Category: User Experience Design Courses

The Graduate Studio I, II, III, and IV courses are designed to address projects of increasing complexity and progressively strengthen your problem-solving skills in UX Design. Students solve a design problem rooted in a creative industries-related context, requiring substantive research and concept development phases, refinement, and execution phases. Research methodologies, design approaches, and techniques students learned in the UX-centered courses will be applied to develop and evaluate their solutions. These courses are structured to simulate the professional studio environment with formally scheduled milestones and defined deliverables and will be reviewed by faculty and industry professionals through formal presentations.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: IXD 701

In this course, students study the conceptual and related UX design approaches to metaverse creation. Metaverse is a broader term encompassing technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual 3D environments where interaction will take place. Students explore various platforms, technical aspects, and design approaches applicable in a non-physical environment. The virtual worlds today are more than just technology. They have become humans’ alternative habitat to the physical one. Such tendencies require full attention from the new generation of UX designers and a profound understanding of the media phenomena from different perspectives. This is a hands-on course where priority is given to engagement on real-industry projects and searches for design solutions that include using metaverse and 3D virtual environments for video games, virtual classrooms, augmented chat platforms, artificial intelligence-generated content, and many other emerging applications.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: IXD 621

Participation in an internship experience allows students to use classroom-learned skills in a related employment experience. Students must work a minimum of 135 hours over the course of the entire semester. Students must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. All internships must be approved by the graduate program department chairperson.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites:

Participation in an internship experience allows students to use classroom-learned skills in a related employment experience. Students must work a minimum of 135 hours over the course of the entire semester. Students must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. All internships must be approved by the graduate program department chairperson.

Credits: 6

Prerequisites:

Independent Study is available to graduate students with a cumulative grade point average of 3.00 or above. The student may receive approval to work in an area or on a project that is not otherwise offered or addressed in the regular curriculum. An Independent Study should include opportunities for individual student voice and provide a space for diverse perspectives. Students may receive credit toward graduation for no more than 6 credit hours. The student must submit to the chairperson of the department in which they wish to study, an Independent Study Proposal of 150 words (no less) of the student’s plan for study and her/his reason for choosing to study independently. Once the department chairperson provides approval and the instructor for the Independent Study is determined, the faculty member must write an Independent Study Syllabus with education goals, learning outcomes, meeting dates, course expectations, timelines, and due dates.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites:

Based on a foundation of web technologies, this class teaches students the concepts and use of programming languages to complement and extend their capabilities as designers. Students learn how to think like a computer and to structure code (functions and algorithms, not markup) to perform data manipulation tasks, to enable user interaction that incorporates devices and services, and to gain facility across multiple programming languages. As a result, students will better understand the strengths and limitations of digital systems and, therefore, how programming may enhance (or limit) their user experience design goals. With this foundation, students will gain a solid stepping stone towards entering the realms of mobile and web applications development, physical computing, and the exciting world of the Internet of Things, or the Internet of Everything.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites:

, In preparation for the impending era of Extended Reality (XR), the exciting realm of emerging technologies, and rising artificial intelligence, user experience designers must fully understand the contemporary technology landscape and environment and face the challenges in the UX design field further development. In this immersive studio environment, students are involved in a dynamic triad of activities: prototyping, coding, and design. By engaging in these modes of creative endeavor, they acquire the skills to envision and resolve profound design challenges. The synthesis of these activities empowers them to harness the potential of mixed reality (XR) and related emerging technologies, shaping the future of user experience design. Students gain tech skills while seeing beyond today’s technology to formulate and solve essential design problems and understand the creative processes and practical challenges of making a better world through design.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: IXD 601

This course introduces the fundamental concepts, methods, and practices of UI design, emphasizing the crucial interconnection between User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) design. The course covers the step-by-step process of creating a user interface, including ideation, prototyping, iteration, and implementation. It will familiarize its students with technical aspects, design tools, methodologies, and techniques commonly used in the industry. Students delve into the UI development process through a blend of individual exploration and collaborative teamwork. They gain hands-on experience and refine their abilities to express and communicate their ideas through narrative media and deliver visual mockups and prototypes. The User Interface Design course adopts an in-studio format that cultivates an environment supportive of group discussions, constructive critiques, and compelling presentations. This structure ensures that students understand the complexities within UX and UI Design and prepares them to thrive in this dynamic and constantly evolving field.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites:

Students learn the principles of UX (user experience) design, enabling them to conduct comprehensive research, analyze user behavior, and apply their findings to create user-centric designs in various digital contexts. Students learn how to map user journeys and prototype meaningful scenarios informed by research and iterative modeling and testing. Students utilize and apply user-centered research and co-design methods. They learn various research methods, such as user interviews, surveys, usability testing, and data analysis. They also explore techniques for collecting and interpreting user data. Furthermore, the course will cover prototyping techniques to translate research findings into tangible designs, allowing students to work on projects where they can apply their acquired skills in real-world scenarios. By the end of this course, students will have a solid grasp of UX research principles, be able to conduct research independently, and make design decisions based on user insights.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites:

Designing excellent user experiences requires an understanding of the human factors that underlie a user’s comprehension of the world. This course looks at the science that formulates the way humans make sense of the world around them and how to leverage that innate human experience to design successful human-compute experiences. Particularly relevant to designers working on human-centered interactions with new technologies, this course helps students to craft experiences compatible with the strengths and weaknesses of the human’s embodied mind. Students will learn how to leverage human perception, ergonomics, and information systems to generate intuitive interactions with new technologies.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: