Computer Programming for Interaction Designers

Abstract

Design science is generally divided into two opposite and complementary sections: the human or self-section, which has been related to identify the human-personal aspects, requirements and needs of the user, and the technical side which has been related to the study of methods, techniques and tools used to embodiment design. and this research focuses on one of the topics related to the technical side of design science in general, which is computer programming, where it highlights how to teach and train students and practitioners of interaction design on the basics of programming to support the technical side of design. The main problem of the research is divided in two parts: The first part is a knowledge gap that impedes students and practitioners of interaction design from achieving and testing their design concepts due to their lack of familiarity with the principles and basics of computer programming, which is one of the main tools to achieve interactivity in design outputs, and the second part of the problem is the difficulty of teaching computer programming For students and practitioners of interaction design due to its reliance on mathematical thinking mainly that contradicts the nature of the methods used in preparing them, which mainly depend on visual thinking. The research aims to prepare an educational program that can be used in the education and training of students and practitioners of interaction design on the basics of computer programming in a way that depends on visual thinking, so that students acquire an adequate amount of knowledge and skills that help them to formulate and achieve their concepts in a practical way. The research relied mainly on the inductive approach in addition to the quantitative approach to evaluate the training program. In general, the research reached the following results: There is a need for interaction designers to learn the fundamentals of computer programming, and there are many creative coding platforms that can be used in modeling interactive design ideas, there is a relationship that links between computer programming and interactive design, and that relationship has three dimensions: : Interdependence and complementarity between them in context of digital design, the ability to take advantage of computer programming in modeling interactive design ideas, and the third dimension is represented in a set of criteria that have been proposed through research to choose the appropriate programming platform for interaction designers , The research hypothesis was validated as a training program was prepared to teach the fundamentals of computer programming for interaction designers, and this program was also used to assist the trainees in achieving some interactive applications. The training program was also proven successful, as some interactive applications were achieved by the trainees after completing the program, It was also possible to evaluate the program itself by the trainees, and its achievement of the proposed success criteria reached 65%.