User experience (UX) designers study humans and their surroundings, and design products and services that provide meaningful and enjoyable experiences
UX Design Major
A major in the Computer Graphics Technology Program
in the Department of Computer Graphics Technology
If you are looking for our graduate degree offerings, check out the MS concentration in UX Design
What is UX design?
User Experience (UX) design is an approach to creating products, systems, and services that are effective and enjoyable to use. By placing the user at the center of the design process, we ensure that technologies are easy to learn and use, are fun and enjoyable, and help users to achieve their goals.
What kinds of experiences can you create as a UX designer?
Websites, mobile apps, desktop applications, kiosks, vehicle dashboards, smartwatches, educational tools, productivity applications, visual interfaces, and more.
What exactly will I get to do as a UX designer?
There are several common processes that you will use to design experiences in a human-centered way, ensuring that solutions are not only technically functional, but also meet the needs and desires of users:
- User Research—get to know users and their needs by conducting observations and interviews
- Problem Framing—use insights from user research to ensure the right problem is addressed, and identify ways we can frame the problem in innovative ways
- Prototyping—brainstorm, sketch, and create low and high fidelity physical and digital prototypes
- Evaluation—conduct usability tests and other types of evaluations to understand how users think about technological solutions, and to identify and correct any issues that prevent users from having great experiences
What kind of jobs do people with these skills get?
Job titles include: UX designer, UX researcher, product designer, interaction designer, user experience architect, information designer, user interface designer, UX developer, and user researcher.
Are these skills in demand on the job market?
UX skills are in high demand, ranking in several lists of top high-paying careers. Starting salaries in UX design are about $69,000, according to a report by the Nielsen Norman Group, and average salaries are about $83,000 according to glassdoor.com. Try searching job sites for some of the titles listed above to see for yourself what the current job-market demand is like.
What is the student experience like in the UX design major?
Most courses are taught in studio environments, where students are actively engaged in working on projects and learning concepts and skills that have tangible application. The UX major is structured around two types of studios: Learning Studios and Experience Studios. In Learning Studios, students learn—hands-on—how to conduct user research, frame problems, and create and evaluate prototypes. In Experience Studios, students apply the skills they learned in the Learning Studios to work on projects for industry clients. By the time they graduate, UX students will have 3.5 years of experience working on real client projects.
Great! Where can I learn more about Purdue's UX degree?
Follow Purdue_UX on Twitter or Purdue_UX on Twitter or Instagram, connect with the CGT department on Facebook. Feel free to contact us anytime!
