Experience Design
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Online
Develop as a Creator and Innovator
Experience Designers are human-centered design thinkers and creators who combine psychology and innovation to design products, processes, environments, and strategies that meet peoples' needs and exceed their expectations. xdMFA is a 3-year online Master of Fine Arts degree designed for practicing professionals and full-time caregivers.
Contact Info
Curriculum and Courses
The mission of the MFA in Experience Design is to enable learners to gain the design thinking, knowledge, and skills required for developing high fidelity, people-driven outcomes at personal and systemic levels. Coursework for this distance-learning program synthesizes theory and methods from design research, service, user experience, and communication design, encompassing digital and physical technologies.
- ART 555 A History of Design
- ART 560 Special Topics Design Studio
- ART 626 Methods of Dissemination
- ART 627 Design Research Methods
- ART 650 Experience Design Studio
- ART 651 Design Research Theory
Related Careers
Facts and Stats
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Top 10
College for Producing Fortune 500 CEOs Nationwide
Money Magazine
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98%
of Master's Graduates are Successfully Employed, Enrolled in Higher Education, or in a Volunteer/Service Program
Miami University Data
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Top 50
National Public University
U.S. News & World Report, 2020
Where Education Becomes Something Greater
Explore what it means to be a graduate student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where students prepare to go anywhere and everywhere.
Admission Requirements
The following content should be included in application materials for the MFA in Experience Design:
- Transcripts
- Résumé or Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Personal Statement
- URL for a Portfolio of Work Website
- Three Letters of Recommendation
- Provide a URL address “link” to a personal portfolio of work website.
- The website does not have to be expertly designed and can be created using tools and sites like Cargo, Academia.edu, GitHub, Medium, Squarespace, Bēhance, or other online services.
Considering the MFA in Experience Design is intended for people with a wide range of design-related expertise, portfolio application materials may differ widely for each applicant. Some examples of portfolio content that would be accepted for review include:
- Motion design and video design work
- Graphic design, industrial design, architecture, or other design work
- A plan or proposal that coordinates how design outcomes were coordinated for a marketing campaign
- Lesson plans or instructional design
- Papers that address design issues and social impact
- Papers on consumer behavior and how it relates to design
- Event planning documentation including video, photographs, and room layouts
- Smartphone apps and other programmed media
- Designed games (physical or screen-based)
- Research reports or case studies that address design-related topics
- Research reports or case studies on issues of human behavior or communication and relationships to designed outcomes
- Each of these examples is about design in some way or they are actually designed outcomes.
- “Design” is a broad and complicated concept. For portfolio review purposes, anything that is human-made and intended to be used for a clear purpose is a design outcome.
- Also, a body of work that demonstrates an applicant’s work studying or applying design also qualifies.
- This portfolio will serve as evidence of applicants’ existing congruence with experience design—as a practitioner or as someone who researches, applies, or directs designed outcomes.
Additional Opportunities
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Hybrid Program
The xdMFA is a hybrid program designed for “higher touch” learning. Over the course of the degree, students will travel to different locations across the United States, visit Oxford, Ohio for workshops, and participate in online courses where self-directed learning and virtual studios will occur.
