A cross-modal UX design pedagogy for industrial design

Abstract

Everyday experience is multi-sensory, and user experience (UX) design aims to extend this to interactions with products, services, and designed worlds. However, tools and pedagogies for UX are overwhelmingly visual, whereas human-rights-based accessibility legislation mandates the inclusion of diverse peoples, including blind and partially sighted individuals. Coupling auditory and haptic UX techniques from human-computer interaction with industrial design’s (ID) cross-modal tradition of prototyping physical products fostered our novel cross-modal UX course for second-year ID undergraduates. Affordance-based theories of perception-action and Gestalt principles of perceptual organization were used to inform design in auditory, tactile, and visual sensory modalities situated in a novel pedagogical framework. Each week theoretical models were presented alongside hands-on workshops using the BBC micro:bit, developing computational literacy through cross-modal physical prototyping. Student projects demonstrate an understanding of theory and practice and include auditory and tactile interfaces.