Special Topics: Design and/of Policy
Course Information
Course Number
HCI Undergraduate:
05-499 A
HCI Graduate:
05-899 A
Course Description
This course examines how design can shape, respond to, and intervene in processes of technology policy. Drawing from scholarship in HCI, CSCW, and science and technology studies, and public policy, the course challenges the traditional sequencing of design, practice, and policy—where technology is built, used, and only then regulated. Instead, students will explore how policy and design are mutually constitutive and should be engaged simultaneously. Through case studies, speculative exercises, and collaborative prototyping, students will analyze “knotty” sociotechnical problems—such as privacy, content moderation, gig work, or AI safety—where policy, systems, and practices are entangled. Emphasizing both critique and creation, the course prepares students to design with legal, ethical, and institutional dynamics in mind, and to imagine new modes of HCI practice that operate not at the boundaries of policy, but from within and across them.
Semester Offered and Units
Semester:
Spring 2026
Undergraduate:
12
units
Graduate:
12
units