17 Students, 1 Project: Design Thinking Pedagogy for a Large-Scale UX Community/Classroom Partnership

Communication Design Quarterly Sep 2024

17 Students, 1 Project: Design Thinking Pedagogy for a Large-Scale UX Community/Classroom Partnership

Allegra W. Smith ; Courtney D. Ray

Abstract

This teaching case applies design thinking to a large-scale client project in a technical and professional communication (TPC) class. Using the 5-step design thinking process ("empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test") over 8 weeks, the students in an upper-division TPC course developed social media content and strategy for a statewide public relations campaign. The two authors, the instructing faculty and a senior student who served as project manager, illuminate how iterative design thinking, as a UX pedagogical practice, can help students set boundaries around ill-defined problems; mirror workplace collaboration to contribute to professional development; and build a toolkit for exercising agency and creativity as researchers, writers, and designers.

Journal: Communication Design Quarterly
Published: 2024-09-01
DOI: 10.1145/3658422.3658430
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Topics: writing across the curriculum multimodality social media professional writing

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