User Experience Design (BA/BS)

User experience (UX) design focuses on producers’ and end users’ interaction with virtual or physical systems. People in the field use the art and science of design to ensure systems meet users’ needs and goals, including the importance of physical and emotional reactions in the process.

Preparing You For Success

UX encompasses research, analysis, graphic design with insights from psychology, business and new media. As a user experience design major, you learn how to develop user-and-human-centered designs. These professional approaches require empathy, collaboration, curiosity and iteration to move system designs through the development process with current methods. Courses also introduce you to psychology, behavior performance and physical and cognitive abilities that are especially relevant to design research and thinking. Along the way, you’re mentored by faculty with industry experiences completing client projects.

By the time you graduate, your experiences may include:

• An internship at an organization like NASA, Country Companies, Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft or OSF Health Care
• Designing for innovative products such as wearables, AR/VR, mobile, websites and physical interactives
• Research projects in traditional and nontraditional human-computer interaction design
• Studio practice in visual design, interaction design and user interfaces

Making Your Mark

UX design professionals are in high demand for their technical and creative skills. Using industry best practices, they create products that promote and inspire human activity. They’re valuable as visual graphic designers, user researchers, usability analysts, information architects, interaction designers and other related careers.

BA/BS Major Requirements

Required Courses - 50 hrs.

• IM 150 Fundamentals of Interactive Design - 3 hrs
• IM 161 Intro to Web Design- 3 hrs.
• IM 226 Interactive Media Practicum I - 4 hrs.
• IM 355 Interactive Media, Theory, and Practices - 3 hrs.
• IM 426 Interactive Media Practicum II - 4 hrs.
• IM 450 IM Critical Issues in Interactive Media - 3 hrs.
• IM 260 User Experience Design - 3 hrs.
• IM 360 Advanced Interction Design - 3 hrs.
• IM 261 User Research & Usability - 3 hrs.
• IM 363 Topics in User Experience (use to be concepts and a 200 level) - 3 hrs.
• IM 361 Advanced User Experience Design - 3 hrs.
• IM 366 Advanced Web Design - 3 hrs.
• IM 460 User Experience Design Capstone 1 - 3 hrs.
• IM 461 User Experience Design Capstone 2 - 6 hrs
• PSY 101 Principles of Psychology - 3 hrs.