The Challenge of a Hybrid Education between Computer Science and Design Competences in Italian University Courses and Degrees

The evolution of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is requiring new competences from professionals and practitioners operating in the field that is now including not only traditional computer science knowledge but also a wide spectrum of user-centered, user interfaces and interaction design skills. About the same time the Italian University system was progressively reformed to adhere to the Bologna Process and Declaration (1999) a manifesto and a initiatives series to build a common European Higher Education Area. Three successive reforms Berlinguer (2000), Moratti (2003) and Gelmini (2010) completely redefined the higher education curricula and opened the system to a wider range of courses based on specific and mixed competences as required in the professional world. New bachelors and master degrees courses —for example Internet Science at the University of Bologna, Communication and Multimedia at University of Pavia or Digital Communication at the State University of Milan—were established inside traditional department and the people teaching in the new borderline fields had themselves specialized background mainly of the 3 areas: computer science or electronically engineering, architecture and design, cognitive psychology and ergonomic. Starting from such different perspectives, the question that emerges spontaneously is about the basic and essential skills that students should acquire to be fitted for the professional market that actually requires both traversal abilities to see problems and, at the same time, deep knowledge of specific applications field. According to the contemporary debate about “should designers be able to code” or “programmers should learn to understand user needs and cognitive processes” what is clearly emerging is that traditional divisions are no longer efficient and that a new approach and desirable if not even necessary in the direction of an hybrid, cross-disciplinary education. Exploring to this new demand of contamination between the technical and the design and humanities cultures the research project “Zero Design Background” investigates, lists, compares and proposes a critical review of the university educational hybrid offer with the aim to map the fundamental competences and principles that students should acquire during the training. Firstly the paper maps and critically compare the Computer Science (CS), User Experience (Ux) and User Interface (UI) Design courses available for bachelor's and master degree students within the Italian departments of Computer Science; Computer Engineering; Information Technologies; Architecture; Design; Arts and Design: Communication Science; and Psychology to have a clear picture of the state of the art. Secondly the research put in relation the department, degrees course classification, class title and contents, professors cultural background and scientific/disciplinary sector in a matrix to identify and cluster emerging patterns in the educational field to understand potentially and limits and address future developments