Overview of the Book

User Experience as Innovative Academic Practice is an edited collection that seeks to demonstrate the value that user experience principles and research methods have in designing course curricula and degree program parameters. To facilitate that approach, Kate Crane and Kelli Cargile Cook enlisted support from instructor-researchers at universities around the US to come to a better understanding of how they are utilizing user experience research to generate insights into their own practices. As a result, the book is primarily constructed as a collection of case studies that act as demonstrations of user experience research and design in praxis, as well as guidance for those reading who would also want to try implementing user experience approaches to program/course assessment. To meet that end, each contribution to the collection not only provides detailed accounts of their unique circumstances and considerations, but also materials that can be adjusted for use by the readers at their own institutions (such as surveys, personas, profiles, infographics, tabulated data, research questions, and more). Naturally, this means that there are three key areas that we need to consider to assess the value of a text like this – who is the book written for? what sort of content makes up the bulk of the text? and finally what is the value of the information and materials provided by the book?

Who the Book is for

This edited collection is primarily for other instructor-researchers or instructor-practitioners in the area of technical and professional communication (TPC) and similar fields such as communication, computer science, and rhetoric and composition. The goal is to provide these audiences with an opportunity to witness how UX principles are applied in a variety of institutional contexts. So, in addition, we might consider university administrators and program representatives (graduate studies directors, department chairs, advisors, writing center directors, etc.) as additional audiences for what the book can offer. This variety of potential audiences elicits opportunities to bridge potential gaps that crop up between any individual’s understanding of the university ecosystem and the reality we often face. 

While these audiences are who Crane and Cook sought as audiences, there are some stakeholders in the university that should be considered when it comes to the advice that they give. Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), those that often exist in a liminal space of learning how to be effective pedagogues, often wouldn’t have the resources available to commit the time and labor into extensive user experience testing to improve their students’ classroom experiences. As such, finding different avenues for such integral parts of any English or Communication department to implement user experience testing is an imperative placed in the hands of the university they attend and work for. As I talk about in the next section, some of the collection’s contributors offer insights into how GTAs could be given the privilege of participating in departmental assessments. 

Content of the Book

The collection is split up into thirteen chapters, each offering a user experience case study at the authors’ respective institutions. The purpose of each chapter differs, and they tend to vary in how much emphasis is placed on the research methodologies and decisions that were made and the non-generalizable information that helps readers understand the unique context of each university. The result is an amalgamation of content that is more or less useful. Here I provide a brief synopsis of each chapter, focusing on the type of study conducted in hopes that it helps guide you to what you would find most valuable to your own circumstances.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 acts as an introduction to user experience research and design for teacher-researchers and places the responsibility of information architect on the instructor. As such, instructors must seek to understand the complexity of student experiences and university systems that both support and impede the progress a student makes to their degree. The instructor, then, needs to implement UX methodologies to assess their own part in supporting students. This chapter acts as a rationale for user experience principles being the basis of assessing and critiquing our own practices. 

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 extends this conversation and positions students as not just users of our curricula (products), but as potential participants in the research as student-users or co-creators. As such, having students participating closely with the research process enables you to create dynamic journey maps to understand their path through your class or through a university process such as enrolling in classes or setting an appointment with their advisors. Beyond keeping a tab on students’ progress, having this methodology in mind also allows you to carefully consider the goals of the project, scope of the research, and the contexts that the research is conducted in. From their the journey map could take stops at affinity clustering, observations, interviews, focus groups, prototyping, operative imaging, etc.

Chapter 3

In chapter 3, Martin discusses constructing student profiles as an iterative process. To create effective profiles, Martin implemented surveys, observations, and end of semester student evaluations to best understand who their students were, and from there constructed profiles that effectively captured the likeness of the students in the class. 

Chapter 4

In Chapter 4, Gonzales and Walwema discuss how transliteracies and cultural competencies are invaluable tools for user experience research. It’s not enough to assume diversity and unique perspectives, but instead the researcher must listen and consider how to successfully create intercultural products that meet the needs of the user. In the case of students, they note that creating UX-inspired assignments that places value on student interests and identity culminates in more engaging class activities. 

Chapter 5

Walker, in chapter 5, demonstrates the value of user experience maps that track the needs, expectations, and wants, and potential route to the goal of the user. Similar to how journey maps in chapter 2 were used, Walker utilizes user experience maps as a way of reflecting on the scaffolding of prior user research – triangulating data from surveys, interviews, observations, to then create a persona, to then see how a user that falls under that persona might engage with the product. Most importantly though, allowing users to participate in the research by including them in mapping exercises leads to improved experiences. 

Chapter 6

As we enter into chapter 6, Pihlaja doesn’t hesitate to reiterate on students as participatory users in the research process, and even further concedes ground to them by naming them expert users of the products associated with their classes. Due to their experience, and being much closer to the student experience than instructors often are, conceding expert status to students becomes an important asset in assessing products like syllabi, course schedules, assignment sheets, and rubrics. Although, we might extend this even further to include university websites, course catalogues, university payment systems, program requirements, etc. This user-centered design approach takes that expertise and attempts instead to improve on user experiences based on the recommendations of the de facto experts. 

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 steps out of the classroom and instead focuses on the implementation of an oral communication lab for students to record and practice public speaking. Clark and Austin conduct their research by focusing on multiple metrics to determine the efficacy of the lab: statistics on student usage, measures of student success on assignments after using the lab, student behaviors when using the lab (such as moving furniture, how they dressed, and how they adjusted lighting), and differences between voluntary and compulsory usage based on assignment guidelines. The result was that they could focus less on how they intended on the lab to be used, and more on how students wanted to use the lab, allowing them to better change the space to accommodate student learning. 

Chapter 8

In chapter 8, Thominet offers the first foray into more structured user experience research, maintaining their position of authority as a faculty member and focusing on utilizing surveys and workshops to generate insights into program outcome assessments. With other faculty members, they assigned students to one of two workshops where they would generate a list of things that they believe was most important. The questions given in the workshops ranged in customization for students, faculty, and practitioners, allowing for participants to answer any prompt they wished. This process, Thominet notes, is recursive. They offer a heuristic to help guide other researchers, focusing on listening, problem setting, ideating, and iterating so that potential problems can be identified and rectified as needed. 

Chapter 9

While most of these chapters have focused on studies that were implemented over a year or individual semester, Cargile Cook instead offers an example of how longitudinal studies can generate greater insights over multiple phases of research. While not fully completed, Cargile Cook already was noticing more substantial findings from initial surveys about the program’s efficacy that otherwise would have gone unnoticed under normal program assessment initiatives. 

Chapter 10

While Katsman Breuch et al’s chapter was less user experience heavy – it discussed at length the value of placing students with practitioners in the field. Rather than initially attaching the user experience research to the program, they started off with assessing student needs and building a course assignment that allowed students to work with clients outside of the university and then assessed the assignment afterwards through surveys and interviews. Similar to many pedagogical practices, implementation and then assessment was the approach that was made, and in some ways it seems like the program could have been more effective with more extensive user profiling and data collection activities. 

Chapter 11

In chapter 11, Zachry comes to describe something that other contributors didn’t, the very real issue of double binds. Zachry defines double binds as conflicting policies, feedback, and data that makes it exceptionally difficult to make a decision on how to implement feedback gained during user research. In the context of their university and the classroom, they note most explicitly how students didn’t have an understanding of university policies that could inhibit how assignments were graded, or whether attendance was necessary or not. In the wider context of user experience research, they also acknowledge costs of implementation as a major concern in other user experience praxis. 

Chapter 12

In Bay et al’s study, rather than conduct user experience on student experiences with class activities, they placed students in personnel positions in the study as they sought to understand student perceptions of the technical and professional communication major at their university. So, to teach about user experience, they had students participate both as users and researchers of the “product” of the university. This yielded valuable skills as students had to discover alternative methods of finding alumni from the school (the school wasn’t keeping track) which led to future iterations of research wherein the list allows for future research.

Chapter 13

Masters-Wheeler and Fillenwarth tackle the user experience topic from the administrator angle, arguing for program redesign based on how current and graduated students interact with program faculty, staff, resources, and requirements. The goal was to make the process of moving through the university easier, and their findings reflected that. They acknowledge near the end of the chapter that there was a pressing need to update resources and make it easier for students to understand what was expected of them as the moved toward graduation. Like other contributors, they note that this is an iterative process that needs to reassess user needs as context changes. They give the example of Covid-19 and the abolition of print resources in favor of digital copies.

Efficacy of the Book’s Content

Kate Crane and Kelli Cargile Cook have done something tremendous here, as have all of the contributors to the collection. When we ask ourselves how we can improve on students’ experiences in our courses, or try to make sense of why something was seemingly ignored by half of them, they offer potential avenues to better understand how we can fix those issues. I can’t understate how much this book has made me reconsider my own pedagogical practices, especially in allowing students to take a participatory role in constructing the courses that I teach.