UX Design as a practice and as a field is evolving rapidly in light of emerging technologies. This course aims to critically examine emerging discourse in UX in relation with both local realities and global perspectives. It builds on foundational knowledge attained by students in courses such as Designing for Interactions, and focuses more on advanced UX practices and topics. The course is designed in a manner where there is a guest lecture every week on a different topic pertaining to UX design. Guest lecturers bring their domain and market expertise, and with the lecture delivered in collaboration with the instructor, both theoretical dimensions and practical dimensions of each topic will be covered in class. These weekly guest lectures from Pakistani practitioners: founders, researchers, lawyers, and civil society leaders; are a structural feature of the course, not supplementary enrichment The course is divided in three modules: 1. Designing for Impact: Fintech & Climate-Tech 2. Inclusion by Design: The Pakistani Context 3. New Paradigms, New Interfaces The first module ‘Designing for Impact: Fintech & Climate-Tech’ covers the introduction of UX design for fintech and climate-tech in relation to Pakistan. The students will be designing digital interfaces for a sub-topic within fintech or climate-tech through a semester-long project in pairs, hence this module also serves as a starting point for thinking critically about fintech and climate-tech and finding sub-topics within these domains. The second module ‘Inclusion by Design: The Pakistani Context’ comprehensively covers inclusivity and accessibility within UX design especially in the local context. This includes language, UI decisions, accessibility features, infrastructure constraints etc. The last module ‘New Paradigms, New Interfaces’ covers various topics related to emerging techniologies and their positive and negative impacts on humans, cultures and societies, the planet as well as specifically on the field of UX. This includes topics such as AI and Blockchain etc. The course emphasizes not only the creation of innovative usable and engaging digital products & interfaces, but also the responsibility of designers to create inclusive, ethical, and impactful experiences. This course is primarily designed for juniors (3rd year students of DES within CND). Senior (4th year) students can take the course but they have to be mindful that this is an intense studio course and they should commit to the course’s full workload alongside their capstone if they wish to enroll in this course.
