Advancing UX Education: A Model for Integrated Studio Pedagogy

The rapid growth of the UX profession has led to an increased need for qualified practitioners and a proliferation of UX educational programs offered in both academia and industry. In this note, we present the design and initial evaluation of a new studio-based undergraduate program in UX--the first of its kind at a large, research-intensive US university. The program includes several curricular innovations, such as an integrated studio pedagogy in which six topical strands are interwoven across two types of studios. These studios are interconnected and span five semesters of the undergraduate experience. We present the curriculum model and the foundational principles that informed its design. We describe the two types of studios and their interconnection, and present early evaluation data showing that students are building valuable skills. The program described in this note provides a trailblazing model for UX pedagogy at the undergraduate level.

[1]  Tom Carey,et al.  ACM SIGCHI Curricula for Human-Computer Interaction , 1992 .

[2]  F ChurchillElizabeth,et al.  The future of HCI education , 2016 .

[3]  Donald A. Schön.  Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions , 1987 .

[4]  D. Schon.  Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions. The Jossey-Bass Higher Education Series. , 1987 .

[5]  Ron Wakkary,et al.  Understanding interaction design practices , 2011, CHI.

[6]  S. Rodger,et al.  The Effects of a Peer Mentoring Program on Academic Success Among First Year University Students , 2003 .

[7]  Gordon Rowland,et al.  Educating the reflective designer , 1992 .

[8]  Priscilla Norton.  When technology meets the subject-matter disciplines in education: part two: understanding the computer as discourse , 1992 .

[9]  Thomas A. Dutton,et al.  The Design Studio: An Exploration of its Traditions and Potential , 1989 .

[10]  Colin M. Gray,et al.  Sketching Design Thinking: Representations of design in education and practice , 2014 .

[11]  SengersPhoebe,et al.  Making epistemological trouble , 2011 .

[12]  Colin M. Gray.  Evolution of design competence in UX practice , 2014, CHI.

[13]  Janet Colvin,et al.  Roles, Risks, and Benefits of Peer Mentoring Relationships in Higher Education , 2010 .

[14]  Norman E. Wallen,et al.  How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education , 1990 .

[15]  D. Kirsh,et al.  The Design Enterprise : Rethinking the HCI Education Paradigm , 2015 .

[16]  John R. Gilbert,et al.  The best jobs in america , 1994 .

[17]  Caroline Hummels,et al.  Developing the competence of designing intelligent systems , 2009 .

[18]  Mihaela Vorvoreanu,et al.  Using an Experience Design Approach to Curriculum Creation , 2015 .

[19]  Erik Stolterman,et al.  The Nature of Design Practice and Implications for Interaction Design Research , 2008 .

[20]  Erik Stolterman,et al.  Reprioritizing the relationship between HCI research and practice: bubble-up and trickle-down effects , 2014, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[21]  Daniel Fallman,et al.  Confabulation in the Time of Transdisciplinarity: Reflection on HCI Education and a Call for Conversation , 2013, HCI.

[22]  James D. Cameron,et al.  Student Life Transformed: A Post-World War Two Institutional Case Study of St. Francis Xavier University , 2003 .

[23]  Guiseppe Getto,et al.  Toward a Model of UX Education: Training UX Designers Within the Academy , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

[24]  Vincent Koenig,et al.  User experience: A concept without consensus? Exploring practitioners' perspectives through an international survey , 2015, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[25]  Steve Harrison,et al.  Making epistemological trouble: Third-paradigm HCI as successor science , 2011, Interact. Comput..

[26]  Sarah A. Douglas,et al.  Teaching HCI Design With the Studio Approach , 2003, Comput. Sci. Educ..

[27]  D. Carless,et al.  Peer feedback: the learning element of peer assessment , 2006 .

[28]  Stuart Reeves,et al.  Proceedings of the Nottingham Symposium on Connecting HCI and UX , 2018 .

[29]  D. Kolb.  Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development , 1983 .

[30]  Johan Redström,et al.  Switch! Energy Ecologies in Everyday Life , 2008 .

[31]  Paul Dourish,et al.  Values & design in HCI education , 2014, CHI Extended Abstracts.