Human-Centered Design Methods in Data Science

In today's society, the most pressing data science problems we face exist in a complex sociotechnical ecosystem and cannot be solved using the numbers alone. In this five-week short course, students will learn how to apply human-centered design methods to solve data science problems and how to pair traditional data with a diversity of other types of data to redefine problems and gain innovative insight. The course will focus on empathy-based frameworks to analyze data, problem definition and redefinition, and ideation. Additional skills in critique and storytelling will also be covered. Classes will be highly interactive and team-based. This course will offer skills in support of the teams working toward the Big Earth Hackathon Wildland Fire challenge (CEE 265H, EARTH 165H, EARTH 265H).