Case study / Teaching
Teaching judgment, not just tools
I teach interaction design at Santa Monica College and mentor designers at Designlab and the Interaction Design Foundation. I design my courses like I design products: start with the people in the room, decide what they should be able to do by the end, and build the system to help them get there.
By Christian Eckels / Adjunct Professor and Senior Design Mentor
Watch the teaching reel
Role
Adjunct Professor, Interaction Design, Santa Monica College. Senior Design Mentor, Designlab and IDF.
Courses
IxD 330, Product Design, Industrial Product Design and an AI workshop at SMC. UX Academy and AI for UX at Designlab.
Timeline
Designlab since 2021. SMC since 2025.
Where
Santa Monica College, Designlab, Interaction Design Foundation
FIG. 1 The Interaction Design BS program at Santa Monica College.
01
The brief
My students, from undergraduates to career changers, already use AI, some openly and some quietly. They’re entering an industry that’s still figuring out what it expects from them. Banning the tools doesn’t work, and teaching them as shortcuts is even worse. So I set myself a goal: teach the part AI can’t do, which is judgment, and make the reasoning behind every decision clear.
02
Designing the small moments
IxD 330, Interaction Design Studio 2, focuses on microinteractions like logging in, toggling a setting, or copying and pasting. Students study form, state, feedback, and loops, then design and test their own. Weekly assignments are graded as complete or incomplete, so it’s safe to take risks, and craft is graded in the projects. For the midterm, students pick one of three briefs, and all are judged on the same five criteria: framework application, research and synthesis, interaction clarity, prototype quality, and presentation.
Convergence Object
A physical object with a meaningful digital microinteraction
Audit and Redesign
Run a real product through the course frameworks, then redesign one thing
Micro to Macro
Take a microinteraction off the screen and into the world
03
Critique is designed too
Midterm presentations are five minutes long with seven slides, followed by two minutes of feedback from guest critics who work in the industry. I give the critics a short guide, because useful feedback doesn’t happen by accident: start with what worked, be direct about gaps, and focus on one or two things instead of five. Students get the same honesty from me. If you can’t fill your research slides with real artifacts, the research didn’t happen. “I did some research” is not the same as having something to show for it.
04
Working with AI, on purpose
At SMC, I designed a three-hour workshop called Working With AI as a Designer: Practice, Judgment, and Responsibility. Everyone starts with the same prompt, and we critique the output before making any changes. What looks generic? What did the AI assume? Who might be left out? Then students rewrite the prompt with context, constraints, and accessibility in mind, and decide what to keep, fix, or remove. This approach borrows a habit from my Designlab cohorts: treat prompts as design artifacts and keep a library of the ones that work, just like a component library. In the vibe coding version, students build a working weather app and pause three times to ask who the AI designed for, what we’re asking people to trust, and when “Get Location” might not be a good idea.
FIG. 2 Working With AI as a Designer: same prompt, critique first, then iterate.
05
Building a course from scratch
This fall, I wrote a new 16-week Industrial Product Design course. Every session involves making something, and instruction supports the work. Students post “ID in the Wild” photos before each class, keep a weekly materials log, and read How to Be a Design Student in small groups with rotating discussion leaders. A Challenge Track raises the bar for advanced students without needing a separate course. In one project, built with a colleague in Interaction Design, students design the enclosure for an Arduino sound box, considering how materials like aluminum or ABS affect a Bluetooth signal.
06
Mentoring career changers
Since 2021, I’ve mentored designers at Designlab and the Interaction Design Foundation, many of whom are changing careers. More than 40 have completed Designlab’s UX Academy with me, and graduates have gone on to roles at Apple, PlayStation, Tender, and startups. Mentoring is one-on-one: research coaching, portfolio case studies, whiteboard practice, and job search support. In Designlab’s AI for UX course, I tell every cohort on day one: this is not a tools course. Over four weeks, from foundations through research, design, and portfolio, the goal is to build a working AI practice. Specificity adds up. So does AI sloppiness.
07
What I tell every class
Speed is easy. Judgment is rare.