Master of Science in
Digital Design and Interactive Technologies

Specialisation: Designing Interactions

The specialisation in Designing Interactions embraces elements from computer science and design. This specialisation is relevant to many different industries because interaction design plays an important role in designing the technological foundation or in creating value and differentiation for interactive products. For interaction designers, it is a key concept to understand and investigate contexts where the specific product is to be used, and this is what forms the basis of the design activity.

This specialisation focuses on theories, exercises and methods that you can use to improve your ability to critically analyse, understand and develop interactive technologies through hands-on experiments. 

You can carry out your experiments in some of the IT University's various labs (e.g. IxD Lab or Design Lab). Here you will learn to demonstrate accurate and robust digital and physical interactive prototypes that work and you will develop your technical skills within programming. You will learn to innovate existing interactive products, define features for different products as well as develop strategies for product development.

Specialisation: Service Design

As an interdisciplinary field, service design deals with design of systems and processes in order to provide solid user experiences of services. It is about defining the interfaces between the user and the service provider, as well as creating an overall service strategy for an organisation. Opposite products, services are created in the moment they are used, and therefore it is difficult for a designer to get the full picture of the interaction between the user and the service provider before it is actually used.

The specialisation in Service Design focuses on theoretical, methodical and practical aspects of design of services with digital components, such as web, mobile, IoT and cloud-based platforms. This specialisation takes a macro perspective and a holistic approach to design in order to unite business needs, users and technology in creating innovative services. During the specialisation, you will develop the skills that is needed for digitizing and servicing organisations and communities. Skills within Service Design are necessary in order to manage changes in service structures, which is part of the process of introducing digital infrastructures.

Specialisation: User Cultures

On the specialisation in User Cultures, you learn to analyse and evaluate the daily use of digital products and services. You will focus on how to improve the user experience of a product, how to discover new patterns of usage and how to get new users by e.g. redesigning a platform. In addition, you will learn to reflect critically on the organisational, societal and cultural use of network services, and you will learn to influence how digital services are used in the network communities and how to (re)design them. 

During the specialisation, you will learn to identify, analyse, manage and strengthen user groups and user cultures across platforms, and you will learn to design and develop relevant interaction environments focusing on user participation in specific contexts.

Specialisation: UX Design

On the specialisation in UX Design (User Experience Design) you will get theoretical frameworks, tools and techniques for designing innovative user experiences. Based on standard UX techniques, such as fast prototyping, wireframing and iterative design processes, and through playfull designs, story-based approaches and cultural studies, you will learn methods to develop prototypes for new user experiences. 

During the specialisation, you will develop skills that combine understanding of new design areas within interactive products with knowledge of business models for e.g. new interactive media and creative and cultural industries. The teaching and the courses on specialisation are project oriented.

Thesis example

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Many patients actually prefer receiving treatment at home. But in order to fully exploit the potential of telemedicine, patients must be able to take control of their own disease and know more about their illness.

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Thesis example

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The idea was to let the audience ‘date’ the artworks, so we designed a prototype for a Tinder-like app for art museums, where artworks nearby pop up on the screen.

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Teaching

The teaching includes lectures, group projects and exercises. Students on the MSc in Digital Design and Interactive Technologies come with different academic backgrounds. Some have backgrounds within music, art and design, others within science and social science, such as sociology and political science. This diversity creates a creative academic environment where projects are viewed and handled from many different perspectives.

Part of the teaching takes place in the IT University's labs, where you can do laser cutting or 3D printing in order to produce prototypes of your concept and product ideas.

The IT University cooperates with the business community and you have the opportunity to collaborate with companies and organisations from both the private and public sector. This means that you will work with real-world challenges and you will be able to create a network outside university during your studies.

Career

With and MSc in Digital Design and Interactive Technologies you will have a combination of theoretical insight and practical skills and you will especially be qualified to work as e.g.:

• Interaction Designer
• User Experience Designer
• Customer Experience Designer
• Interface Designer
• Design Researcher
• Service Designer 

You can also work with digital concept development and you have the opportunity to work more widely within fields like e.g. digital project management or different kinds of jobs that are involved in digitisation and digitisation strategies in general.

If you are interested in applying for a PhD at the IT University, please see here.