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MSc New Media Design
​Tilburg University

"A New Media Designer is an expert in the field of content and interaction design, who knows how to test designs and take them to the next level using scientific insights."

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What is New Media Design?

A New Media Designer is emerged in interactive technology, design processes, creativity and how people use new media. This makes a new media designer an expert in the field of content and interaction design, who knows how to test designs and take them to the next level using scientific insights.

Knowledge and skills

• A specialized New Media Designer knows all the latest developments in new media and knows what the added value new media can have in all kinds of domains: in the workplace, in education, healthcare, leisure, entertainment and daily life.
• New media designers have critical insight in design processes and know how to design these processes, taking user behavior and needs into account.
• New media designers also know which factors are crucial in interaction design and in the presentation of various types of content related to intended goals.
• New media designers can test the usability and user experience of a design, to interpret academic research data and to propose improvements based on new media designers' interpretation.

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A specialized New Media Designer knows all the latest developments in new media and knows what the added value new media can have in all kinds of domains: in the workplace, in education, healthcare, leisure, entertainment and daily life.

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New media designers also know which factors are crucial in interaction design and in the presentation of various types of content related to intended goals.

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New media designers have critical insight in design processes and know how to design these processes, taking user behavior and needs into account.

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New media designers can test the usability and user experience of a design, to interpret academic research data and to propose improvements based on new media designers' interpretation.

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Fields & Skills:

Use academic research for Designs

Investigate & Advise

Designing Usability & Testing

Design Processes

UX-Research & Verification

UX-Design

Interaction Design

Behaviour &
​Persuasive Design

Virtual Reality Design

Augmented Reality Design

New Media Expert

Digital Health Communication

Human mind &
​New Media Design

Creativity &
Innovation Methods

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How we Work. 
Design Thinking (one of our methods)

See Toolbox

My Timeline of the Master New Media Design

Start of the Pre-Master

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Pre-Master Block 1

Courses:

1. Statistics for Premasters 
2. Methodology For Premasters 
3. Academic English for PM CIS 
4. Research Seminar Premasters CIS 
5. The foundations of New Media Design

Pre-Master Block 2

Courses:

1. Statistics for Premasters 
2. Methodology For Premasters 
3. Academic English for PM CIS 
4. Research Seminar Premasters CIS 
5. The foundations of New Media Design

Start of Master New Media Design

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Block 1

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1. The Human Mind in the Digital World

Aims:

• Name and describe relevant cognitive functions in human-media interaction, and understand new media use on the basis of these cognitive functions;
• Understand how new media use and specific design features can affect the human mind;
• Critically assess the quality and validity of theory and research on the interplay between new media and cognition;
• Demonstrating presentation skill and discussion moderation;
• Demonstrating conceptualization, argumentation, and urgency in writing an academic  essay.

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2. Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Aims:
Learning goals

• critically examine the use of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality in state-of-the-art experimental research in the humanities and the social sciences
• evaluate the use of virtual reality as an object, method, and application in the field of language and communication research specifically
• identify and value the practical prerequisites to create a basic virtual reality experience
• investigate a theory-driven research question by using an existing or novel virtual reality or augmented reality application

Academic skills

• Communication skills: in the form of in-class discussions and presentations
• Academic reasoning skills: in the form of reflection, analysis, and discussion of research literature
• Academic research skills: in the form of developing a research project
• Academic writing skills: in the form of a research proposal that uses VR, AR, or MR as a method

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3. Rapid Prototying

Aims:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Examine the latest academic research, theories, and techniques in prototyping;
• Characterize various techniques for prototyping (e.g., sketches, paper prototypes, narrative prototypes, experience prototypes, interactive prototypes, coded prototypes, and physical prototypes);
• Formulate research questions to guide their prototyping activities;
• Give constructive feedback to their peers about the prototypes they have developed;
• Communicate the progress and findings regarding their prototyping process and activities.

Block 2

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1. Mobile Media & Society

Aims:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Be able to name and describe key socio-historical evolutions of our society, and explain how these evolutions give insight into how we use mobile and social media in our everyday life;
• Be able to name, describe, explain and illustrate relevant theories and concepts that explain how mobile media shape the social organization of everyday life.;
• Be able to apply and illustrate the former theories and concepts in an analysis or evaluation of contemporary issues or topics;
• Be able to describe explain, evaluate and illustrate challenges and opportunities that result from mobile and social media use for the social organization of everyday life.;
• Be able to create a report, potentially based upon an empirical study (such as a survey), on the social implications of mobile media, with the report as the graded deliverable.

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2. User Experience Design

Aims:
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Explain the key concepts, theories and models regarding user experience
• Find and critically analyse scientific literature to understand the nature of experiential qualities (i.e. specific aspects or dimensions of the user experience)
• Find and critically analyse scientific empirical literature to understand how design features of new media products affect experiential qualities
• Design and conduct a scientific experiment to assess the effect of specific design features of new media products on particular experiential qualities
• Identify potential unintended consequences of design decisions that are common in new media design and communicate these in the form of a design fiction
• Apply the three main normative ethical theories (deontology, consequentialism and virtue ethics) as a lens to critically reflect on technology and media design
• Communicate research findings, e.g. in the form of presentations and written reports

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3. Usability and User Experience Evalutation

Aims:
On successful completion of this course students will be able to:

• Explain the main principles of designing a user experience and usability evaluation with regard to conceptual distinctions of definitions, utility and ethical implications;
• Adequately characterize methods to obtain meaningful data towards a specific evaluation focus or goal for a user experience and usability evaluation;
• Apply scientific principles together with practical considerations to assess user experience and usability evaluations;
• Plan a case study for an existing product that suffers from usability or user-experience problems and derive propositions;
• Apply appropriate data visualization and reporting skills to communicate the focus, process and findings of a user experience and usability evaluation for a specific target audience (industry and academic context);

Block 3

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1. Creativity and Innovation

Aims:
The main goal of this course is to provide a thorough understanding of the science behind creativity and innovation. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Explain the concepts creativity and innovation
• Explain and analyse how cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes disable, enable, and enhance creativity.
• Apply methods for measuring creativity
• Apply knowledge about how creativity works to professional domains, such as design
• Evaluate and create techniques (so called creativity support tools) that enhance creativity

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2. Digital Health Communication

Aims:
After successfully completing the course, the student is able to

• Explain the main theories in the field of digital health communication and application design and employ these in the development of a novel digital health application;
• Understand the main principles in (health) technology adoption and apply these to the development of a digital health communication application;
• Critically evaluate and synthesize recent literature on the effectiveness of digital health communication and formulate evidence-based design recommendations;
• Be able to communicate design ideas effectively by creating prototypes of digital health applications;
• Describe the main methods used in evaluation (adherence and effectiveness of digital health applications) and conceive an evaluation study.

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3.  Start with Master Thesis New Media Design

Aims:
After successful completion of a master’s thesis, students are able to

1. Formulate a well-defined and adequate research question to study a scientifically relevant and clearly delineated problem within the field of Communication and Information Sciences and introduce this research question in an analytically skilled way. 
2. Construct a theoretical framework for their research question based on a critical analysis of relevant theoretical and empirical scientific literature. 
3. Design and carry out a suitable research set-up to answer their research question and report the methods and procedures used in a clear and justified manner. 
4. Perform in-depth qualitative or quantitative data analysis using suitable analyzing techniques and report the results in a clear and orderly fashion. 
5. Describe and explain the main findings from their data analysis and identify new relevant insights that emerged from these findings in relation to the problem under study.
6. Report about the set-up, execution and results of their own research in a clear, systematic, critical and well-argued way.

The Master Thesis

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Master Thesis New Media Design

Thesis: "Is it necessary to sensitize end-users
before a design workshop?"
​

See MSc Thesis Portfolio

​Finished with MSc. Thesis 8/10  (Dutch rating system 1= bad 10= excellent)

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See my Portfolio for New Media Projects