Teaching Usable Privacy in HCI Education: Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating an Active Learning Graduate Course

TL;DR

This paper details the design, implementation, and evaluation of a 15-week graduate course on Usable Privacy in HCI, emphasizing active learning and practical skills to improve privacy education.

Contribution

It introduces an empirically tested, practice-oriented curriculum for teaching Usable Privacy, integrating real-world case studies, role playing, and research projects.

Findings

Increased student engagement and understanding of privacy trade-offs.

Enhanced ability to connect privacy theory with practical design.

Positive student feedback on active learning methods.

Abstract

As digital systems increasingly rely on pervasive data collection and inference, educating future designers and researchers about Usable Privacy has become a critical need for HCI. However, privacy education in higher education is often fragmented, theory-heavy, or detached from real-world applications. Thus, in this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of a 15-week graduate-level course on Usable Privacy that addresses this through active, practice-oriented pedagogy. The course integrates use cases, structured role playing, case-based discussions, guest lectures, and a multi-phase research project to support students in reasoning about privacy from multiple stakeholder perspectives. Grounded in contemporary privacy research and the Modern Privacy framework, the curriculum emphasizes both conceptual understanding and applied research skills. We report findings from two course offerings in consecutive years (2024-2025) using a mixed-methods evaluation that combines quantitative teaching evaluations with qualitative analysis of student reflections and instructor observations. Results indicate increased student engagement, improved ability to articulate trade-offs in privacy design, and stronger connections between theory and practice. To support adoption and replication, we also release detailed assignment descriptions and grading rubrics. This work contributes an empirically informed model for teaching Usable Privacy in HCI education and offers actionable guidance for educators seeking to integrate privacy into their curricula.