Experience Architecture

Developing an Interdisciplinary UX Undergraduate Degree

Abstract

This program showcase discusses the creation of an undergraduate user experience program housed in the Arts and Humanities and shared between two programs: the Department of Art, Art History and Design and the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures in the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University. The design of the program was grounded in three guiding questions: 1) How do we develop a UX degree that is rooted in Humanities at an R1 land-grant university? 2) How do we develop a curriculum that is interdisciplinary and upholds the values of the Humanities? 3) How can we remain agile and create space for curriculum revision that invites iteration in a way that does not chase industry, but produces graduates who can lead industry towards changes fostered by the work in the Humanities? In reflecting on these questions, the Experience Architecture (XA) Program was developed and deployed in the fall of 2013 and was revised in fall of 2020 to better situate the field under the umbrella of XA to filter conversations about human design thinking in and around a humanities centered approach to problem solving. We are humans building and designing systems for other humans, not ones and zeros building for other ones and zeros - our efforts should be grounded in the ethics, morals, and values of what it means to build, design, and care for humanities based systems, be they digital or physical.