Master of Arts in Design

The Department of Design advances the professional work of thoughtful, creative, and meaningful design to delight, inspire, and serve the needs of people. Design is the planning that lays the basis for creation and development of every object or system people use. Design programs train students to be problem solvers who consider the aesthetic, functional, and user-focused aspects of an object or a process. This requires considerable integrative research, thought, modeling, interactive adjustments, and redesign.

The M.A in Design with a concentration in Design Management and Strategy explores in depth the design function in business as an important integrative, and often interdisciplinary, area. The curriculum couples a rigorous, practical understanding of business with design’s natural capacity for handling diverse input, creative problem-solving, and human-centered understanding.

The Design Management and Strategy program is for prospective students who already hold design-related baccalaureate degrees and are seeking specialized study in management. Applicants should have at least 2 years of full-time professional work experience in design or a design-related field.

The master’s student in design management and strategy should demonstrate an advanced ability to solve design problems, manage teams and processes, communicate clearly, and produce excellent goal-directed outcomes. The graduate will have completed significant course work and a thesis that documents independent discovery and research and will have passed an oral examination on that work. For more information about the program M.A. in Design Management and Strategy.

The M.A in Design with a concentration in Interaction Design and User Experience involves researching and fashioning products, services, and systems that are useful, usable, and desirable. Interaction design and user experience offers a human-centered approach to innovation, creatively mediating how businesses engage with customers and how brands and organizations can become more relevant in the marketplace. Broadly speaking, interaction design and user experience defines the contextual behavior of artifacts, environments, and systems.

The Interaction Design program is for prospective students who already hold design-related baccalaureate degrees and are seeking advanced study in a versatile, rapidly growing professional design discipline. Applicants should have at least 2 years of full-time professional work experience in design or a design-related field.

The master’s student in interaction design and user experience should demonstrate the ability to conduct original design research, translate research insights into design input, and produce an interactive artifact of relevance and quality. The graduate will have completed significant course work and a thesis that documents independent discovery and research and will have passed an oral examination on that work. For more information about the program M.A in Interaction Design and User Experience.

KU is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. The entrance and graduation requirements in this catalog conform to the published guidelines of that organization.

For both concentrations, students are mentored individually and advised as necessary on an independent research topic that has the potential to develop into a formal, substantial, and meaningful thesis project. Students are encouraged to apply a process of design research and discovery to:

  1. Approach their thesis–itself–as a design problem to be solved, with the subject thereof being of necessary interest to themselves, and likely relevant and beneficial to others.
  2. Frame their design problem in a manner and scope they can effectively handle as a project.
  3. Write a proposal that sets out the problem and how they intend to address it, while forwarding (as necessary) more, iterative, and improved drafts of the proposal for advisor feedback.
  4. Execute the thesis to conduct the research, design, test, and articulate a solution to the problem.
  5. Present the thesis to a faculty committee for their vote, and subsequently upload the finished thesis for publication.