Human-Centred Design and Engineering, MSc

120 credits
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Overview

  • Educational areaIndustrial and Interaction Design
  • DegreeMaster of Science, MSc
  • LanguageEnglish
  • Duration2 years
  • Rate of studyFull-time, 100 %
  • Instructional timeDaytime

Important dates

  • Application opens
  • Application closes

Summary

Think about the last time a product made your life easier, or digital tools made a complex task unexpectedly simple. Behind those experiences lie countless decisions about how technology should look and feel to the people who use it.

Whether designing digital or physical products, user interfaces, or immersive video game worlds, this programme will teach you how to create experiences that are accessible, functional and enjoyable to use. 

Specialisations

Programme description

Great design is about more than finding a single perfect solution. It means balancing competing needs and navigating complexity. Medical devices must be safe and reliable, but also cost-effective to manufacture. Digital services need to be complex, but accessible to a wide range of users. Video games need to be fun, but challenging enough to keep players coming back. Designing successful products, services, and systems like these requires creativity, curiosity, and the ability to see problems from many different perspectives. This programme will help you develop those skills.

Much of the teaching is studio-based, giving you access to state-of-the-art workshops for experimenting with materials and fabrication. As well as creating physical products using traditional prototyping methods, there is also a strong focus on digital tools, including virtual reality, 3D printing and advanced digital modeling.

You will work on real problems contributed by industry and society, and present your work to professional audiences including guests from external partners. There are also courses on advanced user studies and evaluation, giving you the chance to interview people and come up with genuine solutions to their needs. The culture is collaborative and interdisciplinary, built on the understanding that innovative solutions often emerge when people with different skills and viewpoints come together.

The foundations of the work include design theory and methodology, giving you the conceptual understanding needed to dive into the field. A core focus on sustainability and accessibility will also ground your work in social and environmental responsibility. The programme offers considerable flexibility, with elective courses and specialisations in areas like interaction design, product development, ergonomics and game design, helping you combine broad design capabilities with deep expertise.

Job opportunities

The human-centred design skills you will learn are in demand wherever people, technology, and society intersect. Graduates go on to work in industries from software development and game design, to consumer products and healthcare.

Depending on your specialisation, you might move into UX or interaction design at a tech company or human factors engineering in the automotive and aerospace industries. You could also work in strategic design consulting, industrial product design, or game development.

Typical employers include manufacturers, technology companies and design agencies, like Volvo, IKEA, and ABB, as well as public organisations and research institutes like RISE . The education also offers a natural progression into doctoral research, either at Chalmers or elsewhere.

Research

The programme has close links to research groups across a number of Chalmers’ departments, covering a broad spectrum of how people interact with technology in everyday and professional contexts. In computer science, for example, teaching staff have made internationally recognised contributions to areas like gameplay design, real-time computer graphics, usability, and interaction design. Several researchers who lead courses also have track records of taking their work out to commercial applications and start-ups.

Other relevant areas of research include urban transformation, sustainability, and AI-supported design. You will feel this directly in your courses, where current findings regularly shape the problems you work on and the methods you use to address them. Your master's thesis can be carried out within one of these research environments or in collaboration with external partners in industry. You will also have a natural pathway on to doctoral studies at Chalmers or elsewhere.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in: Industrial Design, Industrial Design Engineering, Software Engineering, Interaction Design, Cognitive Science, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or the equivalent

Prerequisites:
Programming (at least 6 cr., including back-end programming language; Python, C++, Java or the equivalent),

Human-Machine Interaction (at least 6 cr., including e.g. user experience, usability, interaction design, ergonomics, human factors engineering, human-computer interaction or the similar).

A design or development project (at least 5 cr. e.g. in software development, object-oriented programming, game design, user interface design, industrial design, product development or similar)

English language requirements: Prove your English proficiency

How to apply

Find out how to apply for a master's programme at Chalmers. Learn about the application process, including entry requirements, required documents and key deadlines.

From application to admission

This guide explains how to apply for a Master's programme and which documents you need to submit to complete your application.

How to select a specialisation

You can only select one specialisation.

Specialisations with separate entry requirements

For more information visit the webpage for each specialisation.

To choose one of these specialisations, you must select it when submitting your application via antagning.se or universityadmissions.se.

If you choose one of the other specialisations, you can select it after you have been admitted and enrolled.

Human-Centred Design and Engineering, MSc | Chalmers