Using an HCI Perspective to Encourage Young Students to Pursue Computer Science and Engineering Careers: The “Envisioning the Digital City” Workshop

In recent decades, the demand for STEM professionals has increased, and consequently, the effort of educational institutions to sponsor their STEM degrees. In the context of a university program promoting STEM careers among high-school students, we designed a workshop for middle and high-school students to show them a different perspective of computing as a pragmatic, social, and people-centered profession. We focus on teaching basic concepts of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) as part of a problem-solving strategy to offer creative solutions to real problems of real people. The workshop proposes a list of well-known problems in urban environments, like social integration, elderly loneliness, or recycling, and asks the students to solve them envisioning an innovative mobile app by following a design thinking approach and applying several design artifacts, like scenario boards, user personas, thematic cards, and paper-based sketches. The results show that with little or no experience in designing and programming, participants engage in fruitful brainstorming sessions, offer creative solutions, and even implement low-level prototypes.