2024 Faculty Courses School of Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate major in Engineering Sciences and Design
User Interview Theory and Practice
- Academic unit or major
- Graduate major in Engineering Sciences and Design
- Instructor(s)
- Miki Saijo
- Class Format
- Exercise (Face-to-face)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 3-4 Tue
- Class
- -
- Course Code
- ESD.E406
- Number of credits
- 010
- Course offered
- 2024
- Offered quarter
- 2Q
- Syllabus updated
- Mar 14, 2025
- Language
- Japanese
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
For empathy between users and engineers, the starting point for design thinking prototyping, engineers need to be equipped with interview techniques to help users verbalize their thoughts and feelings.
In order to cultivate such abilities, in this lecture we will learn the theory and practice of interview techniques that employ the concept of discourse management.
Course description and aims
Understand the principles of dialogue and discourse management. Write an interview flow that suits your purpose. Execute a semi-structured interview. Understand how to draw insights based on interview sheets.
Keywords
dialogue, semi-structured interview, insight, empathy
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
In the first half of the course, you will learn about the basic idea of dialogue, how to conduct interviews that both you and the counter part have find something new, and how to incorporate the insight you get in interview into design thinking.
In the second half, we will divide the students into several groups, set an interview theme for each group, actually let them interview. Through creation of interview flow, transcription of interview and getting insights from raw data, students will learn interview techniques and data compilation by setting up an assignment in each lesson and providing feedback in the next lesson.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Principle of dialogue and discourse management | By instruction in the class |
| Class 2 | Theory and practice of semi-structured interview | |
| Class 3 | Interview plan and implementation | |
| Class 4 | Guidance for interview flow and data structure | |
| Class 5 | Group Interview 1 | |
| Class 6 | Group Interview 2 | |
| Class 7 | Presentation and Feedback |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
nothing in particular.
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Communication design Miki Saijo Kuroshio Shuppan
Evaluation methods and criteria
Presentation of interview assignment, Final report
Related courses
- ESD.A401 ： Engineering Design Challenge
- ESD.B401 ： Engineering Design Advanced
- ESD.C404 ： Communication Design: Theory & Practice
Prerequisites
Non required.