usability

UX designer jobs are part of the fastest-growing career fields in the United States for reasons that should come as little surprise. Quality user experience design (UXD) can lead to an increase in site conversions of up to 400 percent,1 which can greatly impact brand loyalty and sales, and most web users say they won’t recommend a business with a poor mobile experience.

Knowing how to write a design brief can help drive an overall understanding of a project’s needs. A truly excellent design brief, however, bridges the terrain between a good idea and making it into reality. By effectively communicating all the essential environmental factors, requirements, constraints and needs of a design project, a brilliant design brief can energize all parties involved.

Kent State University’s online Master’s in UXD program is proud to be accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). The only accreditation agency covering the entire field of art and design that the United States Department of Education recognizes, NASAD has approximately 360 member institutions.1

Millions of people apply for a master’s degree program in the hopes of getting advanced education to improve their careers. In some career fields, a master’s degree is required for certain positions. In others, it’s good to have but not essential.

When people interact with computers they do so through interfaces. These interfaces are designed by humans, and in the optimal situation, they are user-friendly and easy to navigate. As more of us use computers and machines daily for everything from work to shopping and social interactions, user experience (UX) is more critical than ever before.

It used to be that computer programmers learned how to design a robust user experience on the fly, sometimes with minimum computer science training. Those days are long gone. Roles for self-taught Renaissance experts have largely given way to a number of specialized careers in programming and web design. One such career is the lucrative, in-demand field of user experience (UX) design.

Page layout design, also called page composition, combines eye-pleasing aesthetics with compelling text to communicate a message. However, perfecting the on-page user experience (UX) isn’t as easy as it sounds. Instead, human-centered UX designers rely on fundamental design principles to achieve their goals. Learn how the following design elements help create an effective page layout and why it matters to your users.

Drew Shipka works for the Office of Continuing and Distance Education and has helped improve online classes at Kent State University for over a decade. He leads a team of instructional designers whose primary responsibilities are developing fully online graduate programs. He earned master’s degrees in Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, and Library and Information Science, and Information Architecture Knowledge Management from Kent State University.

Alison Hayne’s first app design project had 6,000 users.

At first glance, Chello Elmi might seem like an unusual fit for a UXD program. She studied psychology as an undergraduate, but when it came time to earn her master’s, all she knew was she didn’t want to continue in a therapeutic or mental health field.