Reducing the UX Skill Gap Through Experiential Learning: Description and Initial Assessment of Collaborative Learning of Usability Experiences Program | SpringerLink
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Reducing the UX Skill Gap Through Experiential Learning: Description and Initial Assessment of Collaborative Learning of Usability Experiences Program

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Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2021 (INTERACT 2021)

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Abstract

There exists discrepancy between the skills possessed by Human Computer Interaction (HCI) students and the expectations of user experience (UX) industry. This skill gap lowers HCI students’ successful transition from academia to the field of UX. To reduce the skill gap, HCI educators have started to integrate experiential learning techniques into their teaching, ranging from workshops to service learning and industrial internships. In joining their efforts, we have created an innovative usability training known as Collaborative Learning of Usability Experiences (CLUE) for HCI students of all levels. In this paper, we detail CLUE’s unique experiential training components—UX Internship, Short Courses, Workshops, and Knowledge Transfer—and we report the assessment of the program by evaluating our graduates’ job placement and their academic achievement and also by examining our UX industry partners’ evaluation of the program and student interns on five important UX skills.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported and funded by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the Collaborative Learning in Usability Experiences CREATE grant (2015–465639).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Technology, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Audrey Girouard & Jin Kang

Authors
  1. Audrey Girouard
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  2. Jin Kang
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Correspondence to Audrey Girouard .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo Ardito

  2. Computer Science Department, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Rosa Lanzilotti

  3. Computer Science Department, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Alessio Malizia

  4. Department of Computer Science, University of York, York, UK

    Helen Petrie

  5. Computer Science Department, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Antonio Piccinno

  6. Computer Science Department, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Giuseppe Desolda

  7. Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA

    Kori Inkpen

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Girouard, A., Kang, J. (2021). Reducing the UX Skill Gap Through Experiential Learning: Description and Initial Assessment of Collaborative Learning of Usability Experiences Program. In: Ardito, C., et al. Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2021. INTERACT 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12933. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85616-8_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85616-8_28

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