User Experience Design at UCA

With the growing presence of AI in everyday life, preparing you for the careers of the future - as well as of today - is what our BSc (Hons) User Experience Design degree course, taught at UCA Farnham, is all about.

We’ve got the latest technology and newly refurbished studios for you to work in, so you can learn and experiment with everything from 3D scanning, 3D printing, AR and VR technologies to coding, prototyping, and much more.

We’ll equip you with strong foundations in User Experience Design, while also helping you to think about the ways you might be working in ten or 20-years’ time – what opportunities and challenges might you face, and what approaches and technologies could you employ to meet them?

By learning to use tried-and-tested techniques, as well as how to anticipate the unknown, you’ll develop an impressive set of skills and the confidence to make the most of them, whether that’s working for a major brand or as an entrepreneur, carving your own path in industry.

 

Course entry options

Select from the options below to find out more about the different study options available for this course:

What you'll study

What you'll
study

The content of the course may be subject to change. Curriculum content is provided as a guide.

UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated Foundation Year

For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has launched an Integrated International Foundation Year.

This year of preparatory study is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and the English speaking and writing skills you’ll need to succeed.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated International Foundation Year

Your first year focuses on the principles of graphic design practice with a variety of workshops, lectures and live briefs. Indicative content: introduction to UX design, user research, analysis techniques, structure and navigation.

Launch Week 
To start each year, you’ll meet with students across the course for a week of community-led activities, including talks, trips, design sprint exercises and ice-breaking events. 

Design Concepts 
This unit encourages exploration and experimentation with communication and interaction. It focuses on the practical use of concepts and principles of user experience and graphic design to send and receive information across a variety of media, systems and scenarios. 

Equality Diversity and Inclusion 1  
Visual media form the atmosphere and the aesthetics that shape our world and help us navigate it. As visual practitioners, we are responsible for the socio-political make-up of our lives and the lives of others. We need to think critically about how our worlds are created, and to work together within relationships, communities, and collectives. This requires us to consider visual cultures and people from a global perspective. 

Typographic Studies 1.0 
You’ll focus on the investigation, testing and application of the guiding principles and processes associated with user experience and graphic design. This unit has three main focal points – typography, creative methodology (the craft of graphic image construction) and the overarching principles of visual communication. 

Opportunity Week 
Your second term starts with a “hackathon” week, where you work across year groups to produce and replicate industry practice and a brief set by an industry partner, under a tight four-day deadline. 

Design Thinking 
You’ll further develop your understanding of user experience and graphic design concepts and principles, with increasing depth of enquiry and greater knowledge of contemporary methods and processes. You will explore the use of narrative and story to exchange information across a system of outcomes in complex user scenarios, and develop, test and prototype communication and interaction approaches so they are effective, consistent and dynamic. 

Design, Creativity and Innovation  
There are massive-scale problems and opportunities in the world. As designers, we approach these challenges with the aim of developing critical and meaningful ways to articulate and build cultural change. The Design, Creativity and Innovation unit involves authentic approaches to design in relation to change. You will be asked to translate abstract issues into tangible design proposals, grounding projects in real-world social, cultural, technological, and economic issues. The content is concerned with the social, cultural, environmental, and ethical consequences of contemporary life. 

Proclamation 
You’ll reflect on your activities over the year and present your findings to the wider world, via digital or analogue publication, exhibition or event. 

ATOM Activities 1 
ATOM activities are tiny pieces of diverse individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across the university’s curricular and beyond. They are chosen by you according to your personal interest.  

PLE Digital Outcome 1 
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive engagement with and presence on, digital media platforms across the year. 

 

Your second year deepens your investigation into the creative, personal and business aspects of user experience design. Indicative content: interactions, design principles, design patterns, mobile UX, workflows, prototyping and wireframing.

Launch Week 
To start each year, you’ll meet with students across the course for a week of community-led activities, including talks, trips, design sprint exercises and ice-breaking events. 

Multimodal Approaches to Design  
One important aim of this degree programme is to view user experience and graphic design as a collection of principles, processes and methodologies. A key objective of the second year is to explore multimodal approaches to design and relate them critically to your own practice and to the professional world. 

The Conscious Practitioner 
Visual media form the atmosphere and aesthetics that shape our worlds and determine how we navigate our worlds. This means that as visual practitioners, we have a responsibility towards the socio-political make-up of our lives and the lives of others. We need to think critically about how our worlds are created, and how we work together within relationships, communities and collectives. This requires us to interrogate visual culture and communication practices from a global perspective. 

Typographic Studies 2.0 (Elective) 
This unit explores the critical thinking, creative and technical skills you need when working with large amounts of text. During this unit you will develop an awareness of the many interpretive possibilities of even simple texts by experimenting with their typographic presentation and configuration, while learning the knowledge and techniques needed for editorial design, on screen and paper, and exploring the opportunities and challenges of working internationally. 

IMPACT 2 (Elective) 
In this elective unit you can consider new and responsive ways in which images can and might be used, both now and in future, to deepen engagement and reach users in new and interactive ways. 

Opportunity Week 
Your second term starts with a “hackathon” week, where you work across year groups to produce and replicate industry practice and a brief set by an industry partner, under a tight four-day deadline. 

Design for Screen 
This unit introduces content, design, narrative and sequence as concepts applied to screen-based outcomes. You’ll explore how texts, visuals, movement, sound, structure and format support communication and interaction. During the unit, you will be introduced to digital design methods, tools and techniques, and produce and evaluate outcomes that reflect and are relevant to contemporary global audiences. 

Building an Identity 
The main aim of this unit is to help you prepare for work experience/graduation and to give you the opportunity to research the world of current user experience and graphic design practice in a range of related industries and associated career paths. It will also give you an opportunity to reflect critically on your own interests, career aspirations and sense of personal identity. You will explore and target organisations, agencies and individuals who work within your chosen areas of expertise. You’ll develop promotional materials and build an extensive online presence enabling growing interaction and communication with professionals. 

Working in the Creative Industries 
As a practitioner in the creative industries, you’ll need a thorough knowledge of the sector and the ability to operate within it. So, you will demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of design and production within the creative sector, form critical awareness of business and management principles and practices that support organisational success, and assess and identify your own individual skills and learning style. 

ATOM Activities 1 
ATOM activities are tiny pieces of diverse individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across the university’s curricular and beyond. They are chosen by you according to your personal interest.  

PLE Digital Outcome 1 
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive engagement with and presence on, digital media platforms across the year. 

If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

While on your Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Please note: If you are an international applicant, you will need to enrol onto the course ‘with Professional Practice Year’. It will not be possible to transfer onto the Professional Practice Year after enrolment

In your final year, you'll focus on your career aspirations by defining a research topic, presenting your findings in the form of a viva, then prototyping your concept with a view to taking the product to market.

Launch Week 
To start each year, you’ll meet with students across the course for a week of community-led activities, including talks, trips, design sprint exercises and ice-breaking events. 

Industry-Led Competitions  
The design industry has a number of national and international awards created specifically for students including Red Dot, D&AD, the International Society of Typographic Designers and YCN. This unit offers you the opportunity to work on one (or more) of these industry-led student competitions. 

Contextual Research  
As a user experience and graphic designer you are not a neutral practitioner – your work responds to and shapes the world around it. This unit encourages you to interrogate a particular theme or topic, research it, gather material and analyse how it informs your ideas and your design practice. You’ll develop a position and a perspective in relation to contextual research and theoretical frameworks, then develop a meaningful portfolio of that research that informs, augments and reflects upon practice. 

Opportunity Week 
Your second term starts with a “hackathon” week, where you work across year groups to produce and replicate industry practice and a brief set by an industry partner, under a tight four-day deadline. 

Final Major Project
The Final Major Project gives you the opportunity to demonstrate the fluency of your design and communication skills, and to examine a subject or theme in depth through a self-determined and challenging assignment. Your Final Major Project will benefit from your increased understanding of theoretical issues developed over the previous years of study — how these inform and contextualise your practical work, your research skills and your creative/strategic design abilities. 

This course is designed to offer you (if eligible) the opportunity to study part of your degree aboard at a UCA partner university, while still earning credits towards your UCA degree.

For more information please visit the Study Abroad section

Industry placement
offer

Preparing graduates for successful careers underpins everything we do, and all students on this course may be offered support to identify and prepare for an industry placement according to their individual needs. We’ll draw on our wide range of contacts within the creative industries to help provide you with opportunities that align with your interests and future career aspirations.

Course specifications

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.

Fees & funding

Fees & financial support

Tuition fees - 2024/25 entry

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £9,250
  • BSc course: £9,250

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2024 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,850. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2024/25 entry

  • Integrated International Foundation Year: £9,250 (see fee discount information)
  • BSc course: £9,250 (see fee discount information)

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2024 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,850. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2024/25 entry

  • Integrated International Foundation Year: £16,950
  • BSc course: £17,500

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2024 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £3,390. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Please note: The fees listed on this webpage are correct for the stated academic year only, for details of previous years please see the full fee schedules.

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources. Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information.

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of your Course Information for details of the costs you may incur.

Facilities

This course has dedicated studios that offer spaces for group tutorials and personal working. There are on-campus digital media suites with Macs and PCs running latest programmes for film editing, as well as general design work. There are open-access printmaking studios with screen printing and letterpress facilities, 3D printers and bookbinding equipment. There is also a modern library that stocks a wealth of books, journals, special collections and online resources.

View 360 virtual tour

Studio, UCA Farnham

Lecture theatre, UCA Farnham

Digital media suite, UCA Farnham

Library, UCA Farnham

Career opportunities

Career
opportunities

Graduates of this exciting and innovative course can expect to leave to develop their career under a number of different roles.

This includes:

  • Video games designer
  • User research manager
  • User interface designer
  • Product designer
  • UX/UI designer
  • Product developer
  • Digital product designer
  • User experience designer
  • Content designer.

You may also like to consider further study at postgraduate level.

What’s it like being a student at UCA?

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Entry & portfolio requirements

Entry & portfolio
requirements

BSc (Hons) course
BSc (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

  • 112 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
  • Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
  • Distinction, Merit, Merit at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
  • Merit at UAL Extended Diploma
  • 112 UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
  • 27-30 total points in the International Baccalaureate Diploma with at least 15 IB points at Higher level, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply.  

Portfolio requirements

For these courses, we’ll need to see your portfolio for review. We’ll invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. Further information will be provided once you have applied. View more portfolio advice

 


BSc (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year
BSc (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

  • 32 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
  • Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
  • Pass, Pass, Pass at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
  • Pass at UAL Extended Diploma
  • 32 UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
  • 24 points from the International Baccalaureate, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply. 

Portfolio requirements

For these courses, we’ll need to see your portfolio for review. We’ll invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. Further information will be provided once you have applied. View more portfolio advice

 


*We occasionally make offers which are lower than the standard entry criteria, to students who have faced difficulties that have affected their performance and who were expected to achieve higher results. We consider the strength of our applicants’ portfolios, as well as their grades -  in these cases, a strong portfolio is especially important.

BSc (Hons) course
BSc (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The entry requirements for these courses will depend on the country your qualifications are from, please check the equivalent qualifications for your country:

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

You will be required to submit a portfolio for review. Further information on specific portfolio requirements and how to submit your portfolio will be sent to you after we have reviewed your application. View more portfolio advice

 


BSc (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year
BSc (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

For these courses you need to have completed 12 years of schooling (with good grades) and show strong evidence of your ability to successfully complete the programme and progress onto your chosen degree.

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio.

 


English language requirements

To study at UCA, you'll need to have a certain level of English language skill. And so, to make sure you meet the requirements of your course, we ask for evidence of your English language ability, please check the level of English language required:

Don't meet the international entry requirements or English language requirements?

You may be able to enter the course through the following entry pathways:

Apply now

Please use the following fields to help select the right application link for you:

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