All our courses are offered online at the moment for international students because of the COVID-19 pandemic border closures in New Zealand.
Wellington or Auckland
The Master of User Experience Design is delivered by the School of Design Innovation in Wellington. It’s taught using a dual delivery approach, which means teaching materials, workshops and classes are available online and in person. The programme is based in Wellington but is also offered at our Auckland campus (Kitchener Street).
A range of skills
User experience (UX) design focuses on how people interact with, and experience products and services. These experiences could be on a screen, like a website or an app, or in a physical space, like wayfinding in a museum. And, these can be a mixture of both, and quite complex. Consider the experience of travel: researching, then booking a flight online, checking in, boarding the flight, flying, landing, collecting luggage and leaving the airport.
UX designers carry out a range of tasks: they understand and frame problems through user research and analysis; they interpret findings and prioritise options; they develop concepts to solve the problems and refine those concepts through testing before and after the experience is launched for public use.
UX designers are skilled researchers, critical and creative thinkers, effective communicators, and make a variety of design outputs.
Projects at Wellington ICT. Photo / Supplied
Conversion degree
The Master of User Experience Design (MUXD) is a 12-month 180-point Master’s degree. It's a conversion degree aimed at industry professionals and recent graduates, you don’t have to have an undergraduate Design degree to apply. Recently our students have come from a range of fields including graphic design, journalism, advertising, computer science, software engineering, teaching, government policy, architecture, psychology, industrial design and anthropology. The degree builds on skills developed during professional careers and undergraduate study.
MUXD graduates are currently working in New Zealand and internationally as digital product designers, UX/UI designers, UX researchers, and service designers.
Duration and workload
The programme starts in July each year. You’ll complete your Master’s in one year of full-time study spread over three trimesters: July to October, November to February, and March to June.
Studying full time, you can expect a workload of 30 to 45 hours a week for much of the year.
Part-time study over two years is also possible. Contact the MUXD Programme Director for more information.