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Human-Centered Design Minor

The human-centered design (HCD) minor is focused on the process of innovation for addressing human needs, and offers a creative discipline that can be applied to a wide range of fields.

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Quick Facts

Total courses: 6
Structure: Foundation + Methods + Design
Open to: Any Dartmouth major
Director: Professor Peter Robbie

Dartmouth Design logo

 

In partnership with Dartmouth Design.

How the Minor Works

Six courses in three stages—a foundation, a set of methods from the social sciences, and a concentration of design electives chosen from across the university.

Section 1—DESIGN FOUNDATION

One required course

Section 2—ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS AND PSYCHOLOGY

Choose two courses

Section 3—DESIGN ELECTIVES

Choose three courses

Required Electives

Please note that some courses may require prerequisites in addition to those noted. Check with Dartmouth's undergraduate registrar for exact requirements. 

  • Section 1—Design Foundation

    ENGS 12: Design Thinking

  • Section 2—Ethnographic Methods and Psychology

    ANTH 3: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
    ANTH 18: Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology
    ENGS 15.07: Research Methods for Human-Centered Design
    GEOG 11: Qualitative Methods and the Research Process in Geography
    PSYC 22: Learning
    PSYC 23: Social Psychology
    PSYC 28: Cognitive Psychology
    PSYC 38: Cognitive Neuroscience
    PSYC 43: Emotion
    PSYC 50.02: Decision Making
    PSYC 51.11 Thinking
    PSYC 53.10: Social and Affective Motivations in Decision-Making
    PSYC 53.12: The Behavior of Groups
    PSYC 53.13: Social Neuroscience
    SOCY 11: Research Methods

  • Section 3—Design Electives

    COSC 23.01: Augmented and Virtual Reality Design
    COSC 25.01: Intro to UI/UX Design I
    COSC 25.02: Intro to UI/UX Design II
    COSC 27: Projects in Digital Arts
    COSC 28: Advanced Projects in Digital Arts
    COSC 29.06: Digital Tangible User Interfaces
    COSC 63.01: Augmented and Virtual Reality Development
    COSC 67: Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction
    COSC 89.34: Human-Centered Generative AI
    ENGS 15.01: Senior Design Challenge I
    ENGS 15.02: Senior Design Challenge II
    ENGS 15.09: Design Ethics
    ENGS 15.11: Design & Education
    ENGS 15.12: Design & Entrepreneurship
    ENGS 18: System Dynamics in Policy Design and Analysis
    ENGS 19.01: Future of Energy Systems
    ENGS 21: Introduction to Engineering
    ENGS 44: Sustainable Design
    FILM 51: Game Design 
    PBPL 43/ ECON 77: Social Entrepreneurship
    SART 65: Architecture I
    SART 66: Architecture II

How to Declare

Declaring the HCD minor takes three steps:

01

COMPLETE THE WORKSHEET

Fill out the Human-Centered Design Minor Student Worksheet, listing the six courses you plan to take across Sections 1, 2, and 3.

02

DISCUSS WITH PROFESSOR ROBBIE

Submit your worksheet to Professor Robbie and discuss any questions or issues with your plan.

03

ENTER YOUR PLAN ON DARTWORKS

Once approved, enter your HCD minor plan on Dartworks. You're in. Declare whenever you're ready.

Course Planning

  • It is recommended that students take ENGS 12 first.
  • Before taking courses in Section 3, it is recommended that students take ENGS 12 plus at least one course from Section 2. 
  • No course may be used for both a major and a minor (although a course may be part of one of these and prerequisite to the other, or prerequisite to both).
  • No courses other than those used as prerequisites to the minor may be taken under the non-recording option.
  • No more than one transfer course may be used for the minor.
  • For engineering majors: Only ENGS courses numbered below 20 may be counted toward the minor. Otherwise, courses taken for the major cannot be used to satisfy requirements of the minor.
  • One of the two courses in Section 2 must be outside of the student's major.
  • Students majoring in Cognitive Science, Cultural Anthropology, Neuroscience, Psychology, and Sociology may substitute an additional course from Section 3 in place of a second course from Section 2.
  • Satisfactory completion of the minor requires a grade point average of 2.0 in the courses beyond the prerequisites suitable for satisfying the minor.

Modify Your Major with HCD

Other Dartmouth majors may be modified with human-centered design, with necessary approvals. The major requires six courses selected from design foundation, ethnographic methods and human factors/ psychology, and design electives.

learn how to modify your major with HCD

Student Testimonials

Students discuss the benefits of adding Human-Centered Design (HCD) to their Dartmouth education.

Human-Centered Design at Dartmouth

The six-course HCD minor—Dartmouth's most popular minor—gives students the tools, mindset, and framework for creative problem-solving that integrates the human perspective at every step to develop products, systems, and experiences that generate positive change.