User Experience (UX)
Engage with UMSI students along the design cycle to provide meaningful, relevant, accessible, and desirable experiences for users via a variety of projects. Some examples of UX projects are field research and product ideation; evaluation of the usability and engagement of an existing website; creation of initial designs and mockups for a new idea; development and launch of a working prototype; and solving challenges with technology and accessibility
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SI 487: User Experience Final Project - Research and Design
What is User Experience Final Project?
In SI 487: User Experience Final Project, advanced undergraduate students deliver research and design solutions to problems that involve user requirements analysis, user research, prototyping, and user experience evaluation.
Deliverables
What do clients receive for participating in this course?
Visual prototype
Specification documentation
Written report
Client Eligibility
Who can participate?
Potential clients should meet the following criteria:
Able to designate a point of contact who can provide students with necessary requirements and provide feedback on designs during the Winter semester
Able to provide system access to students as needed
Able to facilitate meetings with stakeholders
Able to collaborate virtually with students
Provide project work that involves both research and design , and not just design
Ideal clients and projects come from the greater Ann Arbor and Detroit region, including all of southeast and central Michigan, but we work with clients all over North America. We welcome international organizations to apply, but caution that working across large time zone differences without a solid plan for accommodations make it difficult for students to engage outside North America.
Projects
What are some examples of successful projects?
Spring 2021 Student Project Exposition Award Winners:
Best Project Award (Winner): Capstone Project: Appropriate Technology Collaborative
Best Project Award (Honorable Mention): Interactive Digital Adaptation for Disaster Response
Best Bachelor’s of Science (BSI) Final Project Award (Winner): Cloud Account Fraud Prevention
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award (Winner): SI 487 UX Capstone: Polaris
Presentations and videos from the 2020 project exposition
Video (2020): Backpac
Video (2020): Backyard Brains
What do students do during the project?
How many projects are selected for this course?
Winter 2021: 22 projects selected
Winter 2020: 25 projects selected
Winter 2019: 20 projects selected
* Due to variability in the number of enrolled students each year, these numbers are subject to change and can be used as a rough estimate.
Timeline
SI 487 occurs in the Winter semester (January–April), with a preparatory course in the Fall semester (September–December)
June–August
Client submits project idea
Client Engagement Team (CET) reviews project idea and requests full project proposal
CET works with client to scope and refine proposal
September
Faculty choose proposals to present to students
Students choose their project
October – December
Students engage with clients to define a project plan and timeline, gather and explore data, and finalize anticipated scope and deliverables
January
Students begin project
April
Students finish project and provide deliverable(s) to client
Participate
How do I become a client?
Potential clients should complete this brief form with their contact information and a short summary of their project idea. Our Client Engagement Team will review your submission and reach out to you within 3 business days with next steps.
What if I don't have a project right now, but I'm interested in future opportunities or want to learn more?
If you don't have a specific project in mind for the upcoming semester, but would like to stay informed about future opportunities to work with students through our client-based courses or other programs, complete this registration form to be added to our mailing list.
Former Clients
What do past participants have to say about working with students in this course?
"Thanks to the students' work, we'll have a more user-friendly and browsable portal to our art and architecture archives. Once implemented, our users will be able to find relevant material in our archives, easily browse for related assets, and save their results for future reference."
Doug Litts, Art Institute of Chicago
"The students' work will have a great impact on our future potential clients—who will be able to visit our website in their native language—and we'll utilize their webpage design to reach a new market."
Julie Lee, Michigan Language Center
"The students helped us realize we overlooked something important and fundamental: who are our users? In addition to providing us with solid wireframes which we'll iterate from, they helped us rightly identify our users as not only cardiac arrest victims, but also witnesses of cardiac arrest."
Matthew Wolf, CPR Save