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Girl touching device screen and scrolling through ux design work by Naomi Winter at Norwich University of the Arts
Smartphones displaying a wellness app interface with blue and pink gradient backgrounds, showcasing playlists titled "Emotional Wellness." Various colourful icons and progress trackers are visible on the screens, aiding in emotional clearing. Phones are arranged in a diagonal pattern on a blue background.
Student work by Rayane Zidane showing a mockup of Solomun website being used on a laptop

User Experience Design BSc (Hons)

Want to shape how people engage with the ever-evolving digital world? And understand the different ways users experience a design?

Key information

How to Apply
Request a prospectus

Our User Experience Design degree gives you the essential skills to become a successful UX designer — shaping how people engage with digital products and services. The course will enable you to create interactive products such as website and app prototypes, video motion graphics, digital imagery and designed research outputs.

You’ll explore the people and technologies involved in the design process and learn to identify users’ needs and goals and map their emotional journeys, using skills such as user research, copywriting, typography, motion, coding and interaction design. Through a mixture of projects, you will become adept at generating insight-driven solutions for organisations and brands, charities, social causes, and design-for-good initiatives addressing the problems we face in the world.

Our practical studio projects mirror the type of briefs you would be given in a design agency, resulting in outcomes that genuinely prepare you for the real world of work. As you progress, you will generate case studies for your portfolio that showcase your knowledge of user research, user interface design and interaction design to copywriting, typography and motion.

Why study with us

  • Share your first year with other graphics students, and then continue to work alongside each other, allowing for a unique cross fertilisation of knowledge, skills and experience.
  • Develop problem-solving skills by understanding and interpreting project briefs, conducting discovery research, generating ideas, developing prototypes, testing and refining them into successful concepts.
  • Undertake project briefs initiated and taught by industry designers and enter national and international design competitions judged by the design industry.
  • Engage with industry through portfolio reviews and surgeries, talks from practising alumni, interview practice and graduate portfolio showcase events.
  • Hone your project management, communication and collaborative working skills so that you leave with a standout CV and portfolio.

Course details

Integrated Foundation Year (optional)

Integrated Foundation Year

Our Integrated Foundation Year is designed to equip students with the necessary skills, knowledge and confidence to thrive in their chosen degree subject. The course provides a comprehensive introduction to various disciplines, blending critical thinking and creative problem-solving with practical hands-on experience. This year serves as a bridge to undergraduate studies, allowing students to explore their interests within a supportive and inspiring environment, while familiarising themselves with the campus, workshops, and tutors.

Find out more about our Integrated Foundation Year.

Year 1

Core Units

In the first year, the curriculum is shared across related graphics courses, enabling you to gain a broad grounding in the discipline before going on to specialist units in your chosen field in the second and third years. In your common first year, you will explore the fundamentals of design. With a focus on process, you will explore techniques, technologies and research-inspired design as you work on individual and team projects. The course expands to cover a huge range of experimental processes, platforms and technologies, meaning that you will build a strong portfolio, demonstrating your design skills and innovative practice. This unit introduces theories and ideas of design and visual culture and teaches you how to use them in your practical work.

40 credits

In this unit, you will explore and experiment with techniques, materials and media. You explore the fundamental principles of visual communication and develop skills in typography, printing, layout, photography, design research, idea generation, and storytelling. You’ll learn technical skills in various design-related digital design applications such as Figma, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects, and develop your knowledge of user experience by learning about methods that are useful at every stage of the UX process. You’ll be introduced to essential skills in organising and presenting complex data and information using infographics, wider graphic language, as well as how people view, process, and act on the wealth of visual information they receive every day.

80 credits

Core Projects

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus.  The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

Year 2

Core Units

In this unit you’ll experiment and iterate the design process through workshops and projects covering user research, design principles, mobile UX, wireframing, prototyping, motion graphics and sound. You will learn how to identify and research competitors, your audience, and how to translate the results into initial design requirements. You’ll explore user-centred design principles and methodologies and how designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process. To support your development, you will develop broader knowledge and understanding of the historical, social, ethical and cultural ideas in relation to user experience design.

80 credits

This unit will introduce you to how collaborative working can help you focus and enhance your creative strengths, working with fellow students and our creative communities. You’ll have the opportunity to experience group work in the context of industry-based projects to specify, develop, deploy and evaluate a web-based system, including prototype software, links to web-hosted work, static layouts, and animations. This unit will take you through the entire process, from requirements gathering, user-centred design, proposal development, implementation and evaluation. Students will also assess their outputs from the perspective of different roles within an organisation and consider alternative perspectives and their value to your work.

40 credits

Core Projects

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus.  The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

Diploma Year (optional)

Level 5 Diploma (120 credits)

Students have the opportunity to spend a year after the second of their degree (or the third year if studying for a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year) enhancing their employability options through a Level 5 Diploma. They can choose from courses designed to provide:

  • opportunities to gain industry insight, developing employability skills through a series of supported experiences, expanding professional networks and building confidence in the workplace, or
  • an introduction to creative computing, building an understanding of how coding skills can be used to advance and complement creative practice.

Find out more about our Level 5 Diplomas.

Final Year

Core Units

This is the first and shorter of the two units that make up your final year of study. Your final year allows you to refine your existing creative practice, develop your skills and reflect upon your experience, with opportunities to engage with live projects, competitions and industry networks to broaden your portfolio and strategically enhance your career direction. You will specialise in areas such as user research, interaction design, prototyping, motion graphics and web design skills, and explore emerging trends like artificial intelligence and virtual reality. You’ll develop an individual research project that advances your knowledge of contextual issues, cultural theories and debates. Group and individual tutorials will provide stimulating and supportive sessions to help you develop your research ideas and those of others.

40 credits

This unit will allow you to deliver final major design projects, embracing the entire design process and demonstrating your approach to, and engagement with, contemporary digital design issues. You’ll engage in a human-centred design process and apply practical, theoretical, and technical knowledge to examine a subject or theme to realise and communicate your design solution. Emphasis is placed on students’ abilities to evaluate, make informed choices for selecting techniques and processes, and create innovative outcomes. You’ll have the opportunity to display your final year project as part of our degree show, Grad Fest, which allows you to showcase your work to our network of industry professionals and prospective employers.

80 credits

Core Projects

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus.  The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

Success in awards

Students from BSc (Hons) User Experience Design have earned multiple prestigious awards, including The highest accolade at this year’s Creative Conscience Awards, as well as Black Pencil and Yellow Pencil awarded to User Experience Design student at D&AD New Blood Awards

A sleek black projector with a colourful light beam forms a holographic screen above it, echoing the innovation taught in our UX design course. The text below reads, "Reality, redefined by Sky. Believe in better.

Assessment

Assessment for this course is entirely coursework-based, meaning there are no exams. Your progress will be evaluated through the projects and assignments you complete for each unit. Throughout the year, you’ll receive ongoing feedback to help you refine your work and develop your skills. To support your learning and ensure you achieve the course outcomes, we use a variety of assessment methods, including:

  • Finished pieces of work
  • Presentations
  • Written work
  • Your research
  • A reflective journal

Find out more about Assessment at Norwich

Some of the people you’ll be working with

Our facilities

Look around our city-centre campus, and you will find studios, media labs, and creative spaces in 13 buildings that sit among the cafés, bars, independent galleries and shops of Norwich’s cultural quarter.

Here to help you succeed

The UK’s creative sector is thriving, contributing £111.7 billion annually to the economy and offering over 2 million jobs.

Employability and career development are integral to every unit of our courses, ensuring students are well-prepared for the industry. Our students go on to secure exciting roles, launch successful businesses, and make a lasting impact in many sectors worldwide.

From day one, you’ll also get specialist career advice from our Business and Employability Team to help support you as you plan your career.

Typical career paths

By the time you finish the course you’ll have developed a distinctive portfolio and have a strong sense of where you want to work within the industry. During the summer break, between second and third year, students take internships and join graduate schemes, which often lead to full-time employment.

Our graduates have gone on to internships and employment at digital experience design agencies including Foolproof, The User Story, Coder, UX Connections, and Interstate, and in-house positions at National Grid, Stardust, PwC Middle East, and Tata Consultancy Services.

  • User interface designer
  • UX designer
  • Interaction designer
  • Digital designer
  • Visual designer
  • Product manager
  • UX design manager
  • Front end developer
  • Digital web designer
  • UX architect
  • UX business analyst
  • Product marketing manager

92% of our graduates are in employment or further education within six months of graduating”

Graduate Outcomes 2021

Portfolio Advice and Guidance

Portfolios should show examples of your work — both finished and work in progress — that demonstrate your interests and skills. Your portfolio should be made up of work that reflects your creativity, personal interests and influences, as well as demonstrating your technical skills and ability. It doesn’t have to be perfect as we can assess your potential from your work in progress.

Your portfolio should be relevant to this course, but you can include a wide range of work that shows your creativity, technical competence and understanding of storytelling.

Get more advice on presentation formats, layouts and when to submit your portfolio in the application process.

Girl scrolling through ux design work by Naomi Winter at Norwich University of the Arts

Student work

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