Originally, I applied to develop the design systems cirriculum at the New School. During my interview, the administration took note of my experience across the product development lifecycle and half-joked that I could practically teach any of the upcoming courses. A few weeks later, while I wasn’t offered the new cirriculum, I was asked to facilitate several existing courses including user research and interaction design.

In the user research course, students choose a research subject that they believe would improve our daily lives. Some students find existing products they are already involved with, while others use their imagination for novel concepts. The course guides the students through the steps of a user research study, touching upon competitive analysis, user interviews, personas, journey maps, and finally a stakeholder presentation.

In the interaction design course, students are given a prompt for a existing service and learn the goals for the company and the product. The are eventually tasked to create everything from wireframes to a working prototype to be used in a research study for feedback.