In the User Experience and Interaction Design major, students have the opportunity to invent creative, participant-centered design solutions that prepare them for careers within the dynamic and expanding fields of interactive design and development. The User Experience and Interaction Design degree is ideal for both the creative artist who possesses digital/computer-based skills and the back-end developer/coder/programmer with an aesthetic eye, strong work ethic and an impulse to innovate.

The major emphasizes the principles of user interface and experience design anchored by a strong dose of back-end technical skill development. By synthesizing their digital design skills, creativity, and knowledge of user-centered interaction theory, students create versatile projects that reach a wide variety of clients and audiences.

In their senior year, students participate in a dynamic capstone team class where they perform a specialized role within an interactive production team. Upon successful completion of the program, students are expected to compile a professional web-based portfolio featuring a body of work that seeks to exhibit a mastery of navigational interfaces, user-centered design practices and visual identity design.

As a result of successfully completing program requirements, students should be able to:

• demonstrate the ability to apply interactive culture core concepts to create and critique media works;
• identify and evaluate major historical and contemporary theories, works and ideas on social, interactive and mobile media;
• incorporate empathy and emotion to develop participant-centered work within the context of interaction design;
• demonstrate facility with interaction design patterns and methodologies as they relate to interactive art and media disciplines;
• develop interactive work using a variety of computational tools, technologies and processes to express ideas and solve design problems;
• exhibit proficiency applying the principles of user-centered theory and workflow to create interactive applications and digital media;
• synthesize technology ideas and aesthetics to build and refine a professional portfolio;
• use professional writing practices to articulate ideas appropriate to a target audience;
• make strategic use of digital media to deliver well-organized and professional oral and written presentations before groups;
• analyze and critique their own work in the context of the goal of the piece, its perception and the intended audience;
• use appropriate interaction design vocabulary to promote and advocate for their work;
• exhibit the professional behaviors, skills and work habits necessary to succeed in the global marketplace within their chosen field, including time-management and meta-cognition (learning to learn);
• demonstrate the social and emotional competencies necessary to perform and communicate responsibly in collaborative teams and group settings; and
• recognize the functions, methods, vocabulary and roles that are unique to the programmer, the designer and the artist within the iterative and collaborative design process.