The pedagogy of user experience design

Despite User Experience Design (UXD) being a well-established discipline and the expansion of UXD degrees in recent years, research supporting UXD education remains an emerging field. An ongoing issue, identified by researchers and practitioners, is the gap between graduate skills and UXD industry needs. Furthermore, existing HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) and UXD academic research, designed to inform education, has been criticised for being disconnected from everyday UXD practices. To investigate the alignment between academia and industry, this thesis analysed competencies specified by 34 UXD and UXD related degrees and 50 entry-level UXD job adverts. The findings identified complex and divergent views of UXD and called into question the extent to which academia should serve industry needs. To gain a richer understanding of UXD practice 10 semi-structured interviews were conducted with UXD professionals. UXD practice was shown to be an adaptive process, dependent on the designers’ experience, organisational context, and problem at hand – rather than a rollout of predetermined competencies. Focussing on learners entering the field, UXD practitioners valued personal attributes and capabilities above content knowledge.

Building on these findings and existing UXD educational research, a UXD Pedagogy Toolkit was developed to provide practical support for educators and enable collaborations between academia and industry. The toolkit outlined a proposal for teaching beyond content knowledge and developing lifelong competence, by prioritising learner’s professional identity development. The toolkit contained a set of principles for UXD education; a UXD competence map; and a card-based system of UXD learning activities. The toolkit was reviewed by a panel of 10 industry and academic experts using semi-structured interviews leading to a final updated version.

The thesis establishes that UXD degrees could better reflect current industry needs but this requirement should not replace critical, ethical, theoretical, and political concerns. This balanced approach to UXD pedagogy should ensure graduates are capable of, not only serving the discipline, but also shaping its future. A further contribution was made through research into UXD work on the ground, leading to a richer understanding of UXD practices. Finally, the development of a toolkit, builds on existing UXD and HCI educational research, by providing practical pedagogical support for educators developing next generation UXD academic courses.