The State of UX Design Education Part 1: Undergraduate Degree Programs

Originally published at UXmatters May 3, 2021

Twenty-twenty was a big year for many of us, although not for the best reasons. It was the year of COVID-19, the WHO Year of the Nurse, the year of working, teaching, and schooling from home, and it may become known as the Year of UX—when user experience graduated from trendy to essential. User experience design ranked number five on the list of global Top 10 Hard Skills, according to LinkedIn Learning’s survey of The Skills Companies Need Most in 2020. User experience dominated four of the top seven job titles in Onward Search’s world of creative, marketing, and technology careers. The 2020 Salary Guide placed product designers and UX designers in first and second place, respectively, with UI designer and user researcher in fourth and seventh places. Organizations that provide courses and support for aspiring UX practitioners like UX Design Institute and Career Foundry jumped on this news claiming, “There’s never been a better time to pursue a career in UX” and “Are UI Designers In Demand? Here’s The Current Industry Outlook.” (Spoiler alert: the answer was yes.) Even Google announced “UX To Become A Google Ranking Factor.” With demand for UX practitioners outstripping supply, now seems like a good time to assess the state of user experience design education. We’ll start by looking at undergraduate degree options and examine the pros and cons of liberal arts programs vs art colleges.

Understanding the state of UX education requires that we share a common definition of the discipline. We must look beyond articles from Smashing Magazine that define user experience by rolls filled, tasks addressed, and deliverables completed or from UX Collective which define user experience design only in contrast to user interface design. We must look further back than the Interaction Design Foundation definition: “A UX designer is concerned with the entire process of acquiring and integrating a product…that begins before the device is even in the user’s hands.” This definition presupposes a device-based solution and overlooks emerging sub-specialties like voice-interface design and anything service-design related. If we get in the way-back machine and revisit Dan Saffer’s 2008 Venn diagram of The Disciplines of User Experience Design(updated by Thomas Gläser) we see that user experience appears at the center of all things. Saffer’s picture captures the essence of Don Norman’s original definition: encompassing “all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” (Although the Nielsen Normal Group acknowledges recent “vocabulary inflation.” The term customer experience (CX) has become a practice of its own that better meets Norman’s original definition while user experience more often references screen-based interactions.)

Regardless of where we land on the UX vs CX debate, we’re still left with the question: how do you train for something pictured as the uber-discipline of all things human and experiential in an experience-driven world?

Do I Even Need a Degree?

Let’s first address the question of whether or not UX practitioners need a college degree. If you search Google for an answer to this question, you will find plenty of blog posts claiming you don’t need a degree to jumpstart a career in user experience. Some of these posts are trying to sell you a professional certificate or bootcamp course in UX. Other posts speak from the perspective of mid-career practitioners with graduate degrees in related areas that learned on the job before the emergence of related undergraduate programs. I suspect this position—that you don’t need formal academic training in user experience—became moot after the explosion of user experience-related undergraduate and graduates programs in the last fifteen years.

For those of you embarking on your careers without a degree, progressive organizations like Ovia Health, based in Boston, MA, may waive degree requirements now and in the future for all entry-level jobs. In these cases, a self-starting attitude, a portfolio of projects for friends and family, and a demonstration of LinkedIn’s in-demand soft skills—creativity, persuasion, collaboration, adaptability, and emotional intelligence—may be enough to land a great first job.

But many organizations want candidates with some academic experience. Based on my informal research, there is no uniformity in degree requirements among “User Experience Designer” or “User Experience Researcher” job descriptions on LinkedIn. Some companies say no degree required. Some say BA required. Some say MA required. Some say post-graduate experience required. The UI/UX positions that ask for degrees range from specific majors like computer science and human-computer interaction to vague requirements like “a field related to user experience design.” All of them require “previous experience” with a minimum at two-years of prior work. It seems safe to say that most companies expect their UX employees to have an undergraduate degree in something or some years of experience. If the requirement for an entry-level UX position is some experience and/or a degree and you’re planning to go to college, read on to learn about your options.

Having said that, if you are already three–six         years into a career—any career—I would not recommend starting a new undergraduate degree program. We’ll look at graduate and certificate programs next month in Part 2 of this series. If school is not your jam, we’ll discuss other career training options in Part 2 as well.

The Good News: A Wealth of Options

Thanks to the lack of a standards in degree requirements and because user experience is such a broad field, you can turn nearly anything into a related major. Anything from design to English, communications, journalism, digital media, mathematics, computer science, anthropology, or cognitive psychology counts. You should play to your strengths and study within your areas of interest. Just know that you may be self-selecting a particular job or organization—at least early in your career. For instance, an employer may expect a recent graduate from an English or communications program to work on content rather than user-interface design. It would be reasonable for an employer to expect an anthropology major to be a better junior UX researcher than a computer science major. The same employer might expect a computer science major to be a better UI developer than a communications major. This doesn’t mean your boss will stick you in the same job forever. These are starting points from which to build your on-the-job skills. The great news is that you have many options to translate an academic experience in the arts, humanities, sciences, and engineering into a career in user experience research or design.

Even better news: you can now major or minor in user experience at community colleges, state schools, and private universities all over the country—if you can handle the lack of consistent labeling. Many schools are not using the words “user experience” in their program names. You can minor in Human-Computer Interaction at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. University of Michigan offers a Bachelor of Science in Information with a UX design “path.” The University of Washington offers a Bachelor of Science in Human Centered Design and Engineering. Students at DePaul University in Chicago get a Bachelor of Science in User Experience Design. We have a nomenclature problem. But don’t let the wording fool you. These are user experience programs.

We also have a categorization problem. Depending on the school, these programs live in the college of art and design, the college of arts and sciences, or in the school of communication, the school of computing, or the school of engineering. Although this is frustrating from a user-experience perspective, it conveys meaning. A program based in a school of art and design focuses on the screen-based design aspects of UX while a program based in a school of information focuses on how user experience fits into software and information systems.

As a result, a side-by-side program comparison may feel more like chalk and cheese than apples and oranges, but it is interesting to note the wide variety of formal schooling available. If your interest lies in the computing aspects of UX, then look for a program that includes software development, computer science, and/or development methodologies. If you’re interested in user interface design, then focus your search on design programs. If you’re interested in UX research, you should gravitate toward a program based in the humanities and sciences or a human-factors program. Again, you can take your pick of programs and emphasize your own strengths, gaining academic experience within your area of interest.

More Good News: You Don’t Have to Rob a Bank

There is zero need to attend an elite college or private university. There are many state schools and community colleges offering user experience-related programs across the country. North Caroline State University is the number 20 school for Best Design Colleges in America according to Niche. This list also includes the University of Florida, Virginia Tech, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (often mistaken for a private school, MassArt is a state college). State schools offer all the advantages of a traditional learning experience without the hefty price tag.

If state school is out of reach, you can take advantage of jobs with vague degree requirements and get an associate degree. In my own back yard, Bunker Hill Community College has a visual and media arts department that offers a degree in integrated media, including courses like interaction design, social media strategy, and quantitative problem solving. On the other coast, City College of San Francisco offers a degree in graphic design with a curriculum that includes design fundamentals, user experience, and a social and behavioral sciences requirement. These programs, and many more like them, are well-established and welcoming to new students with and without portfolios.

Having Trouble Deciding? Take My Advice

For those of you leaning towards user experience research, I recommend a liberal arts, sciences, and humanities or human-factors program. Learn the scientific method, get grounded in data sciences, and hone your communication skills. If the interaction design aspects of user experience speak to you, enroll in a design program.

If you really can’t decide or if you want to become a user experience generalist—responsible for user research, design, and usability testing—I would vote for a design program over a liberal arts program. While I wholeheartedly believe in the value of a liberal arts education, the “arts” part of the label is a misnomer. Art and design programs, from associate degrees to PhDs, require courses in the sciences and humanities. Design programs train students in the basics of written and verbal communications as well as research techniques. But most liberal arts programs do not require courses in art or design. And a design program is the fastest way to build a portfolio and land an entry-level job with little or no previous experience.

No matter which path you select, you will need to continue developing skills throughout your career. As new modes of user interaction blossom from new technologies like voice-recognition and augmented reality, you should be aware of these emerging design sub-specialties, even if you are not fluent in them. Expect to become a lifelong learner, ask for a training budget, read the industry blogs and magazines, go to conferences, and know what you don’t know.

Stay tuned for Part 2 in which we will discuss certificate programs and graduate degrees for experience practitioners and aspiring job changers.