Teaching Interaction Design by Research through Design

Research-through-design (RtD) has become a well-established research approach within HCI research. In this paper we discuss how research-through-design can be applied as an explicit strategy for teaching interaction design. RtD is productive when teaching interaction design, because it keeps students in a constant loop of doing and reflecting, as well as highlights the value of theoretical concepts for understanding practice. This means that theoretical concepts become a resource that the students can draw on to understand and transform design practice, while at the same time fostering an integrated understanding of theory and practice in design. We base our work on a master's course series teaching advanced theoretical and practical subjects in interaction design. The main contribution of the paper is a set of principles for RtD-based design teaching, as well as the identification of potential gains of using this approach for teaching interaction design.