100 Minutes of Human-Centered Design
Collaborations with the Grainger First-Year Experience team began in the Fall 2018 semester and became a cornerstone of my curriculum development work while at the Siebel Center for Design. Creation of the 100 Minutes of Human-Centered Design set of activites served as a model for how to integrate design into first-year courses across campus. This content would later be adapted by the College of Applied Health Sciences and College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Science.
Courses
ENG 100: Engineering Orientation
ENG 300: Engineering Transfer Orientation
ENG 177: Grainger First Year Experience Projects
Collaborating Instructors
Gretchen Forman
Dr. Joe Bradley
Semesters
Fall 2018
Fall 2019
Spring 2020
Fall 2020
🌱 BACKGROUND
As an undergraduate, I served as an Engineering Learning Assistant for ENG 100, the required first-year orientation course for engineering students at the University of Illinois. During my senior year, I was promoted to Head Learning Assistant for the Department of Materials Science and Engineering while interning at the Siebel Center for Design (SCD).
Bridging my roles at both SCD and Grainger Engineering First-Year Experience (GFX), I partnered with the GFX Program Director to pilot a human-centered design (HCD) project in my section of 15 students. That initial 8-week experiment sparked a long-term collaboration that would eventually scale to hundreds of students across multiple engineering courses.
🛠️ CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Working within a tight constraint—just 100 minutes of in-class time over 8 weeks—I designed a series of lightweight HCD modules for ENG 100 students.
Key features of the curriculum:
Students worked in small teams to explore a challenge and conduct user interviews
Emphasis was placed on process, not product
Deliverables included low-fidelity prototypes: sketches, pipe cleaner models, basic mock-ups
Topics were carefully scoped to be approachable for first-time designers
The result was 100 Minutes of Human-Centered Design—a rapid, foundational introduction to HCD for first-year engineers.
🚀 IMPLEMENTATION & IMPACT
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Piloted in my section of 15 students
Iterated to improve clarity on core HCD concepts (e.g., synthesis, “How Might We” questions)
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Expanded to 19 sections of ENG 100 and 7 sections of ENG 300 (for transfer students)
Developed formal facilitator guides and training modules
Rolled out broader facilitator onboarding based on instructor feedback
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Adapted for hybrid delivery across 35+ sections, including international offerings at the Zhejiang University-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Institute
Iterated content resulted in a smoother student experience and better facilitator preparedness
Long-term goal: integrate 100 Minutes of HCD into all 100+ annual sections of ENG 100
📦 BEYOND ENG 100: EXPANDING TO ENG 177
Success with ENG 100 opened the door for deeper integration in ENG 177: GFX Projects, a 10-week design/build course. Working with faculty and fellow SCD team members, we restructured the course to center human-centered design from day one.
Highlights
Co-taught two pilot sections in Fall 2018
Faculty called the student work “some of the most innovative prototypes [they'd] seen in years”
One student team advanced their prototype hand dexterity game for Parkinson’s rehab to Carle Illinois College of Medicine’s Health Make-a-Thon
In Fall 2020, I translated our in-person lessons into a modular video series, serving both hybrid instruction and as an early prototype for a potential HCD MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)