Graduate Certificate of UX Design

In this subject, students will identify and integrate their personal qualities and career aspirations to create their unique professional identity. A professional identity enables students to understand and establish a sustainable, fulfilling, effective practice and direction in the design industry.

Through self-reflection and the examination of established designers and studios worldwide, this subject provides an opportunity for students to critically examine their own beliefs, values, experiences, and understanding of design. To support their learning, students will hear from industry experts who share their own career journeys and professional identity development. The subject combines critical reflection and analysis of the student's personal values as a designer with a focus on the social imperative to care for and contribute to the sustainability of our planet and the lives that inhabit it.

This subject introduces designers to research methodologies as a basis for identifying problems which can be the catalyst to bring about change. Students gain skills in the analysis of research data using grounded theory and phenomenography, in addition to visual research methods used as a foundation for creative and design solutions inherent in cross-disciplinary creative practice. By means of reflection, analysis and contextualising an identified culture—their own or others— and by drawing on its philosophies, typical behaviours and patterns, designers explore, elicit and assess problems to instigate creative group projects. As a starting point to the creative process designers identify problems with a beneficial outcome which is critiqued and refined during the group collaboration. Through deductive reasoning the group defines the boundaries of the problems and present these to the group in a “quick fire pitch” for critique and feedback, after which students refine and draw closer to their final inventions or solutions. The technologies used for the final design presentations enable the exploration of contexts by means of audio, visual and textual dimensions. The design practices foster understanding of, and connection with, the contexts that designed things participate in, enrich and often transform. The additional emphasis is on problem identification that informs and leads to enhanced futures based on successful creative outcomes.

This subject provides a suite of cross disciplinary, practice based topics for designers in the areas of, time, space, motion and interaction. Designers will explore conceptual challenges and questions of visual expression in the quest to develop useful, usable and resonant designs for good. This will include understanding and articulating ‘user experience’, the role of design in humanizing information, the aesthetic and conceptual dynamics of effective communication, branding and communication within the international industry landscape.

The practice of design has always been profoundly shaped by the particular economies in which it has been embedded. The demands placed on both human and non-human ecologies by 20th century growth-based economies, are evidently unsustainable. Increasing acknowledgment of ecological stress upon the planet, in tandem with the economic instability of the first decades of the 21st century, have given impetus to a rethinking of our assumptions about the economy. Over the past decades several critical thinkers have proposed new approaches to the economy. What are the implications of these potential economies for design? How might more sustainable approaches to the economy open new possibilities for design? What might be the role of design in the transition to a different economy?

Effective service design is critical to enable positive user experiences and create social change. Students will identify and define an existing complex problem or issue which they will investigate by utilising a range of design research methods. To analyse and apply their research findings, they will be introduced to customer journey maps and service design blueprints. By doing so, they will be able to develop innovative solutions that will meet the needs of individual users, organisations, and communities.

These may include apps, creative tech solutions or the complete redesign of an organisation's systems and processes. This subject will challenge students to expand their thinking and equip them with the mindset to work in a human-centered, sustainable way, designing for real needs, accessibility and usability.

This subject introduces the student to the foundations of business. The focus of this subject is on providing fundamental concepts and context for students to enrich their mastery in subsequent studies while developing as a reflective practitioner. Students will examine the functional operations of business and the environments in which it operates. This may include analysing the economic, social, political, legal, technological and ethical influences on contemporary businesses. Students will also examine the viewpoints of internal and external stakeholders.

Understanding organisational behaviour, politics, dynamics and environments and how they impact on the role and legitimacy of the management function is the core of this unit. This unit helps individuals understand the constraints they face as managers and emerging leaders and how they can develop strategies to leverage advantages and overcome constraints and barriers in their organisations. The unit also focuses on developing some of the advanced communication skills necessary in management and leadership roles, and the ability of the individual to influence others. The course introduces students to the concept of naturally occurring data and qualitative analysis.

We recommend you complete this subject towards the beginning of your MBA. The unit challenges you to think differently about your organisational experiences, to look at them through a variety of lenses, and to explore different ways by which you can influence people within the organisation and have an impact through your function as a manager. A key skill underpinning this is the ability to receive and respond to feedback, to look at data in a number of different ways to find alternative meanings and create different patterns of behaviour. The book ‘Images of Organisation’ explores the notion of the organisation through a range of metaphors; by exploring these metaphors you can gain different insights into your organisation and start to play with different interpretations and understandings of how we experience the world.