About the Minor in Interdisciplinary HCI

The minor in interdisciplinary human-computer interaction gives students core knowledge about techniques for building successful user interfaces; approaches for conceiving, refining, and evaluating interfaces that are useful and usable; and techniques for identifying opportunities to improve the quality of people’s lives through technology.

Students learn to effectively collaborate in the design, implementation, and evaluation of easy-to-use, desirable, and thoughtful interactive systems. They will be prepared to contribute to multidisciplinary teams that create new interactive products, services, environments, and systems.

The minor in interdisciplinary HCI is appropriate for CMU undergraduates who expect to get jobs where they design and/or implement information-technology-based systems for end users, and well as students with an interest in learning more about the design of socio-technical systems. It is appropriate for students with majors in computer science and information systems, as well as students in less software-focused majors, including design, architecture, art, business administration, psychology, statistics, decision science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, English and many others.

 

Admissions and Application Information

Applications for the Minor in Interdisciplinary HCI are processed once a year in the spring.

Information Session

Our information session for students interested in applying to the undergraduate HCI Additional Major and Minor was held Thursday, February 6 from 5-6:30 p.m. in 6115 Gates-Hillman Centers (GHC).

Here are the PPT slides (pdf) used at the 2025 information session. Have questions? Email Ashley Kosko: akosko@andrew.cmu.edu.

Application Window

The HCI Minor application is currently closed. 

Required information for the application form will include: anticipated graduation year, primary major, any additional second major or minor, cumulative GPA, mid-semester grades for the current spring semester (first-years only), plus a schedule of study that specifies when you might take the 7 courses for the minor.

Acceptance Process

Acceptance decisions will be announced before the fall registration week in April. Once decisions are announced, we will hold another information session to help our newly admitted students with their fall registration.

The number of students that can be admitted to the minor in interdisciplinary HCI is limited by enrollment caps for the two required courses. Students who are admitted to the minor will be guaranteed admission to the two required courses by their senior year. They will also receive preference for some of the electives offered by the HCII, although due to enrollment limits for courses, there are no guarantees that students will get into any elective they may want to sign up for. However, given the very large number of possible electives, once admitted, students should be able to complete the minor.

Key Concepts, Skills and Methods

The key concepts, skills and methods that students will learn in the HCI minor include:

  • Fieldwork for understanding peoples' needs and the influence of context
  • Generative approaches to imagining many possible solutions, such as sketching and “bodystorming”
  • Iterative refinement of designs
  • Basic visual design, including typography, grids, color and the use of images
  • Implementation of interactive prototypes
  • Evaluation techniques, including discount and empirical evaluation methods

 

Curriculum

Curriculum requirements for the Minor in Interdisciplinary HCI  are available via the CMU Course Catalog.
 

Electives

HCI minor students must take four HCI-related electives (9 units or more). Electives are intended to provide minor students with advanced concepts ad skills relevant to HCI or breadth of experience not available from their primary major. Given these goals, most electives will be 300-level courses or higher. Courses at the 100-level and 200-level in one's primary major will not count as electives, although the same course taken by a non-major may count (approval is required).

Students can take electives in the HCII or courses relevant to HCI from many other departments on campus. All external electives are approved on a case-by-case basis.

All 05-xxx courses are pre-approved as HCI electives; however, core courses cannot double-count as electives. View a current pre-approved list of electives.
 

Double-Counting

Students may double count up to two (2) of the required core and elective courses (prerequisite courses do not apply to the double-counting rule) with their primary major.