A design methodology for user-centered innovation in the software development area

This paper proposes a methodology for conduct of HCI and Entrepreneurship courses in parallel with the Computing area. DUCI (Design for User-Centered Innovation) methodology aims at guiding the development of projects to produce software which integrates the concepts of both areas. The main proposal is to encourage the conception of new ideas in the field of software development, concerning not only the business but also the user's needs. The end-user requirements and needs are explored from human computer interaction techniques that improve the business idea. In this work, therefore, we proceed to answer the question: do HCI and Entrepreneurship, when taught in parallel, encourage the conception of new ideas in the field of software development? We conducted two case studies to observe the effectiveness of the methodology in an undergraduate and a postgraduate course in computer science, with a total of 107 students, during 2012 and 2013, analyzing the change in students' views from before and after the use of the methodology.