Integrate creative user experience research and design techniques to boost your career in UX by solving real-world problems and collaborating with innovative researchers and practitioners. In partnership with Coursera, we are offering a MasterTrack™ Certificate in UX Design.
User experience is a highly in demand field which requires a holistic understanding of the design process. In this program, you will complete a real module from the University of Minnesota's Human Factors and Ergonomics Graduate program. Through these courses, you'll gain both artful and scientific skills of conducting, implementing, and evaluating user experience design and research. that will provide you with both artful and scientific skills of conducting, implementing, and evaluating user experience design and research.
What you will learn:
- Integrate creative research into user experience design
- Gain a deep understanding of the holistic design process
- Identify and apply design theories to your project
- How to conduct and evaluate qualitative research in UX/UI
- Apply concepts of visual literacy into practice, designs, plans, or proposals
- Learn how to conduct and evaluate qualitative research in user experience and experience design, including required toolkits, methods, ethics, and principles
Minimum requirements
Applicants should have a record of undergraduate education or professional experience related to UX design.
Costs
This program costs a total of $3,000. Please note that all tuition and fee rates are subject to change without notice.
You will gain interactive learning experiences in this program with our four courses that include pre-recorded videos, live sessions, real-world projects, peer collaboration, and more.
Visual Literacy
Instructor: Brad Hokanson, PhD
Literacy itself implies an ordered set of information; verbal literacy is linear, generally one-dimensional, reading a sequence of symbolic information, and is like spoken speech. Visual literacy recognizes two or more dimensions and utilizes a more complex range of symbols and semiotic meanings.
This course includes critical viewing, interpretation, and hands-on design activities as methods for learning. You will examine elements of communication theory, psychology theory in perception, design theory, use of new technologies, interface design, and the social and cultural implications in media use, creation, and distribution.
By applying the components of visual literacy you will be able to develop and recognize the meaning of images, empowering you to critically view, use, and produce effective visual content in your own field of interest.
User Research for User Experience Design
Instructor: Debra Lawton, MFA
This course emphasizes the understanding of designing for the user to foster improved product and delivery through heuristics evaluations, experience mapping through observation, surveys, analysis, and cognitive processes. Topics addressed include an overview of design thinking, UX, philosophy of qualitative research, methods and principles behind qualitative data, effective interviews, validation, and ethics. You will master these concepts through course readings and hands-on exercises, as well as through the development of a final project proposal that will be built and tested in course two.
User Testing for User Experience Design
Instructor: Debra Lawton, MFA
Creating a great user experience involves a holistic approach and is rarely a linear process. This project-based course builds on a proposal that you will develop in User Research for User Experience Design. Through this hands-on project, you will gain an overview of qualitative research to progress product development and develop your design thinking skills. Topics addressed include design thinking methods, as well as UX/UI design methods and principles (interactive prototyping, testing, analysis, etc.). You will learn key skills and principles to guide your project through class readings, interactive exercises, and facilitated discussions.
Ethics and Research
Instructor: Frances Trice, PhD
In this course, you will explore the breadth of ethical concerns and questions that you will encounter in the process of conducting and disseminating research. Topics addressed include ethics in a research setting, use of human subjects, data handling, plagiarism, authorship, publishing, research funding, social responsibility of researchers, collaboration, and professional codes of conduct.
Once you have completed your MasterTrack coursework, you may apply to our Master of Science in Human Factors and Ergonomics or the Graphic Design track of the Design Graduate Program.
Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) is the study of how to make technological systems safe, effective, easy, and enjoyable to use. This graduate program offers interdisciplinary coursework that addresses human performance and how it can be enhanced through design of tools, systems, working environments, processes, and organizations.
Watch this video to learn more about Human Factors and Ergonomics
As a graduate student pursuing the Graphic Design track, you will focus on design theory, process, and methods related to design practice and research. The program integrates theory with practice in the application of emergent and established technologies to digital design solutions.
Learn more about the Design Graduate Program: Graphic Design Track
