Thesis: Where’s the Design in Design Research?
Advisers: Michael Gibson and Keith Owens

with Living Values research team, Dr. Jennifer Heston and Dr. Catherine Sherron

Invited by Assistant Professor Christine Lhowe

Panelist. Online panel discussion for design educators
Event available on YouTube

Art Talk presenter at Chehalem Cultural Center

Invited by Assistant Professor Misty Thomas-Trout

King Library, Miami University

Plenary Speaker

with Jennifer Heston (Miami University), Cate Sherron (Thomas More University), Kim Ogle (Miami University)

with Rebeca Carranza, Holly Cole, John Hicks, Jeff Joiner, Michelle Keefer, Tim Woodring, XuHao Yang

with John Hicks, Michelle Keefer and XuHao Yang 

supporting Professors Michael Gibson and Keith Owens

supporting Professors Michael Gibson and Keith Owens

with University of North Texas Anthropology Masters’ Candidates and Dr. Lisa Henry

with University of North Texas Anthropology Masters’ Candidates and Dr. Susan Squires

Water Conservation Can Be Fashionable: An Attitudinal Approach to Reducing Water Overuse in the United States

The Great Map of Christmas Songs for Chatter Magazine

Innovate Magazine, Fall/Winter 2007, HKS Architects

Mexico 5 Invitation, HKS Architects

Study of primary and secondary research methods including interviews, observations, and focus groups. Research ethics, data analysis, and evidence-based design are covered.

Explores ways aspects of environment and things out of a designer’s control can affect peoples’ experiences when they use products, services, and systems. Outcomes integrate media and include products, services, and systems. Includes four travel days to different U.S. locations for on-site learning.

Develops writing skills for academic publishing, grant writing, UX writing, virtual assistants, and popular media outlets.

Explores ways aspects of a person’s relationships and attitudes affect their experience when using products, services, and systems. Outcomes integrate media and include products, services, and systems. Includes four travel days to different U.S. locations for on-site learning.

Explores ways aspects of a person’s mental and physical makeup affect their experience when using products, services, and systems. Outcomes integrate media and include products, services, and systems. Includes four travel days to different U.S. locations for on-site learning.

Explores ways aspects products, services, and systems—the ways they are designed—affect peoples’ expereince when using design. Outcomes integrate media and include products, services, and systems. Includes four travel days to different U.S. locations for on-site learning.

Approaches goal formulation and problem definition for experience-centered design with usability and access as primary drivers. Projects develop sensitivity to different needs, cultural and lifestyle diversity, socioeconomic status, literacy, globalization, sustainability, and other aspects of design when it impacts people of diverse needs. Particularly focuses on developing innovative interventions that enable access for marginalized people groups who have not been equitably served by design.

Cohort-based course that covers development of research topics, research design, human subjects research review (IRB), intervention design, testing, and dissemination. Students develop their own year-long projects and take this course at least twice.

Develops skills for visualizing and communicating complex information to initiated and uninitiated audiences. Message framing, publication design, diagramming, and presentation skills are addressed.

Students secure and complete an internship. Employers complete two evaluations of student performance and the coordinator evaluates this feedback to determine if students earn credit.

Explores design impacts at personal and societal levels through study of systems design, social networks, and object oriented ontology.

Online study introduces designing for multi-sensory experiences through a study of theme park design. Includes one week at the Walt Disney World Resort where students document products, services, and systems to learn design’s potential for facilitating usability, accessibility, and delight.

A survey of design that emphasizes the interplay between designed outcomes and society.

Course topics change based on instructor’s research agenda. Reading and project work for this course emphasized the role of empathy in design.

Explores design’s impact on experiences through a design studies lens. Topics include phenomenology, epistemology, rhetoric, as well as behavioral, communication, and
systems theories.

Introduction to primary and secondary research methods including interviews, observations, and focus groups. Research ethics, data analysis, and evidence-based design.

Explores how design decisions impact access for people of diverse abilities and cultures. Applies people-driven design approaches for problem definition, outcome development, and design outcome production. Special attention paid to usability, access, and how design can delight audiences while meeting their unique needs. Involves collaborative and individual project work to simulate human-centered approaches within professional design practice.

Students secure and complete an internship. Employers complete two evaluations of student performance and the coordinator evaluates this feedback to determine if students earn credit.

Introduces advanced human-centered design processes that emphasize usability. Covers UX wireframing, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP for WordPress template development.

Students develop their own semester-long projects. Covers development of topics,
research design, human subjects research review (IRB), intervention design, testing,
and dissemination.

An introduction to usability in screen-based design. Emphasizes fluency in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the production of responsive apps and websites.

A semester-long, group project that requires design and marketing students to research and design outcomes for a real client. Co-taught with marketing faculty.

Covers physical and digital techniques for producing images that communicate compelling concepts. Includes intense Adobe Photoshop training, visual concept exercises, and basic publication design.

Jerry Belich, Experience Design Graduate Student

Jerry Belich, Experience Design
Graduate Student

Jerry Belich, Experience Design Graduate Student

Ringo Jones, Experience Design Graduate Student

Jerry Belich, Experience Design Graduate Student

Mentored two MFA Experience Design Students on the team

Approved by the Ohio Chancellor’s Council on Graduate Studies (CCGS) and the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE). This program is the only distance-learning M.F.A in Experience Design in the world.

Secured accreditation from the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.

Renamed the B.F.A. in Graphic Design to Communication Design, restructured all
courses in the major and the minor in Communication Design to improve learning and increase efficiency.