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What is: User experience design?

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Still from ‘Fear Immersion’, Antoine Hacheme, Antione Hacheme. Fear Immersion. BA (Hons) User Experience Design. 2018. London College of Communication. UAL.
| Photograph: Antoine Hacheme
Written by
Oliver Smith Published date
25 September 2018

Interested in how designers, users and corporations make, shape and control digital objects or platforms? Oliver introduces you to the field of user experience design.

User experience design covers a wide range of digital practices, including user experience (UX), user interface (UI) design and information visualisation. This doesn’t mean that everything stays on screen though — there’s plenty of opportunities for digital tools and technologies to be integrated with the world around us.

Digital platforms such as social media, apps and websites play a large role in our day-to-day life. Studying this subject area will equip you with an understanding of how these platforms are designed and developed.

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Throughout the course you will be introduced to the technical and design skills necessary to work with digital materials, designing with rules or systems rather than creating singular images or artefacts (objects). You will also be asked to think about the implications of digital media, both personal — such as addiction to social media — and in wider society, such as the spread of fake news.

Below are some examples of student projects embracing and exploring visual mistakes, experimenting with virtual reality, visualising the spread of misinformation online, building tools for dancers and choreographers to communicate and considering the way technology is discussed and presented.

Michelle Chong Jia Hui

a photo of a computer in a print studio, with an application called 'natural misprint' on the screen
‘Natural Misprint’, Michelle Chong Jia Hui, ‘Natural Misprint’, Michelle Chong Jia Hui
| Photograph: Michelle Chongjiahu
Michelle’s project is about learning to embrace imperfections. It’s inspired by the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi that suggests that accidental blemishes are attractive too. Beginning with extensive hands-on research into the experience of physical printing processes, Michelle developed an installation that allows users to use custom physical tools to create unique digital prints.

Antoine Hacheme

a 3d render of a dark, moon-lit woodland area
Still from ‘Fear Immersion’, Antoine Hacheme, Still from ‘Fear Immersion’, Antoine Hacheme
| Photograph: Antoine Hacheme
A virtual reality (VR) experience about the fear of being watched, Antoine’s work mixes VR with real world elements such as physical objects and wind, carefully synchronised with the virtual happenings, to immerse the viewer in his narrative. The project developed from extensive technical experimentation and a thoughtful, personal research process.

See more of Antoine’s work on his website
Meet Antoine via his LCC Student Voices video

Shengwen Lin

an image of a camouflage fighter jet with the text 'the journey of a fake jet' above
‘Journey of a Fake Jet’, Shengwen Lin, ‘Journey of a Fake Jet’, Shengwen Lin
| Photograph: Shengwen Lin
Tasked with visualising online hate speech in South Sudan, exchange student Shengwen chose to track a single image of a jet that had clearly been edited. He designed and built a scrollable timeline to allow the user to view the image’s distribution. In doing so, he produced a tool that told the story of an image and presented some of the complexities and ambiguities that come with digital media.

Fabio Amelia

an image of people standing in a photography studio
‘DanceScore’, Fabio Amelia, ‘DanceScore’, Fabio Amelia
| Photograph: Fabio Amelia
Fabio’s project is a system to aid professional dancers and choreographers in creating representations of their dance. ‘DanceScore’ captures the dancer’s movements and generates a printed sheet that combines a music score and a dance score. Working closely with a dancer to regularly test and improve the system, Fabio designed and developed the project using the Microsoft Kinect and processing programming language.

See more of Fabio’s work on his website

David Carvalho

a 3d rendered logo displaying two hands reaching out and touching eachother
David Carvalho. The Order of the Dataist. BA (Hons) User Experience Design. London College of Communication. UAL.
David’s project speculates on the cult-like nature of discussions around contemporary technology. ‘The Order of the Dataist’ draws a link between narcissistic cult leaders and opaque, often biased, artificial intelligence. Designing the artefacts of a fictional cult — including an altar, flag, and a series of sacred 3D-printed relics — the project draws attention to issues around data privacy, social networks and the possible impacts of unregulated technological control.

Looking for more inspiration?

Go deeper into the world of user experience design with Oliver’s Pinterest board

Interested in designing digital tools and imagining new uses for technologies?

BA (Hons) User Experience Design

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