Degree Requirements

Human Centered Design is a design discipline that keeps people at the center of design for products and technology. Human Centered Design focuses on understanding the needs, motivations, and problems people experience in interacting with technology, and to serve the needs of others with creativity and insight in innovation. Through focused study of design principles and creative skills, together with interdisciplinary study in psychology, communication, and computer science, students will learn to envision, design, and lead in the creation processes for technology products such as software, web and mobile applications, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and intelligent systems, services, devices, and more. The goal of this program will be to prepare students for careers where they will design, implement, evaluate, and test interfaces which are (by design) effective, intuitive and compelling.

Graduates with a degree in Human Centered Design will be able to:

1. Create solutions to complex design problems using “design thinking” methods.
2.  Collaborate on team projects to generate designed work
3. Discover user needs to inform design requirements.
4. Produce prototypes of appropriate fidelity using design tools
5. Analyze and evaluate designs for ease of use.
6. Articulate how faith informs  work in the field of Design.

Specific employment opportunities for graduates with this degree include:

• Product Designer – oversees the product design process for products from end-to-end
• User Experience/Interface Designer – designs user interfaces and experiences
• Usability/Human Factors Engineer – performs usability testing, determining if interfaces are intuitive and functionally correct
• Web Developer – designs and develops web pages
• UX Localization Engineer – modifies interfaces to serve multiple audiences that span geographies, language, or cultures
• Program Manager – manages the development and release of computer or mobile applications
• Product Researcher – conducts customer and market research to discover opportunities, evaluate interfaces, and ensure product-market fit
• Product Manager – plans and manages business, audience, and technology requirements for product-market fit