Digital interaction design (DID) refers to the idea of “creating good designs that realize proper human-oriented interactions in the technology-driven digital environment.” When DID was selected as the research theme in the early 2000s, the Design Institute published the Journal of Digital Interaction Design for the first time. Around that time, the terms of ‘digital’ and ‘interaction’ were not commonly used in the design industry. However, these days design environments surrounding us have been increasingly focused on these two terms. In line with this newly emerged and user-centered paradigms based on interaction designs, the Design Institute has expanded the scope of its research and is striving to gain notable performance with sub-themes of u-healthcare design, u-public urban design, and information & communication technology (ICT) convergence design which refers to interdisciplinary areas combining information technology (IT) and communication technology (CT).

The Design Institute has conducted research with the convergent concept of ‘user-centered interaction’ and involves foundational studies in healthcare design; the main ideas include the integration of treatment-prevention-management, the integration of patients-medical staff-care givers, the integration of facilities-equipment-information, and the integration of interdisciplinary approaches. Such integrated healthcare design research can produce the concept of u-healthcare which involves user-centered, ubiquitous, and universal.

The Design Institute is a cultural touch point to spread cultural changes into the off-line setting of our campus, reflecting the results of sentiment-based research in virtual reality and convergent research with neighboring disciplines to the university education. By pursuing a practical application of the results in the industrial environment, the institute is ultimately looking forward to promoting the creation of human-centered virtual reality and the development of related industries.

1. Theoretical and experimental studies on the basis of the cognitive, psychological, humanistic, and social scientific contexts of human computer interaction (HCI)
2. Research on new concepts of design based on the trends of change in virtual reality
3. Establishing interdisciplinary communication channels through convergent research
4. Operating technology exchange through the collaboration of university-industry
5. Providing the results of research and development (R&D) for related industrial sectors
6. Circulating accumulated knowledge to the society by means of presentations, seminars, publications, etc.
7. Offering advanced educational foundation for undergraduate and graduate students
8. Providing a basis of future-oriented re-education of designers in the field
9. Conducting projects necessary to attain the goals of the Design Institute