What is UX (User Experience)?

UX is how a user interacts with and experiences a product, system or service. It includes a person’s perceptions of utility, ease of use, and efficiency. We can learn a huge amount about how our users’ experience (and feel about) services, spaces and products by adopting rich qualitative and quantitative research methods that come under the umbrella term ‘UX’ (User eXperience). UX research explores user behaviours and needs, not just what users say they want.

UX for Higher Education: Why?

The ‘Student Experience’ and ‘Student-Centred’ approaches are descriptions all higher education institutions use regularly to articulate their priorities and aims in delivering education to their learners. The degree to which internal organisational design and processes live up to these words can vary widely across any organisation.

UX can offer meaningful perspectives and methods to help organisations look at their planning and processes in different ways. It can also offer a common language for staff from different parts of an organisation to discuss the realities of improving the student experience.

Join the conversation on 23 February

@TUS_LibraryMD @TUS_ie @run_euniversity #UXinHE #run_eu

Follow-up onsite event

On 23 March, TUS will host a follow-up onsite specialist UX training day. This will be provided by the UX expert Andy Priestner. Vacancies are limited to TUS and RUN-EU staff and students, as well as event partners.

If you’re interested in the workshop, please email Maeve Hynes, RUN-EU Project Coordinator at TUS (maeve.hynes@ait.ie).

More information about the training day will be circulated soon.

11h00-11h15 GMT
Welcome & Higher Education Contexts for UX

• Vincent Cunnane, President of TUS
• Frances O’Connell, Vice-President for Student Education & Experience at TUS
• Dr Johanna Archbold, TUS Library

11h15-12h15 GMT
Exploring UX: finding the value and purpose of engaging with User Experience (UX) in your organisation

• Andy Priestner, UX Consultant

Andy will explore the value and purpose of UX using examples from his experiences of consulting and training in UX around the world. He will define UX work and explore what it involves, question whether libraries currently engage with users enough, detail behavioural and attitudinal UX methods, describe the UX process, deliver case studies of UX in practice from libraries in the UK, Sweden and Australia.

12h15-12h45 GMT
Service Design with Education in Mind: When users are learners

• Dr Johanna Archbold, TUS Library

Dr Johanna will explore Service Design, the how of UX from the operational perspective, particularly when that service is for academic learners. She will highlight the relevance of mindset when understanding the needs of your service users in a HE context (student learners, academics, departments, organisation, etc) and how to consider space as a multi-functional service for users. This will include elements of outreach, working with organisational stakeholders, data collection, and relationship development.

12h45-13h30 GMT
Break

13h30-14h00 GMT
UX at IADT Showcase

• Dr Andrew Errity, Head of the Technology & Psychology at IADT

Dr Andrew Errity and some of the UX team from the Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT) will use staff and student UX projects to provide an overview of key UX topics. This will include elements of user research, data analysis, iterative design + prototyping, psychology, information architecture, content strategy, and inclusive design.

14h00-15h00 GMT
Understanding UX and the Potential of Speculative Design

• Denise McEvoy, IADT

In this workshop, Denise McEvoy, Lecturer in Design & UX, IADT will conduct a practical online workshop session on speculative design. Speculative Design is a design practice that involves looking towards the future and proposing solutions to fictional problems that users(/humans) may be yet to face.

15h00-15h15 GMT
Break

15h15-16h00 GMT
Panel Discussion UX in Higher Education: Landscape, Opportunities, Value

• David O’Hanlon, Chartered Work and Organisational Psychologist (PSI) & Lecturer, TUS Department of Business and Management
• Andy Priestner, UX Expert, Trainer, Consultant
• Dr Andrew Errity, Head of the Technology & Psychology, IADT
• Denise McEvoy, Lecturer in Design & UX, IADT
• Dr Johanna Archbold, TUS Library

Andy Priestner

Andy is a freelance consultant and trainer in User Experience (UX) Research & Design who regularly works all over the world, but most extensively in Sweden, Australia and his native UK. He was formerly a librarian in a public library and at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. At the latter, he also led a UX-based Innovation Programme. Andy is particularly passionate about the value of UX methods to libraries and specifically the work of researching, and designing in response to, user experiences of all services (physical and digital) in order to make them more relevant and user-centric. He created and chairs the international UX in Libraries conference and edits its annual yearbook. He also teaches on failure and is a qualified LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator. His comprehensive and highly regarded new book: ‘A Handbook of UX Research & Design in Libraries’ was published earlier this year and is available at discount to attendees. 

Twitter: @andypriestner

Dr Johanna Archbold

Johanna leads the Midlands Library of TUS. She is a librarian and 18th century book historian with over 15 years of experience in research, academic libraries, research funding and creative enterprise. She is passionate about aligning and embedding academic libraries at the heart of higher education institutions as an engine for overall organisational culture and for the benefit of the student experience, academic engagement, knowledge-creation and research culture. Johanna has published on her historical and library research interests, received research funding and spoken nationally and internationally on a wide variety of topics. Johanna is currently involved in the IFLA Library Map of the World project for the Library Association of Ireland, a tool supporting global library advocacy and highlighting the impact & potential of libraries in delivering on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

Twitter: @Johanna_speaks

Andy Priestner

Andy is a freelance consultant and trainer in User Experience (UX) Research & Design who regularly works all over the world, but most extensively in Sweden, Australia and his native UK. He was formerly a librarian in a public library and at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. At the latter, he also led a UX-based Innovation Programme. Andy is particularly passionate about the value of UX methods to libraries and specifically the work of researching, and designing in response to, user experiences of all services (physical and digital) in order to make them more relevant and user-centric. He created and chairs the international UX in Libraries conference and edits its annual yearbook. He also teaches on failure and is a qualified LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator. His comprehensive and highly regarded new book: ‘A Handbook of UX Research & Design in Libraries’ was published earlier this year and is available at discount to attendees. 

Twitter: @andypriestner

Dr Johanna Archbold

Johanna leads the Midlands Library of TUS. She is a librarian and 18th century book historian with over 15 years of experience in research, academic libraries, research funding and creative enterprise. She is passionate about aligning and embedding academic libraries at the heart of higher education institutions as an engine for overall organisational culture and for the benefit of the student experience, academic engagement, knowledge-creation and research culture. Johanna has published on her historical and library research interests, received research funding and spoken nationally and internationally on a wide variety of topics. Johanna is currently involved in the IFLA Library Map of the World project for the Library Association of Ireland, a tool supporting global library advocacy and highlighting the impact & potential of libraries in delivering on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

Twitter: @Johanna_speaks

Dr Andrew Errity

Andrew heads the Department of Technology and Psychology at IADT, a vibrant academic department that offers undergraduate, postgraduate and professional programmes in disciplines such as computing, media technologies, psychology, cyberpsychology and user experience design. He has taught and supervised students studying topics including programming, generative art, human-computer interaction, user experience design, data visualisation, and physical interaction design. His research interests include various aspects of human-computer interaction, particularly spoken language, and he has published book chapters, conference papers and articles in these disciplines. He also regularly acts as a reviewer for conferences and was co-organiser of Dublin UX Camp 2017. Passionate about teaching and learning, particularly as it relates to the design and development of technologies that improve people’s lives, Andrew has been involved in successful funding bids to design and run initiatives in this area, including ICT & Young Women in Computing Summer Camps, Springboard & Jobs Stimulus programmes, and the Creative Futures Academy project. 

Twitter: @aerrity

Denise McEvoy

Denise is a Design Lecturer at IADT in Dublin, Ireland. She has national and international academic experience in Graphic Design, Interaction, and Interface Design, focusing on Emotional Engagement and User Experience. She has supervised both masters by research and postgraduate master’s thesis in User Experience and Human-Computer Interaction. Denise is currently undertaking a PhD through Practice in Design at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. She holds a degree in Visual Communications and a Master’s in Interactive Multimedia, both from the Technological University Dublin. Her main field of research lies in the intersection between designing for emotion and learning experience design. She is particularly interested in understanding learner motivation, positive affect and engagement in online learning environments. 

Twitter: @DeniseMcMc

David O’Hanlon

Dave is a Work and Organisational Psychologist and Lecturer. He currently lectures in the Department of Business & Management at TUS and is Programme Coordinator of the Online/Blended Higher Diploma in Leadership. He was involved in the design and delivery of the Online/Blended Higher Diploma in Interaction Design at Dublin City University and lectured for a number of years on a part-time basis on the Fundamentals in UX Design Certificate course at IADT Dún Laoighre. Current primary research focus is the adaptation of team-based and project-based learning to online/blended environments. 

Twitter: @DaveOHanlon4