Conversational Agents

CS4270

C.R.M.M. Oertel genannt Bierbach

W.P. Brinkman

Chatbots, embodied and conversational virtual agents, and social robots are becoming more and more popular. Many people are owning an Alexa, Cortana or Echo or are talking to their virtual assistant on their phone. Indeed, such technologies have the potential of making our lives easier and relieve people from the more repetitive tasks. For example, it is imaginable that such systems are being used for financial applications by helping customers with frequently asked questions but also to advise them on in the long term more impactful decisions such as their pension plans. Further applications can be imagined in the area of healthcare and education, some of which are already in existence today.

In this course, attention will be given to different verbal and nonverbal behavioral characteristics, like speech, intonation, gaze and gestures that humans show when communicating with both other people and machines. This behavior is then related to different dialogue functions, including turn-taking, addressing others, and backchanneling, that give shape to the communication process.


This course introduces conversational agent technology.
We cover agent related technologies which can be grouped into:
• Dialog Management
• NLP
• speech synthesis
• social robotics

Social Signal Processing

CS4165

C.R.M.M. Oertel genannt Bierbach

The core of social intelligence is our ability to understand and interpret social signals of a person we are communicating with is. Social intelligence is a facet of human intelligence that has been argued to be indispensable and perhaps the most important for success in life. Social Signal Processing (SSP), the new, emerging, domain aimed at understanding social interactions through machine analysis and production of nonverbal behavior. In this course you will learn how next-generation computing can make use of such social signals by giving it the ability to recognize and produce human social signals and social behaviors. Think about turn taking, politeness, disagreement, emotions, rapport. You will learn about relevant findings in social psychology, and you will learn computational techniques that allow systems to make use of social signals to become more effective and more efficient by being able to detect but also simulate (e.g. in virtual agents) blinks, smiles, crossed arms, laughter. Socially aware computing. These techniques can be used in robots, virtual agents, smart homes, crowd monitoring, etc.

Design Theory and Methodology

ID4010

P. Lloyd
M.B. Brouwer

Design Theory and Methodology (DTM) centres around your experience as a developing designer. The course integrates a group video assignment with podcasts and personal reflection to presents a blended and distributed educational experience, bringing theory and methodology alive in a way that will support your future practice as a designer.
You will improve your ability to describe, analyse, and understand the activity of designing. This will help you to reflect further on your own design processes, and those of others. Developing an ability to critically analyse design processes will empower you to change, modify, and adapt your thinking and acting while designing.
The aim of this course is to help you gain a deeper understanding of the principles, practices and procedures of design in a broad and general sense. Unlike other Universities, Delft has a rich research and education tradition in design theory and methodology. You have almost certainly heard of design thinking, for example, but did you know that Delft played a key role in its development? Through the course we will cover many topics and approaches but our core principle is to link theory to practice in a way that is insightful, useful, and entertaining.

IDE Academy

ID4070

A.I. Keller

IDE Academy provides basic training for a relevant set of transferrable IDE skills in the form of one-day workshops. These workshops are intended to serve as an entry-point for students to self-study these skills. A broad list of skills is provided (~80), some of which will be strongly suggested and some optional, enabling the students to customize the course to fit their needs. These are elementary skills for doing research (e.g. observational research, literature research), applying methods (scrum, business models), developing concepts (e.g., visualisation skills) and prototypes (e.g. screen-based prototypes; programming).

Product UnderstandingUse and Experience

ID4210

P.P.M. Hekkert

Human-product interaction deals with the way in which we perceive, understand, use and experience products. This interaction is substantiated by our sensory, cognitive and motor systems. In order to understand how we interact with products, knowledge of these systems and how they limit, enable or facilitate interaction is essential. And products not only have an immediate effect on our experience and behaviour. We have increasingly become aware of the long-term impact and how design bears responsibility.
Our knowledge and insights come mainly from the human sciences. In this course, relevant knowledge and insights will be addressed in a thematic approach. Themes include: emotion, sound design, visual perception, touch, aesthetic pleasure, design for happiness, connected everyday and social design.

Reflection on Designing

ID4235

M.H. Sonneveld

By designing products for people and putting them in
the world, designers have a big impact on our environment,
behaviour and well-being. This course is designed to stimulate a critical reflection on this societal role of the designer and the student’s own design process. This is achieved by presenting students with ethical, philosophical and societal ideas about design and showing them how creators in related disciplines, such as architects, graphic designers, photographers and artists, approach their work and the impact it has.

Creative Facilitation

ID5325

K.G. Heijne

M. Tassoul

Creative Facilitation is about setting up and leading creative processes in Product Innovation Projects.
The course provides an opportunity for students to expand
their knowledge of creative techniques and learn from
experience through live cases.
Some prior experience with techniques like brainstorming, lateral thinking and synectics is recommended, but students will have the opportunity to get acquainted with these during the course as well.

Inclusive Design

ID5383

S.U. Boess

The student has learned the design relevant terms and organisational structures in the world of inclusive design (and how it is different from and similar to design for all, or universal design). The student has practiced inclusive design in a case study (group work) for a specified population as mentioned. The student has involved a few persons of her or his target group in the assignment.

Artificial Intelligence and Society

ID5417

G.W. Kortuem

This course integrates design and research to help students understand how design can play an active role in shaping the future of AI in society. The course is offered as 6 EC Elective as part of the 2nd year of all three Masters of IDE Faculty. It is designed to welcome and support all design students without requirements on technical skills. However, we expect a strong interest in AI.
Heavy emphasis is placed in research literature as a key resource for understanding issues of AI on the technology, human, organisational and societal level.
Students are asked to conduct independent research as part of a group-based research-through-design exercise. Case studies and research projects will be used to provide concrete context for design and research.

Design for Emotion

ID5564

P.M.A. Desmet

This course focuses on emotion-driven design theory and methodology – design processes with a predefined (and specified) intended effect on the emotions of the users. The aim is to introduce students to (a) basic cognitive theory on emotions, (b) emotion-related research methods, and (c) design for emotion techniques and methodologies. Topics included are: Micro-Emotions, Emotional Journey, Design for personal dilemmas, and Design for rich experiences.