Lectures#
What is covered, week by week, and which topics each lecture draws on.
Every lecture the course claims to run gets a dated page and a teaching-team
reference. A course decides how many lectures it needs; one of them carries a
real deck. related: connects lectures to the tutorials and assessments they
feed.
The One-Shot Interface, A Definition
What this course studies and why — the shape shared by parking meters, kiosks and ATMs, and the question generic usability heuristics don't ask
Week 1 · 22 February 2027 incentive
Coins, Codes, and the Myth of Simplicity
The vending machine as the simplest possible one-shot interface, and what its "simplicity" is quietly doing
Week 2 · 1 March 2027 incentive
Time Pressure as a Design Material
How countdowns, beep cadence and queue sightlines are used as deliberate design materials, not incidental UI chrome
Week 3 · 8 March 2027
Trust at the Slot
Why a stranger hands a machine their card and PIN, and what fee structures hide behind the word "convenience"
Week 4 · 15 March 2027 incentive
The Kiosk as Bureaucratic Proxy
How a self-check-in kiosk stands in for an airline employee, and what changes about liability once a machine is the one refusing you
Week 5 · 22 March 2027
Consent by Kiosk
Routing consent, triage or payment for medical care through a touchscreen, and what that assumes about the person standing at it
Week 6 · 29 March 2027 incentive
The Toll Road's Business Model, in Software
How a concession contract for a toll road gets encoded into a transponder and a per-trip fee you can't know in advance
Week 7 · 5 April 2027 incentive
Externalising the Till
Self-checkout as unpaid labour and loss-prevention theatre, and who captures the savings
Week 8 · 12 April 2027 incentive
Exclusion by Design
How a fare gate's accessibility exception becomes a way of not making exceptions at all
Week 9 · 19 April 2027
Captive to Which Network
Multi-operator EV charging kiosks, app-required unlocking, and roaming fees as an unresolved standards war charged to the driver
Week 10 · 26 April 2027 incentive
Exact Change, or Else
Pay toilets and turnstile kiosks as the starkest captive case this semester studies, and the franchise contract usually behind them
Week 11 · 3 May 2027 incentive
What a Fair One-Shot Machine Would Look Like
Reviewing the semester's throughline, and what a redesign has to preserve as well as what it gets to remove
Week 12 · 10 May 2027 incentive