Toward Integrated UX Instruction With Symbiotic Classrooms

Introduction: Preparing students to pursue user-experience (UX)-related writing careers requires infusing UX instruction into several technical communication courses throughout a degree program. But university writing programs that seek to add UX courses into their curricula often work inside a slow-paced system where amending course objectives to align with job market demands is a slow process. About the case: For this collaboration, we forged a symbiotic relationship between a lower- and upper-class course to introduce students to UX early in their program of study and apply additional or nuanced UX methods in several writing courses as they progress through the program. Situating the case: Faculty in a writing program that does not currently have stand-alone UX classes can collaboratively improve the student UX in a timely fashion while maintaining the flexibility to adapt best practices and contemporary UX processes across classrooms. Methods/approach: A close reading of test plans (n = 14), usability reports, and reflection essays from 200-level students provided key insights into the understanding of UX strategies. Results/discussion: Introductory students struggled to make explicit connections between UX strategies and their work, but they demonstrated gained UX skills by the end of the project. Conclusions: Students realized many benefits from learning about and conducting UX research that helped them become more empathetic professional writers. However, instructors should consider additional symbiotic relationships between courses in a professional writing program at several points in the writing process.