The mission of the Experience Design MFA is to enable learners to gain the design thinking, knowledge, and skills required for developing high fidelity, people-driven outcomes at personal and systemic levels. Coursework synthesizes theory and methods from design research, service, user experience, and communication design, encompassing digital and physical technologies. Learners grow these competencies through exercises, projects, and learning experiences designed to develop practical, analytical, creative, emotional, and social intelligences. Graduates are prepared to enter a wide range of design practices as designers and educators who are equipped to lead and develop culturally relevant design innovations in complex contexts.

The MFA in Experience Design is a studio-based program, where most learning is facilitated through iterative processes involving repeated critique and feedback. The nature of Experience Design as a practice that synthesizes research and making means that activities for learning are widely varied. For example, activities can include:

• Sketching to "reality-test" ideas that have not been visually articulated.
• Sketching for testing the operation of a design.
• Sketching to communicate ideas and proposed designs to others.
• Comping to communicate the form, makeup, and operation of design prototypes.
• Concept mapping to visualize relationships between concepts to inform writing.
• Systemic mapping to visualize real and perceived components of complex systems.
• Wireframing and storyboarding to prototype interfaces, interactions, and services.
• Creating probes and activities for engaging stakeholders in design processes.
• Experience mapping to visualize ways people interact with design.
• Photographing and recording observed instances of design in context.
• Designing face-to-face and recorded presentations whose visuals effectively support spoken and textual content.
• Observations, interviews, and focus group facilitation that lead to the production of an ethnographic report.
• Design and writing of reports that communicate design proposals and the research evidence that informs them.
• Using prototyping tools like InVision, Sketch, Adobe XD, Axure RP, or Marvel to enable product testing.
• Building physical prototypes at a rudimentary level for rapid product testing.
• Designing and facilitating charrette sessions to involve community members in the design process.

Courses in the xdMFA

Learners in the xdMFA are required to successfully complete four different types of coursework in order to earn the MFA degree. These four types include:

• Core Experience Design Studio Courses
• Methods Courses
• Theory Courses
• Specialization Courses
• Thesis

More information about activities in the studio classes for the degree is available on each course type page.