Case Study: Universitat Pompeu Fabra achieves empathetic, user-centered UI redesigns with Justinmind

How UI prototyping is helping undergrads engineer with empathy at UPF

Justinmind partnered with Universitat Pompeu Fabra’s first‑year Interaction Engineering course to tackle a common teaching challenge: how to get engineering students to design empathetic, usable GUIs without changing underlying system functionality or writing code. Students had to analyze real websites, conduct user research and usability tests, and redesign interfaces while only simulating interaction—bridging the gap between UX thinking and software engineering constraints.

The solution was to use Justinmind’s code‑free prototyping tool so students could create low‑ to high‑fidelity, interactive prototypes (carousels, sticky menus, form validation, etc.), run formal usability tests, and learn when to increase or limit interaction. Results included faster, consolidated workflows, stronger student performance, easily attainable learning curves, and satisfying, fully functional prototypes that reinforced empathy and interaction engineering principles.

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Narcís Parés

Tenured Associate Professor of the ICT Department