碩士班課程
Master’s program
Freshman year
Introductory Sociology
This is an introductory course specially designed for design school students as an entry-level training for getting acquainted with four basic sociological concepts and how to relate them with social design practices.
Parametric prototyping process
The course is divided into four stages. First, the course focuses on "traditional processing" to train students to understand the concept of machining accuracy and operation skills such as lathe and milling machine. The second stage focuses on "computer-aided design" to train students' ability to build models and parametric design. The third stage focuses on "digital processing" and trains students to operate CNC machines, laser cutting machines, 3D Scan hardware and software and 3D printers. In the final stage, the final works evaluation and exhibition (three fine-model) will present the learning results. Therefore, it is hoped that through the course proposal of this project, the practical training of traditional and digital processing can be planned to strengthen students' model making ability.
Design and Marketing Psychology
設Design and Marketing Psychology adopts project-base-learning and case study to explore the relations among the issues of product design, marketing psychology, and design strategy. Students participate in this class will construct interviews to the company from Taiwan industry and further develop an analysis on the information and literature review for the case study report. Topics of case study on Design and Marketing Psychology include transportation design, medical care design, the elderly service design, data-based design for sport, new technology and IoT, bridal business, and media design.
International Design Interaction & Design Workshop (I)(II)
This program is "international design workshop" which is lead by world famous design professor or design expert from different countries. The goal is to understand the underlying strategies and principles to enhance cooperation and to learn from the different cultural strategies. It will research in detail the differences and similarities of different cultural viewpoints to gain insights in the different qualities, problems, improvements and competences on design.
Independent Study (I)(II)
The course content of this semester focuses on the discussion of the design concept prototype. The course mainly conducts logical research through self-internalized design prototypes, aiming to establish personal design prototypes and conduct design concept planning and implementation verification.
Cognitive Design
The main purpose of Cognitive Design is to introduce the application of cognitive science to product design and interactive design. Cognitive design can enhance design thinking, design practice, and design usability. Cognitive psychology serves as the principles of cognitive design, describing and predicting the impact of user’s cognitive characteristics on product operation and user experiences. The cognitive design issues focus on how and what user’s cognitive capacity should be taken into design consideration to optimize human performance and satisfaction. A big variety of cognitive perspectives for design include human sensation and perception, attention and memory, judgement and design making, motivation and preference. Designers are suggested to evaluate every perspectives of human cognitive capacity and needs for the most efficient and comfortable designs for users.
Individual Directed Research
“Personal Research Direction Exploration” is a course lead student to understand themselves and discover their own advantage as a future creator or researcher. This course will help students to build up their own persona through writing, images and object creation, then explore any linked potential topics as their future design/research directions.
Research Methods and Methodology
Graduate students are faced with a project (issues), it maybe , by appropriate tools (including access to references and application of computer software) to accelerate understanding and assessment of the project. Purpose in making postgraduate studies program has a full set of basic concepts, as well as for evaluation there is also an overall understanding of the project.
Sophomore year
Independent Study(III)(IV)
The course content of this semester focuses on the discussion of the design concept prototype. The course mainly conducts logical research through self-internalized design prototypes, aiming to establish personal design prototypes and conduct design concept planning and implementation verification.
The Design-Driven Innovation
This course aims to cultivate students' three major professional abilities: first, the ability to explore trends (from technology to consumer trends); second, the ability to tell stories (build brand value); third, the ability to propose and work. In the class, the latest social and technological development trends, cases, concepts, etc. will be introduced to broaden students’ imaginations of design innovation and become creative leaders, not followers.
Context analysis for Design
This course is evolved from a new way of design case studies. It offers trainings for designers to grasp the complexity of design context and therefore opens visions of much wider design applications.
International Design Interaction & Design Workshop (Ⅲ)
This program is "international design workshop" which is lead by world famous design professor or design expert from different countries. The goal is to understand the underlying strategies and principles to enhance cooperation and to learn from the different cultural strategies. It will research in detail the differences and similarities of different cultural viewpoints to gain insights in the different qualities, problems, improvements and competences on design.
Individual Research & Project Practice
“Personal Research Project Practice” is the extension course of “Personal Research Direction Exploration”. By continuing to explore the outside world with one to one tutorial, students will create at least two pieces of design works or paper researches through design practice, documentary, interview. The result will be the foundation of their future final degree project or degree dissertation.
Case Studies on Design-Driven Innovation Brands
Roberto Verganti once said, "When design is adopted by every company, it loses the ability to generate differentiation. It is, therefore, essential for design to become, not necessarily, unique." Design is a sharp tool for communication in business, it can also bring the key values into play in terms of services to the society. In view of this, Design should introspect itself to attain its new role and rationalizing itself while doing it; it should also incorporate strategies and marketing into its process, and changes the traditional concepts of production, manufacturing, and setup/hierarchy, and bring forth new ideas to design approaches more aggressively. This course will mainly focus on the 8 aspects of innovation and in-depth studies of the thoughts and driving forces behind different brands. It is intended that, upon the completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. probe into the design-driven elements
2. analyze cases in studies and related literature reviews
3. conduct researches on projects of 8 subdisciplines
4. write and present their reports on case studies.
Thesis Writing
Conduct a small project to practice the essay writing skill and thesis writing.
Theoretical Sociology for Designers
This is an advanced-level course of sociological theory. We will introduce and review classical and modern sociological theories by referring them to the core design concerns of our age. The course will conclude a new theoretical synthesis that is ready for a design paradigm for the near future.
Speculative and Creative Practice
This course aims to use speculative and fictional scenarios to step out of the framework of reality. Encouraging students to think and explore future possibilities and profound issues. Asking provocative questions, reasoning, imaging, researching, and thinking to explore the positive or negative consequences of existing or emerging technologies on human life, whether social, cultural, environmental, economic, ethical, or even aesthetics influence. Through creative projects to evoke interdisciplinary dialogue and speculation for the public, and to think about real social issues. Designing for how the worlds could be.
Case Studies on Trends of Thoughts on Design
Italo Calvino said, "If one intends to understand the spirit of American, one might want to observe the richness and variety of changes of automobile tailboards and taillights; they are seemingly depicting all the myths in American society." Obviously, items in our life reflect the traces of civilization to certain degrees. This course is intended to introduce changes in trends in design, along with their theories and paragons throughout 20th and 21th century. Different from a historical introduction, this course will attempt to familiarize students with the multi-dimensional thoughts and logics, to comprehend the cultural traits, 'zeitgeist', and technical improvision through case studies. The goals of this course are to:
1. master topics of trends in design
2. master the ability to analyze cases
3. master the skills and process of unearth/discover - depict/describe - analyze - interpret - criticize
4. master the designing competency from zeitgeist to product design.