When we digitize an interaction, what is lost, and what is gained? This course will explore how digitization has direct implications for human interactions across selected industries/practices, consider its potential cultural, neurocognitive, and social impacts, design specific solutions/interventions, and engage in an evaluative process for weighing analog and digital interfaces for people, processes, and objects.

Feeling Zoomed out? Don't worry, it's not just you. The last forty years of neuro- and behavioral science has found that we unconsciously communicate vast amounts of information by being physically together. A lot of this information is inaccessible when you talk to friends, family and colleagues through a screen.

Humans had already begun to increasingly rely and operate on digital interfaces before the pandemic but shelter-at-home greatly accelerated the process. Though we can use digital media to stay connected, science suggests that our most ancient and important instincts may be unsuited to digitization. Maybe you just can't be you in a digital world. So how do we design for that problem?Students will create ethical considerations and optimal outcomes of analog traditions of specific domains with people, processes, and objects through hands-on research and problem-solving activities.

They will then design solutions and interventions that will improve human interactions and outcomes in digital transformations. Each class session will be shaped around a framework that melds the course objectives with investigative, generative and evaluative activities/discussions/experiences. This course is not only timely, it’s also immediately actionable. And yes, we know, it’s ironic, this course will be conducted virtually.

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