AAS College

MA User Experience and Service Design - Advertising

Semester 1

Exploration and Enquiry

This module provides students with the necessary critical, practical and intellectual frameworks to initiate, evaluate, negotiate and develop a sustainable creative practice within their respective field. The module combines presentations from professionals and researchers that provide a forum for peer discussion and debate.

It focuses on the development of self-directed practice-led research and the establishment of a sustainable creative and critical engagement. Advanced digital and analogue skills, technologies and processes will be introduced. Students will audit their own skills and their project needs and resource implications. The module offers students the opportunity to acquire new skills and knowledge and to consider initiating interdisciplinary or strategic partnerships.

Design Thinking

This module enables students to develop an understanding of the user needs and challenge the existing through independent, innovative and disruptive thinking. Students will observe and develop empathy with the target user. This module will enable students in the process of questioning: questioning the problem, questioning the assumptions, and questioning the implications, allowing deeper investigation and critical evaluation of knowledge and understanding of the wider theoretical development of design as a discipline.

Semester 2

Specialist Skills Development

This module expands students’ knowledge of user experience, design thinking, and service design, providing creative direction and support for their emerging practice. It covers topics such as narrative construction, emerging digital themes, globalisation, localisation, and aesthetics.

With a focus on theory and practical applications, students develop strategies and research methods for problem-solving, opportunity identification, innovation framing, prototyping, and testing. The module includes a concentrated period of practical research and peer critique, challenging students to explore contemporary issues and design solutions for social impact. It also prepares students to produce a practice-led and critically sound project proposal that generates the foundation for their Master’s Projects.

Design Futures

This module aims to equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to navigate the rapidly changing landscape of design in the 21st century. From artificial intelligence and machine learning to sustainability concerns, designers face numerous and complex challenges. Through lectures, workshops, and practical projects, students will learn about the latest developments in AI and other emerging technologies and how to apply them in the context of UX and service design. The module will also explore the ethical and social implications of these technologies, encouraging students to think critically about the role of design in shaping our future. By combining cutting-edge technology with a deep understanding of social and ethical implications, students will be equipped to create sustainable, ethical, and socially responsible products and services that make a positive impact on the world.

Semester 3

Master's Project

This module provides a period of sustained, self-motivated and practice-led creative engagement. It brings to a resolution a body of work relevant to the area of focus for the student’s Master's programme, whether interaction design, service design, or design thinking. The module realises key skills and knowledge concerning the management, documentation, evaluation and dissemination of the creative and practice-led research process in relation to these domains. Finally, it also facilitates a sustained independent period of enquiry within a clearly determined creative body of practice, underpinned by exploration of a range of critical and contextual frameworks evidence in a final Master's report.

Graduates have an increasingly wide array of career options available, including User Experience Designer, User Experience Researcher, User Experience Design Researcher, Service Designer, Design Researcher, Digital Product Designer, Interaction Designer, and Strategic Designer.

In addition to working for design consultancies, graduates can find themselves working in a wide range of sectors, including financial technology, cybersecurity, healthcare, and public and private services.

Our course includes industry collaborations, allowing regular access to local and international practitioners and design leaders.