solving a global problem. As well, students learn best practices for sharing stories about the impact of their work and how it is designed to work with organizations and communities. Students do this work to prepare them for transitioning beyond your university learning experiences and into the job market.
Prerequisite: ASG 401.
Components: PRA.
Grading: GRD.
Typically Offered: Fall & Spring.
