Program Overview

User Experience Design Program

The User Experience Design program at DePaul University offers a comprehensive curriculum that focuses on the principles of user-centered design, human-computer interaction, and design research. The program aims to equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to design and develop interactive systems that are intuitive, user-friendly, and effective.

Course Descriptions

The program includes a range of courses that cover various aspects of user experience design, including:

• UXD 101: Design Principles for User Experience Design: This course introduces students to the fundamental principles of user experience design, including affordance, conceptual model, consistency, constraint, discoverability, feedback, mapping, and signifiers.
• UXD 205: Intersectional Themes and Design: This course explores the complex relationships between gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, and class as they relate to design, and examines how these factors intersect and impact the design process.
• UXD 208: Virtual Worlds and Online Communities: This course introduces students to the study of cyberculture and online social behavior, and examines the fundamentals of designing and developing online communities and virtual worlds.
• UXD 210: Introduction to User Experience Design: This course provides an overview of the user-centered design process, including user and task analysis, interaction design, prototyping, and evaluation.
• UXD 220: Prototyping Methods I: This course focuses on designing information and interaction through prototyping, with an emphasis on information architecture and interaction design.
• UXD 222: Data Visualization Design: This course discusses the basic problems and techniques of visualizing quantitative and qualitative data, and introduces students to graphical software for creating visualizations.
• UXD 225: Coding Design Frameworks: This course introduces students to code-facilitated systems thinking, and explores how to break down people's activities and community activity into a set of steps that can be supported by computer-based systems.
• UXD 227: Computing Human Lives: This course introduces students to multiple types of data structures as they relate to designing user experiences in interactive applications, and explores the ethics, inclusion, accessibility, and human-centered approaches to data privacy and control.
• UXD 251: UI/UX Prototyping Workshop: This course provides hands-on experience with professional prototyping software packages, and explores fundamental strategies for executing the design of cross-platform websites and applications.
• UXD 260: User Experience Research and Evaluation: This course provides in-depth knowledge about user research and usability evaluation methods, and explores how to apply these methods in professional practice.
• UXD 270: User-Centered Web Design: This course introduces students to the principles of interactive design for web pages and sites, and explores design patterns for information navigation and the use of HTML and CSS to produce standards- and accessibility-compliant web pages.
• UXD 320: Prototyping Methods II: This course deepens students' skills in design and prototyping by challenging them to solve real-world problems, and applies organizational and analytical strategies to develop more advanced prototyping skills.
• UXD 329: AI Approaches for User Experience Design: This course introduces students to artificial intelligence and its application in user experience design, and explores how to use code libraries to experiment with intelligent agents, chatbots, and automated and generative design.
• UXD 336: Interactive Media Scripting for Programmers: This course provides an introduction to object-oriented programming in ActionScript for students who already know how to program, and explores how to design, code, and test interactive media using standard and custom-designed classes.
• UXD 360: User Experience Research Method: This course provides an overview of user research and usability evaluation methods, and explores how to apply these methods in professional practice.
• UXD 381: Quantitative Design Research Methods: This course introduces students to quantitative design methods used to understand users, and explores how to select the most appropriate methods to collect and analyze quantitative data about users.
• UXD 382: Qualitative Design Research Methods: This course introduces students to qualitative design methods used to understand users and the context of technology use, and explores how to select the most appropriate methods to collect and analyze qualitative data about users.
• UXD 390: Topics in Interactive and Social Media: This course explores specific topics in interactive and social media, which may vary with each quarter.
• UXD 394: User Experience Design Projects: This course engages students in design scenarios in connection with an organization, initiative, or creative project, and applies research methods, generates ideas, develops and tests prototypes, and implements solutions from a human-centered design approach.
• UXD 395: User Experience Design Projects 2: This course continues the design project work from UXD 394, and provides students with the opportunity to integrate their major area of design study with concepts introduced in their general education program.
• UXD 399: Independent Study: This course provides an opportunity for independent study supervised by an instructor, and can be repeated for credit.

Program Requirements

The User Experience Design program requires students to complete a range of courses, including foundational courses in design principles, human-computer interaction, and design research, as well as advanced courses in prototyping, data visualization, and AI approaches. Students must also complete a capstone project that applies user experience design principles to a real-world problem or scenario.

Career Opportunities

Graduates of the User Experience Design program can pursue a range of career opportunities, including:

• User experience designer
• Interaction designer
• Information architect
• Human-computer interaction specialist
• Design researcher
• Product designer
• Service designer
• Experience designer

These careers can be found in a variety of industries, including technology, healthcare, finance, and education, and can involve working on a range of projects, from designing websites and mobile apps to developing interactive installations and exhibitions.