Human-Centered Design, M.S.

Florida Institute of Technology

Human-centered designers are multistage problem-solvers who analyze and foresee how likely users are to use a products and life-critical systems, testing user behavior in real-world environments. Technology, organizations, and jobs need to be designed by the participation of several disciplines, where creativity, as synthesis and integration, becomes the central asset to be learned. Life-critical systems include energy, medical, aerospace, education, and telecommunication systems. A master’s in human-centered design (HCD) from Florida Tech gives graduates the educational foundation and the hands-on research experience needed to enter a career in human-centered design.The opportunities for human-centered design careers are very diverse, and because there are so many relevant study topics, many individuals select a particular interest and specialize in it. This could include specializing in a particular area such as cognitive engineering, advanced interaction media, modeling and simulation, organization design and management, a specific life-critical domain, or complexity analysis. Human-centered design is an emerging field that offers opportunities in design and engineering research, as well as interactive, complex product development such as cockpit design that enables pilots or astronauts to control and manage risk-taking missions.

College of Engineering and Science