AI004 AI expert block
I really looked forward to this class because we got to hear from a different industry professional every single week. They covered a huge range of interesting topics, including AI ethics, safety, and design. My absolute favorite lecture was by Anna Bohoněk, who showed us how they create, train, and use realistic audio and visual AI avatars. It was fascinating to see behind the scenes of how these digital characters are actually built. It gave me a lot of inspiration for the future of interactive design and made me think about how we will design user experiences for AI-powered virtual assistants.
ISKM05 Information policy and management
Learning about government policies and digital state administration wasn’t really my favorite topic, but it felt very relevant to my daily job. I work on a Czech accounting software, so I already know firsthand how frustrating and poorly designed state systems and forms can be. This class gave me a broader look at Czech eGovernment, and it really confirmed what I see at work every day—that simple, user-centered UX design is desperately needed in the public sector to make these platforms usable for real people and businesses.
ISKM100 Art-direction of digital media
Art Direction of Digital Media was easily my favorite class of the whole program. It perfectly balanced theory with practice, and the instructor was incredibly knowledgeable, with amazing presentations and study materials. We even had a super interesting guest lecture about design systems. The only minor downside for me was that the class taught Figma from the absolute basics, which I already know well from my daily UX work. Still, it was highly valuable, and for my final project, I did a complete website redesign where I could really play around with the visual and structural sides.
Redesign →ISKM11 Society, technology and the cultural arena
Reading for this course turned out to be surprisingly interesting, especially an article about gender inequality in the scientific workforce that really made me think. We also had a final test on these readings, which actually pushed me to explore topics I would normally skip. For our final group project, we designed a strategic concept and user personas for a media center called Čechův dům in Žďár nad Sázavou. We proposed a unique three-story solution where the first floor served as an accessible introduction to data and AI, the second floor provided context from experts to fight disinformation, and the third floor was dedicated to live community dialogue and breaking filter bubbles. As part of the design, we mapped out real social conflicts using personas like “Pepa, an isolated skeptic, and Marie, an active senior with a technology block”. We also analyzed complex design dilemmas, such as how to welcome absolutely everyone into a single space while effectively moderating hate speech. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy the project that much because the client provided almost no data and defined their target audience simply as everyone. The whole thing just felt completely half-baked, like they just wanted to use us students to get free ideas and wasn’t well-thought-out at all.
ISKM12 Knowledge organization
To be completely honest, I’m not really sure how I feel about this one. If it had been totally optional, I probably wouldn’t have signed up for it, but I have to admit the structure was great. Splitting the class into a lecture and a practical workshop really helped me grasp all the theory. Even though it’s outside my usual area of interest, it was interesting to see how traditional library principles connect with the digital era, repositories, and tools like AI.
ISKM20 Research seminar
I was initially really excited about this class, but it ended up being a huge disappointment due to organizational issues. I had picked out a great project focused on mapping patient journeys, where my task was to see how people interact with an interactive hospital map. I prepared the entire test script and interview questions, but unfortunately, the teacher was clearly overwhelmed with her schedule and completely stopped replying to my messages. She finally reached out at the end of the semester to apologize, gave me the credit, and told me I could continue the work in January if I wanted to. When I wrote to her in January, though, she never replied back. It was a real shame because the project sounded incredibly interesting, and I was so ready to get some hands-on experience with actual user testing in a real-world environment.
ISKM52 Digital games — analysis and design
I had a blast in this class, mostly because the instructor was incredibly knowledgeable and his lectures were genuinely engaging. Our main task was a group project where we had to design a game from scratch, and my team chose to create a board game called “Crazy Shapes”. Throughout the semester, we went through the entire development cycle from the initial concept to building a physical prototype and playtesting it with our classmates to tweak the rules. We also had a lot of other fun, creative assignments along the way. The absolute best part for me was getting the chance to design the entire visual look of the game. We had so much fun as a team, the final product turned out great, and it was a wonderful hands-on lesson in creating a fun and cohesive user experience.
AI mockup used for my visual design