Design and User Experience

The aim of this module is to enhance student's ability to use design approaches and tools for identifying and implementing human centered innovation opportunities.

The aim of this module is to give students an opportunity to explore grand challenges facing our global society and to propose imaginative solutions to specific challenges in one or more country.

Students will critically reflect on the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals and think about how Loughborough University's Creating Better Futures. Together Strategy might contribute to them.

Students will engage with ideas and approaches to possible solutions from their own programme and gain diverse insights from Loughborough University London's interdisciplinary ecosystem. This will involve solution-oriented thinking and a balance between criticality and possibility, leading to a deep understanding of grand challenges and imagining creative responses to them.

The aim of this module is to introduce students to central user experience concepts, applications and practices. It develops a human-centred approach to user design, which aims to develop the capabilities of students to conduct user centred research, understand and identify opportunities to improve user experience, design sustainable, transformative solutions and to develop their mastery in creative and analytical skills. The module furthermore situates user-experience research and practice into wider organisational and societal contexts.

The aim of this module is to develop students knowledge and skills to understand, analyse and evaluate how design for the service economy acts as a strategic tool to foster change and innovation in organisations.

Students will examine forensic case studies from an organisational perspective, from private, public and third sectors and across different domains of innovation (for ex. digital, sustainability and customer-centricity), to understand how and to what extent does design for the service economy get adopted to enable innovation?

Theories of organisational logics, institutional logics, organisational change, design for services, service -dominant logic, and theories of leadership will be utilised throughout the module and the students will engage in application of these theories and concepts.

The module offers a unique opportunity to develop hands-on experience, skill-specific competencies, and industry-relevant knowledge to join the next generation of creative producers, innovators, entrepreneurs, content creators, and storytellers in the fast-growing digital experience economy. The module combines lectures, practice-led workshops, and seminars with leading industry experts that aim to provide insights into the craft and creative development, intellectual property (IP), business models and finance raising, team and event management of creative experiences across screen, live events and performance, immersive experiences, gaming and entertainment sectors.

Students will learn about and collaborate on real-world projects with leading creative organisations and companies (Sadlers Wells East, BBC Music Studios, 59Productions, ScreenSkills, etc.) fostering students career paths and prospects.

The aim of Design Research module is to help students to gain a broad understanding of design research history and methodologies and equip them with skills and competencies to undertake research in their chosen topic of enquiry. Underpinned by reflective mindset, this module sets out to support students in four key ways: position design research in relation to historical context, identify the key issues and methodologies appropriate for design research, understand ways to evaluate these resources in relation to theory and self, develop and practice applying design research resources in a pilot study.

The module aim is to prepare students to understand the key concepts and complexities of designing for user experience. The course focuses on innovation management and the creation of value in use as a means of customer acquisition and retention.

Students will be introduced the foundational concepts of human experience relevant to design innovation, building on interdisciplinary knowledge and principles from sociology, psychology, cognitive science and human-centred design. Theoretical concepts on cognition, perception, aesthetics and interaction will be presented through lectures and seminars to explore the complex interrelationships between usability, usefulness and desirability as experiential dimensions for value creation and decision-making, and understand their role in the development of meaningful innovation and quality user experiences.

Through research, analysis, visualisation students will engage with illustrative case studies to reflect upon how theories and concepts apply in practice, and understand how experience ecosystems function.

The aims of this module are to:

• Provide students with an opportunity to be exposed to project-based teamwork in diverse settings (understood in this context as involving a range of multidisciplinary, multicultural and demographic elements in differing configurations), aiming to strengthen their cooperative and collaborative working skills and competence, while raising awareness and appreciation of diversity itself.
• Provide students with hands on experience of identifying, framing and resolving practice oriented and real-world based challenges and problems, using creativity, critical enquiry and appropriate tools to achieve valuable and relevant solutions.
• Support the development of students' ability to engage in critical enquiry and individual reflection, as well as to apply individual strengths and skills, building on their own educational backgrounds.
• Provide students with opportunities for networking with stakeholders, organisations and corporations, aiming to enhance the competence and skills needed to connect to relevant parties and build up future professional opportunities.

The Service Design Strategy module aims to provide students with professional skills for working in service design innovation teams. It aims to allow students to gain experience in managing complex service innovation processes and working successfully within the area of Service Design Strategy.

Creative immersive experiences have revolutionised the global experience economy in recent years as cultural organisations, entertainment and performance companies, digital marketing and architectural venues have rapidly adopted the use of advanced creative technologies eXtended Reality (XR), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), real-time game engines, AI into new formats of immersive storytelling and building of hybrid and virtual 3D worlds.

By bringing together critical perspectives in new media studies, creative industries policy, digital technologies and user-centred design, this module explores industry-relevant and socio-cultural implications of using immersive technologies in the production of cultural and creative experiences.

By exploring cutting-edge case studies and critical debates on immersive experiences in a wide range of creative industries screen, museums and heritage, live events and theatre, games and entertainment, design, fashion, architecture, and advertising students will acquire in-depth understanding and critical reflections on recent developments in the immersive sector.

The aims of this module are to give the student the opportunity to study a subject, business problem or research question in depth and to research the issues surrounding the subject or background to the problem.

The module will equip the student with the relevant skills, knowledge and understanding to embark on their individual research project and they will be guided through the three options available to them to complete their dissertation:

• A desk based research project that could be set by an organisation or could be a subject of the student's choice
• A project that involves collection of primary data from within an organisation or based on lab and/or field experiments
• A full professional placement within an organisation during which time they will complete a project as part of their role in agreement with the organisation (subject to a suitable placement position being obtained)

Students will achieve a high level of understanding in the subject area and produce a written thesis or project report which will discuss this research in depth and with rigour.