Speaker: Vanessa Burgar
Topic: Education in User Experience Design:
Challenges and Opportunities in School, University and Informal Learning
Date: Wednesday 21st October 2020
Time: 18:00 start
Location: N/A – webinar
Vanessa has kindly supplied her slides, with her notes, which may be found here
This is an open meeting, all welcome, to register please go to the Eventbrite event
Synopsis:
User experience (UX) design is a fascinating area of study and has become established as a highly valued, sustainable professional role for the 21st Century. As well as helping to drive successful design and innovation, it has produced a range of broader societal and economic benefits, in line with the emergence of ‘UX culture.’ Furthermore, learners develop highly transferable skills, including the celebrated ‘design thinking’ patterns and meta-cognition.
However, learners currently have limited opportunities to gain a sufficiently comprehensive, high-quality education in UX. Although there is increasing enthusiasm on the part of educators, and demand from learners, there is a lack of direction, strategic vision and academic grounding.
Vanessa will discuss strategies to improve educational provision, recognition and understanding of the field, as well as teaching and learning methods appropriate to UX.
This interactive lecture presents a uniquely inter-disciplinary and industry-informed perspective on the topic. It draws on Vanessa’s experience in curriculum design, her MSc thesis “HCI and UX Design Education” and her professional experience in UX design and research.
Vanessa qualified as a teacher in 2010, and worked as a school Head of Computing before completing her MSc in User Experience Design in 2017. She currently works as a UX Researcher and is a Chartered IT Professional.
She has delivered UX-themed workshops in schools, provided mentoring for individuals looking to develop skills in this area, and aims to raise awareness of UX education at events for UX professionals.