Interaction Design I

Understanding Quality in Design

Fundamentals, judgment, and your first move on the Warren Incubator RFP. You build nothing this week — you learn to look at an interface and say, with the right words, why it works or why it doesn’t. Every skill in the course sits on top of that one.

Build the Foundations

Type, color, and contrast — set by hand and captured in a style tile. Your first real decisions for your RFP product: how text steps in size, what each color means, and whether anyone can actually read it. Get these right and everything after gets easier.

Make It Reusable

Components, states, and tokens — your style tile becomes working parts. Build a button once, use it everywhere, and change it in one place. This is the idea design systems are built on, and the spec that makes your AI builds good in Week 5.

Structure First

Flows, wireframes, and patterns — and AI joins your workflow on your terms. Decide how your product is organized, map the paths through it, and sketch key screens in rough boxes. Rough on purpose: cheap to change is the whole point.

Direct the Build

Your kit and wireframes become context; an AI tool becomes your builder; you stay the designer. Feed your components and wireframes to the tool and direct it to a working prototype. It builds fast — you decide what’s good.

Slow Down

Three QA passes, a slop hunt, and a workflow that actually works. Inspect last week’s build like a professional — three documented passes — then push past the prototype so the empty, loading, and error states really function.

Tell the Story

The pitch, the case study, and the last critique. Package seven weeks of decisions into ten slides, one case study, and one demo that works on the first click. The Investment Committee grades the judgment in between the problem and the answer.