Overview

MAD9034 - User Experience Design

Going beyond the basics of graphics and user interface fundamentals, students learn how to combine these elements to create intuitive, efficient and enjoyable products. Students are introduced to a user-centered approach to designing mobile applications. Students begin with user research and build toward creating interaction design specifications in the form of wireframe documents. Topics such as information architecture, navigation and orientation, and interaction design principles are discussed and applied.

Attendance Policy

Attendance is mandatory due to the highly interactive nature of this course. Classes rely on collaboration, group projects, and peer feedback designed to nurture the soft skills essential for UX Designers. If you must miss a class, you are required to notify the instructor to remain aligned with your group and assignments. Missing more than two classes places you at risk of failing unless you provide a valid reason to instructor and demonstrate significant effort to make up the work.

Course Description

Course Section Information (CSI) is available on Brightspace LMS and can be accessed in This Link

Core Topics

• Design sprints
• User-centered design process
• Discovery & User research
• Synthesize research data
• Design
• Prototype
• User testing

Weekly course schedule

• Tuesday 3pm - 5pm in T127
• Wednesday 3pm - 5pm in T127

Student Worldoad Expectations

• 4 hours/week (instructional activity)
• Two 2-hour classes per week
• 4 hours per week of tutorials/videos/exercises/studying/practicing outside class.

MAD9034 Deliverables

Every week there will be work for you to complete inside or outside of class. Some exercises will be larger than others.

Summary

• Warm-up Project (10%): In the warm-up project, you’ll work in groups to design an Apple Watch fitness app while practicing the User-Centered Design (UCD) process during a 3-week design sprint.
• Major Project (40%):You will follow the UX design process based on the project of your choice, to produce weekly deliverables starting Week 05. At the end you will showcase your completed work in a presentation deck.
• Midterm (20%):Part 7 (Midterm) requires transitioning your low-fidelity prototype into mid-fidelity wireframes using Figma. You’ll design six key screens in grayscale, focusing on layout, user flow, and core app functionality, while incorporating feedback from testing to refine usability and interactions.
• Final Presentation (30%):The Final Project Presentation is an 8-minute showcase of your mobile application, detailing your design process, testing results, and UX improvements in a clear and professional manner. You’ll submit Figma file, ensuring your work tells a cohesive story and aligns with course objectives.

Submission Requirements

All work for the warm-up project and the major project must be completed in Figma.

For group projects, ensure all group members have edit access to the shared Figma file. Additionally, your professors must have edit access to your Figma file for all assignments.

In some cases, you may also need to use a FigJam file alongside your main Figma file. Make sure your professors have access to the FigJam file as well, and submit both the Figma and FigJam files through Brightspace.

Course Policy

Students focus on how interfaces need to react to user expectations. Students apply best practices for navigation, interaction, use of colour and typography, designing for gesture-based interfaces, as well as a thorough study of effective user feedback. Designing effective interfaces that allow improved work flow is applied

Late Assignement Policy

10% deduction per day for the first 3 days (including weekend). After 10 days (including weekend) of no submission, the student will receive a 0.

Students may still submit their assignments after the ten days but it will only be for the purpose of receiving feedback on their work. No grade will be given.

For the exact due dates and times for any deliverable, see the assignment page in BS LMS.

Plagiarism

The basic idea behind plagiarism is that submitting work that you did not create yourself is dishonest.

You are here to learn how to design and develop, and to prove that you have learned these skills. Submitting someone else’s work as your own proves nothing but willingness to cheat. It disrespects your instructor as well as your fellow classmates who are making the real effort.

If you need help, your instructor, your program assistants, and your fellow classmates are all here to help you. You only have to ask.

If you take work that was created by any of the following:

• a former student from the program
• a friend from work
• an online source that you found
• someone you paid to create an assignment solution
• a classmate
• an AI chatbot
• an AI tool unless requested as part of the assignment
• a previous submission of your own work from a previous semester

Then the assignment will be labelled as plagiarism.

If labelled as such, penalties for this, depending on the severity and number of offences, include:

• zero grade on the assignment
• having to take the college plagiarism seminar
• zero grade on the course
• being kicked out of the program
• being kicked out of the college.

Extensions

Any request for an extension on an assignment must be made at least the day before the assignment is due.

Requests for extensions can be made via email to your instructor and must include a valid reason for the extension. Simply running out of time or poor time management is not a valid excuse.

If you have no valid reason for an extension, consider the mental health extension option.

Mental Health Extensions for Assignments

Once per semester you can request a 3-day extension on a single assignment. This extension does not change the due date for the assignment, nor does it change the date of the 10 day limit for assignment late submissions. This extension just provides immunity from the late penalty for 3 days. After the 3rd day, the full late penalty applies.

To apply for one of these extensions you do not need to provide an excuse, just post a submission through BS LMS on the Assignments page, to the Mental Health Extension item with a note saying which assignment you want to apply the extension to.

Extension requests must be made before the assignment deadline.

No extensions can be given to the final project.

These extensions apply to all other assignments, unless otherwise indicated by the instructor.

Deliverable Category Weighting

Category weights for grading of assignments

-Warm-up Project (10%) Major Project (40%) Midterm (20%) Final Presentation (30%)

Calendar of Due Dates

The due dates for the assignments and their full details can be found in BS LMS.

Global Requirements

For all assignment deliverables, you need to make sure that all aspects are available to your instructor as specified.

Each assignment has full details of submission specifications in its details.

It is your responsibility to make sure that all of these tasks are completed for each assignment by the due date.

Course Instructor

Details and contact info for course instructor.

• Email : gereign@algonquincollege.com
• LinkedIn : Nehmat Gereige
• YouTube : Mentorship Channel

Invite to Our Slack Channel

Slack is a communication tool used by developers all over the world to stay in touch with their development team. If you are familiar with Discord then you will recognize Slack. They have a very similar layout. Slack is more geared towards communication for developers in a primarily text environment. Discord adds audio and video but we use MS Teams and Zoom for that part.

We will be using Slack to keep all our Faculty, Students, and Program Assistants in communication.

If you have already accepted the invite to the Slack Workspace but do not see a channel for any specific course, you can browse for the channels by going to the left hand menu and clicking on Channels > Manage > Browse channels.

Office Hours

Virtually by appointment. Email or Slack message your instructor to setup an appointment.