postgrau-aplicacions-serveis-interactius-01 Espai Joliu, Jordi Alonso, Inês Cardoso, Giulia Bonacina, Fiorella Guayama

Postgraduate in Design of Network Applications and Interactive Services

Learn the necessary skills to initiate, direct and design interactive products, applications and services from a perspective focused on strategy, use and user experience.

How to apply

Presentation

In the Postgraduate in Design of Network Applications and Interactive Services, you will learn everything you need to be able to contextualize and develop a proposal of services and digital businesses on the internet.

You will discover everything you need to create apps and services centred around people. Apps, websites, and every other kind of digital service play a crucial role in our lives. Listening to music, bank procedures, getting an official document from the city council, finding a partner or friends, electing political leaders… All these tasks and many more depend on services that are strategically developed to serve users, society, and companies.

To this end, this programme proposes an applied training offer that covers all necessary aspects to discover businesses or social improvement opportunities, develop solutions in an agile and iterative way, and achieve commercially and socially successful effects. From strategic definition and value proposition to the planning of implementation road maps, we will explore the different stages and tasks required. Without forgetting the technical knowledge that is essential to be able to develop technological proposals (e.g., databases, programming languages, or API integration).

Thanks to a teaching staff specialized in each of the programme’s thematic areas, case studies, and the completion of an applied project, the student will obtain transdisciplinary training. With this training, students will have a detailed vision of the entire process of creating an interactive project where the business vision, user experience (UX), technology, and interface design are central.

The methodology of the course has a practical approach, but without neglecting the theoretical principles of interaction design or the contemporary debates surrounding the ethics and aesthetics of digital culture.

To this end, we structure the course in thematic modules that include subjects that develop practical methods and procedures, masterclasses and lectures by renowned professionals in the same thematic area, and specialised workshops.

We consider these workshops as part of our innovation laboratory, which we call UX Avant, which allows us to place a more exploratory type of practices that encourage the transmission of knowledge through reflection and practice. To this date, we have explored topics related to music, television, e-mobility, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, professional ethics, etc.

The postgraduate degree also engages in Elisava Research’s thematic proposals, taking advantage of collaboration opportunities that may arise through its research projects. In particular, our postgraduate degree is actively involved in developing projects that are linked to issues related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and social justice debates linked to gender, decoloniality, and ableism.

We also seek to promote the talent of our students by offering internships in important companies in the sector and startups. In recent years, we have established agreements with HP, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Insight Center of CaixaBank, Zurich, the Web Science and Social Computing research group, Datalog, NTT Data, and Multiplica, among many others.

Finally, we encourage the participation of our students in specialized congresses and in national and international awards. These give visibility to the projects carried out within the framework of the postgraduate degree, and we have obtained several gold, silver, and bronze prizes in recent editions.

Students of the Postgraduate in Design of Applications and Interactive Services should have an innovative attitude, the capacity for independent learning, and a desire to explore the novel solutions that design and technology can offer society.

Access and Admission Requirements: We recommend students to have completed undergraduate studies in Design in the following sectors: Industrial Design Engineering, Product Development, Audio-visual Communication, Advertising, Computer Engineering, Multimedia Studies, Journalism, Psychology, Sociology or other social sciences. For those without a university degree, students can gain access to the Postgraduate in Design of Applications and Interactive Services by demonstrating verified professional experience in the sector. Students must have basic knowledge of 3D software.

At Elisava you can take master and postgraduate courses of different degrees of specialisation that combine theoretical knowledge, reflection, experimentation, and practical projects. Find the design master you are looking for.


Objectives

  • Designing and implementing user-centric websites and applications.
  • Understanding the importance of the user experience as a link between technology, design and interaction. 
  • Understanding the dynamics of the Internet and digital technologies.
  • Applying the techniques associated with user experience, interaction design and interface design to services and applications.
  • Mastering agile methodologies for project planning and management.
  • Applying the principles of user interface design to the creation of visual systems and micro-interactions.
  • Analysing the social context, identifying opportunities and proposing innovation challenges to promote digital transformation.

Postgraduate in Design of Network Applications and Interactive Services programme

1 Business and Conversion

The module introduces the student to conversion rate optimisation (CRO) methodologies and tools, i.e. the measurement and analysis of the performance of an online presence, for example a website. Students will work on obtaining different types of metrics and data in order to optimise results using tools available on the market.

The objective of this module is to deepen in key concepts related to UX and strategy. For most web projects, it is necessary to first ensure their suitability and then their survival from a business point of view. Knowing in the most detailed way possible what the market environment will be, the value proposition that we will offer to our users, the business model, the objectives and KPI’s that we will measure and transmit it from a UX, Visual Design and memorable copy. With all this knowledge we will be able to ensure the highest possible conversions for our project.

2 Tools

We will look at a series of content management tools (CMS), each of them specialised in a specific purpose (social, commercial, communicational). The use of Drupal, WordPress, and other latest generation CMSs will be covered in depth, dealing in detail with installation, configuration, and extension using modules and plugins. We will also pay special attention to existing tools for web measurement.

3 Languages, APIs, and Mash-up

The objective is for the student to understand the dynamics of development in client/server environments and to be able to work with languages such as JavaScript and PHP and, in the management of information, through MySQL databases. The course aims to provide students with the essential concepts for the development of web applications.

This will enable them to develop the majority of the most common services by themselves, as well as to be able to communicate and collaborate with specialised professionals in larger and more complex projects. Another central objective is to learn how various tools and code libraries work in order to be able to customize them and integrate them into one’s own projects. The APIs of the most popular web services and the creation of mashups will be covered. The approach will be totally practical, with a technical vision focused on design professionals.

4 Creativity, Brand, and Business Strategy

The objective will be to provide students with the ability to identify and synthesize the focus of an interactive product and, at the same time, to know how to connect it with the context in which it is framed: cultural, technological, and economic. This line of connection makes it possible to establish the roadmap on which to deploy any project. Issues such as the definition of business models, product communication, content strategy, and reputation management will be addressed, as well as legal aspects related to digital business.

5 Final Postgraduate Project

The postgraduate project aims to guide students in the development of a digital business challenge within the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To do so, students will have to contemplate and control the different variables involved in the development and management of a project of this type.

The tutor will accompany the different decisions that affect the evolution of the project, encouraging the analysis of the fundamental points and guiding towards the greatest possible autonomy in the achievement of the project’s objectives.

If you want to know more about the Postgraduate in Design of Network Applications and Interactive Services download the brochure here:
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Do you want to know more about the Masters’ School?

Each academic year, students with very diverse professional and cultural profiles of more than 80 nationalities from all over the world attend their master’s or postgraduate training at Elisava. We want to promote connections and networks among students beyond the context of each master’s degree to promote the exchange of knowledge through very diverse projects: we organize interdisciplinary workshops and conferences; transdisciplinary projects with students from several master’s degrees; collaborations with companies, institutions and NGOs…

Interdisciplinary workshops Collaborations with companies, institutions and NGOs Elisava Masters’ Talks and lectures Elisava Alumni

Masters’ Scholarships

Do you want to study the Postgraduate in Design of Network Applications and Interactive Services at Elisava? In this section you will be able to check all the information on the annual call for scholarships, which recognize, reward and disseminate the talent and excellence of future master’s students.