I’m grateful to be on the summer teaching team for General Assembly’s User Experience Design Immersive, a 10-week course for burgeoning researchers and designers. It’s been thrilling to work alongside adult learners in a highly hands-on, project-based environment.
(I’m still collaborating on badges and app-making projects at Mozilla and am thankful that I’ve been able to work on my professional research projects and teaching simultaneously. Philz Coffee and a supportive partner help too.)
This summer’s students come from backgrounds as diverse as biology, accounting, and animation and are split between “Tobasco” and “Sriracha” cohorts in two loft spaces. I’m excited that they’re learning from smart designer guest speakers from the likes of DIY.org, Cooper, and Adaptive Path. And I’m overwhelmingly reminded of the importance of creating fun cultural rituals and surrounding ourselves with bright makers from outside our classrooms as frequently as we can.
Our second design project is focused on designing user experiences for a certain sparkle and Americana-inspired local apparel company. The work is highly human-centric with emphases on understanding users, usability testing, and iteration. More to follow as the course progresses.
