HCD Workshops
Our HCD Workshops engage learners with activities and practices associated with the six mindsets of Human-Centered Design, and serve as practical explorations of each of the five spaces of the Design Thinking process.
IntroductoryProcess-BasedAdvanced
Open to all University of Illinois students, RSOs, groups, faculty, and staff, these workshops help you apply human-centered design concepts to real-world challenges. Perfect for groups or teams, these interactive sessions can be held at SCD or your location. Please allow at least three weeks' notice to schedule at a time that works for you. Review the menu of offerings below then request a workshop for your group or team today!
Getting started with Human-Centered Design
Human-Centered Design is a creative problem solving approach that uses design thinking tools to identify the unmet needs of a population in order to collaboratively and iteratively develop relevant and innovative solutions. This workshop provides an introduction to the space.
Building Creative Confidence
Creativity is a vital part of human-centered design, and a core skill for 21st-century learners. Human-centered design can motivate learners to develop a creative mindset that facilitates problem-solving through collaboration and critical thinking. Developing creative confidence - the belief that we all have the potential to innovate and solve problems through creative outcomes - will take you even further. Join us to learn the essential qualities to fostering creativity, and participate in activities designed to encourage creative confidence.
Mindsets of HCD: Building Your Design Thinking Toolkit
Practicing Human-Centered Design isn’t only about learning the process, but adopting certain mindsets that are critical for problem solving. In this workshop, learners will engage in activities that foster Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Experimentation, Human-Centeredness, and Metacognition. Join us to explore and practice getting into the right mindset so you can approach any design challenge.
Human-Centered Design in Engineering
Human-Centered Design plays an important role in engineering. This interactive workshop introduces participants to the principles, processes, and mindsets of Human-Centered Design as a powerful approach to engineering problem-solving. Through hands-on activities and real-world examples, participants will explore how to frame engineering challenges around people, design with empathy, and iterate purposefully.
Ideal Duration: 2hrs (Can be adjusted to fit class duration if needed)
Discover and Define: Understanding the Problem
When practicing human-centered design, it’s important to connect with the people you are designing for—their lives, their interests, their motivations, and their struggles. Learn how to take a human-centered approach to gathering information that will provide a compass when designing to solve complex problems.
Ideation Techniques: Unleashing Your Creativity
We all have good ideas from time to time, but how can we intentionally develop innovative solutions to complex problems? Learn about and practice collaborative, intentional ideation to generate ideas, communicate them to others, receive feedback, and keep iterating to generate groundbreaking solutions to real-world problems.
Simulating Solutions: Prototyping Experiences
Prototyping gives designers the opportunity to create, communicate, and evaluate the ideas that have been developed over the human-centered design process. In this workshop, learners will experiment with prototyping the intangible - experiences! Learn how prototyping can help your designed digital or in-person experiences to reach their goal, whether that's to delight, inform, or motivate.
Synthesizing Insights: Turning Data into Action
Synthesis is the area of human-centered design that takes us from inspiration to ideas, and from stories to solutions. In addition to discovering practical pathways toward new perspectives, participants will learn to identify innovative opportunities by collaboratively making sense of others’ stories and challenges.
Hands-On Prototyping: Bringing Concepts to Life
This workshop will introduce participants to the process of prototyping in human-centered design. The workshop will cover topics such as low fidelity vs. high fidelity prototyping, prototyping methods, and the value of prototyping during your design process. Participants will have the opportunity to create their own low-fi prototypes.
Implementing Solutions: From Prototype to Reality
After multiple prototyping iterations, you arrive at a final design. It is time to implement your design in the market. Learn about developing implementation plans, ways to sustain and evolve your design, and tools to execute and scale your design.
Ideal Duration: 2hrs (Can be adjusted to fit class duration if needed)
Note: To get the best learning experience out of these workshops, it is highly recommended that learners take at least one of the Introductory HCD Workshops before taking any of the Advanced HCD Workshops.
Human-Centered Design and Systems Thinking
This workshop will introduce participants to the fundamentals of systems thinking and explore how it can deepen their design practice. Through interactive exercises, we’ll examine how viewing challenges from a systems perspective enables more holistic, sustainable solutions. Participants will gain insights into mapping systems, identifying leverage points, and applying these methods to design more impactful, human-centered solutions.
Coding your data in Human-Centered Design Projects
Human-Centered Design projects often generate rich qualitative data—from interviews and observations to user artifacts and feedback. This workshop introduces participants to approachable and rigorous strategies for coding that data to uncover patterns, insights, and design opportunities. Through guided practice and examples, participants will learn how to develop codes, identify themes, and translate findings into actionable directions.
Bringing Human-Centered Design to your Teaching and Courses
This workshop aims to support anyone interested in making their teaching more engaging, empathetic, and effective. It introduces participants to how they can apply human-centered design principles and processes to teaching and learning in any context. During this workshop, participants will explore ways to design learning experiences that center the needs, perspectives, and creativity of learners.
Qualitative Research Methods in Human-Centered Design
In this workshop, participants will be introduced to key qualitative research methods that are fundamental in Human-Centered Design. Topics include key qualitative data collection and analysis techniques, such as interviews, observations, and artifact collection, with emphasis on building a deeper understanding of user experiences. Ideal for teams seeking to integrate HCD and qualitative research into their projects, this workshop provides hands-on insights and tools to apply HCD principles effectively.
Using Design Tools for Research: Introduction to Miro
This workshop will introduce you to the basics of Miro - a virtual whiteboard tool used across many industries to create and collaborate - as well as tools and best practices developed by the SCD team. SCD uses Miro to collect and organize research, to facilitate remote and asynchronous work, and to create assignments and collaborative environments for student group projects. In this workshop, we’ll show you examples of how we use it in our work and provide templates and suggestions for how you might begin using it for your research.