You'll learn how to design for all kinds of different people and see the world through their eyes.
In my classes, you'll also experience research-based pedagogical support. You'll get lots of practice on your writing and receive feedback from me. You can see an example of how I might give you feedback by watching this video.
In UX classes, you'll make a variety of documents, typically with concrete scenarios, established genres, and diverse people in mind. The links below show examples of documents students created for a local library software company that they conducted UX research for:
ð Reportð Scenariosð Persona 1ð Persona 2ð Journey Map
I strive to design activities where students have opportunities to empathize with diverse people and design in inclusive ways. For example, I ask students to use accessibility for users with visual impairments as a lens for understanding inclusive design.
Students redesign Lego instructional manuals for an audience of children and other builders with visual impairments. They explore a variety of potential solutions, including audio instructions, visual design, and tactile bricks. This activity helps students understand how people who are deemed "edge cases" are often written off and not designed for, creating designs that exclude rather than include.
Students engage in empathy activities to better understand the experience of users with visual impairments. To begin, they try on glasses that simulate visual impairments like myopia and retinopathy and attempt to use their usual apps on their phone or computer. This experience helps students understand the true depth to which users with visual impairments may experience difficulty while using technology.
Recently, students in my User-Centered Design class worked with a local library software company. They conducted UX research (interviews and site observations) to better understand users' experiences with library acquisitions software. They created scenarios, personas, and journey maps based on their research for the client.
I use evidence-based principles to approach teaching gateway courses like first-year writing in Composition. For example, I use genre theory to break down new and unfamiliar writing tasks for students.
One aspect of genre theory that can help students find gateways into new and unfamiliar writing tasks is genre analysis. I use Sonja Foss's system of genre analysis to help students "chunk" or break down new and unfamiliar genres to make them more manageable. These kinds of activities also help make invisible parts of the writing process and the expectations of writing in academic spaces more visible to students who occupy marginalized positions.
Usability Studies
User-Centered Design
Digital Rhetoric
Technical Writing
Digital Writing and Rhetoric
Business Writing
First-Year Composition