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Research

Tyler Fox's Research Group Archive

This page contains an archive of the past five years of Directed Research Groups led by Professor Fox. View his currently offered DRGs »

Spring 2025

Advancing communal experiences DRG

Instructors:

  • Tyler Fox
  • Jennifer Turns

In this Directed Research Group (DRG), we will explore both a hypothesis and a design question:

  • Hypothesis: There are currently varied experiences of community in the HCDE BS program, with multiple factors contributing to these experiences.
  • Design Question: How might we advance a community orientation in the HCDE BS program?

Our work will unfold in three phases:

Part 1: Research and Exploration (3 weeks)

  • Share personal perspectives as a starting point for our investigation
  • Conduct research beyond our group by interviewing other BS program students (each participant will speak with approximately five peers)
  • Examine the history of the BS program and how it relates to the current state of community
  • Explore the concept of community broadly—its possible understandings, contributors, and consequences
  • Discuss our own experiences with community—where we've felt connected and what factors contributed to that feeling
  • Investigate how community experiences connect with course engagement, participation, attendance, learning outcomes, and professional success

Part 2: Ideation (2 weeks)

  • Develop possible design directions based on our research findings

Part 3: Design Implementation (5 weeks)

  • Form groups around the most promising design directions
    Work toward creating deliverables to share at the end of the term
    Projects may range from speculative designs to pragmatic prototypes

Winter 2025

Design Competencies DRG

Instructors:
Tyler Fox & René Capella

We are seeking 4-5 graduate students with qualitative research experience (through HCDE 519 or equivalent research background demonstrated in your CV) to join our DRG, examining how designers develop their capabilities across different domains of practice. Our research focuses on transitioning from user experience design to systemic design approaches, tracking how students grow and adapt their skills through this progression.

The study draws from data collected over two academic quarters, offering an in-depth look at design competency development. This is an opportunity to engage with rich qualitative data while contributing to our understanding of design education and professional growth.

Spring 2024

From UX to Transitions - Understanding Design Competencies

This is a two-quarter DRG. Individuals will be joining an existing team for Spring Quarter. 

In this DRG, we seek to understand the core competencies of Transition Design. Transition Design aims to catalyze socio-technological transition toward more sustainable futures focusing on fundamental change at every level of society through reimagining entire lifestyles and infrastructures like energy, economy, food, healthcare, and education. We are interested to know if and how UX design processes support transition design frameworks, and what implications this may have for both design education and design practice.

This research will be participatory. Participants in these DRGs will work in teams to work with local organizations in winter and spring. In winter, teams will mobilize user and human-centered processes to help our local organizations realize a modest workflow (onboarding for a community-based science project, for example). In spring, teams will work with the same organization to envision a transition for the future directly related to the organization's mission.

We seek both undergraduate and graduate students to participate in this research. We use the term participation with intent. 

Spring 2024

Exploring LLMs for UX Design Critique

Your faculty hosts:

  • Dr. Tyler Fox
  • Dr. David W. McDonald

Can an LLM generate a design critique? Well … sure it can. But is it any good? How would you know?

User experience professionals will soon encounter all types of tools driven by LLMs, GPT, or AI that will claim to make their jobs easier, provide feedback, and assess usability of their designs. Having a clear understanding of what these tools can or cannot provide will be important to being an effective professional in the new world of UX.

This DRG will explore how GPT and LLMs can be used to provide important design feedback on early stage design artifacts. Participants in this DRG will work with their own early stage designs - perhaps something they already have designed. Those designs will then be used to examine the quality and effectiveness of different types of critique generated by LLMs. Students will qualitatively evaluate the LLM generated critique to understand the different qualities of LLM feedback. During the quarter, students will work to engineer a ChatGPT prompt that will provide a selected form of critique.

What students can expect to learn by participating in this DRG:

  • Styles and forms of UX critique
  • Qualitative and quantitative assessment of feedback content
  • Prompt engineering techniques for ChatGPT

Skills that would allow you to be successful in this DRG include:

  • The ability to give and interpret (receive) critique
  • Basic technical skills (e.g., ability to understand or learn JSON markup)

Winter 2024

From UX to Transitions - Understanding Design Competencies

This is a two-quarter DRG. Individuals available for both the Spring and Winter quarters will be prioritized. Each DRG will be 1-2 credits.

In this DRG, we seek to understand the core competencies of Transition Design. Transition Design aims to catalyze socio-technological transition toward more sustainable futures focusing on fundamental change at every level of society through reimagining entire lifestyles and infrastructures like energy, economy, food, healthcare, and education. We are interested to know if and how UX design processes support transition design frameworks, and what implications this may have for both design education and design practice.

This research will be participatory. Participants in these DRGs will work in teams to work with local organizations in winter and spring. In winter, teams will mobilize user and human-centered processes to help our local organizations realize a modest workflow (onboarding for a community-based science project, for example). In spring, teams will work with the same organization to envision a transition for the future directly related to the organization's mission.

We seek both undergraduate and graduate students to participate in this research. We use the term participation with intent. Not only will students in this DRG be subjects, but they will also help with analysis. Students participating in this project will come away with a better understanding of their own design competencies. This will be valuable in portfolio creation, interviews, and simply understanding one's self as a designer.

Winter 2024

Workshops for Wicked Problems II: Qualitative Coding and Analysis of Workshop Data

Building on the successful completion of our initial phase, which focused on the facilitation and data collection of six design workshops, this Directed Research Group (DRG) is now entering its second phase: qualitative coding, analysis, and evaluation of the collected data. We invite 2-3 graduate students to join us in this critical stage, where the emphasis will shift from data collection to deep analytical engagement.

During the first DRG (AU23), titled "Workshops for Wicked Problems: Mapping Ethical Relations and Responsibilities in Multidisciplinary Collaborations," the DRG team supported a series of workshops, conducted post-workshop interviews with participants, and prepared data for analysis. These included 3 Speculative F/Actors workshops and 3 Entangled Justice workshops, each uniquely designed to explore global and local perspectives on climate futures, trace intricacies of wicked problems, and experiment with multidisciplinary collaboration strategies for understanding justice issues in specific focus areas: circular economy, marine energy, and climate migration.

In this next phase, our focus will be on thoroughly analyzing the rich data from these workshops. The DRG team will engage in qualitative research methods such as qualitative coding and interpretive analysis, gaining hands-on experience in evaluating multidisciplinary research data. Our weekly schedule will include a 2-hour Zoom meeting for discussions, analysis progress reviews, and collaborative coding sessions. In these meetings, we will delve into the nuances of our workshop data, exploring themes such as knowledge practices, ethical encounters, and the role of design in addressing societal challenges.

We are looking for 2-3 graduate students to participate in this DRG. No prior experience is needed, but experience with qualitative research methods is a plus. The weekly 2-hour meeting time will be determined by the team using a when2meet poll (shared in the invite email) so we can find a time that works best for everyone. The DRG will be led by PhD Candidate Michael Beach and advised by Associate Teaching Professor Tyler Fox. If you have any questions, please reach out to Michael at mwb8@uw.edu or DM on the HCDE Slack. 

Autumn 2023

Workshops for Wicked Problems: Mapping Ethical Relations and Responsibilities in Multidisciplinary Collaborations

The primary goal of this DRG is to support the facilitation, data collection, and early analysis of a series of six design workshops: 3 Speculative F/Actors workshops and 3 Entanglement workshops. In addition to these supportive roles, DRG participants will also take the role as a workshop participant in one or two of the workshops. The Speculative F/Actors workshop is designed to support collaborative worldbuilding around climate change issues at global scales as they resonate in locally situated scales. The Entanglement workshop is designed to explore, map and trace relations around wicked problems through scaffolded conversation and design activities that support collaborative multidisciplinary engagement. Each workshop will focus on a different topic: e.g., decline of the western redcedar in the PNW, marine energy, and circular economy. This workshop looks at “(a) the performative relationship between humans and technology; (b) the re-framing of knowledge generation processes around phenomena; (c) the tracing of accountabilities, responsibilities and ethical encounters; and (d) the practices of design and mattering that move beyond user-centered design” (Frauenberger, 2019).

The DRG will have a 1-hour weekly check-in meeting on Zoom for general housekeeping, workshop preparations, and ongoing analysis as we collect data.  In addition to the recurring check-in meeting, each DRG participant must sign up to attend and support at least 2 of the 6 in-person workshops. The workshops are still being scheduled according to recruitment efforts and will most likely be held on the UW campus. We should have the full workshop schedule sorted before the start of the quarter and we will take time in the first check-in session for you to sign up.

A brief overview of the DRG schedule:

  • Weeks 1-2: Introductions, DRG goals, onboarding, and data collection/analysis activities
  • Weeks 3-8: Workshops and Analysis
  • Weeks 9-10: Analysis 

We are looking for 5-6 dedicated undergrad or graduate students to participate in this DRG. No prior experience is needed, but experience with qualitative research methods is a plus. The 1-hour check-in meetings will be held on Tuesdays from 3-4pm, although we may not need to meet the entire time so there is more time to work on workshop preparation, analysis, and other aspects of the project. 

The DRG will be led by PhD Candidate Michael Beach and advised by Associate Teaching Professor Tyler Fox. If you have any questions, please reach out to Michael at mwb8@uw.edu or on the HCDE Slack. 

Spring 2023

Human Centered Design in London Preparatory Seminar

This bi-weekly seminar will prepare students for the design work that they will undertake during the Study Abroad Program. We will prepare to explore the cultural and design context of London and discuss readings on design strategies and methods. Practical considerations for the program will also be covered.

This course meets bi-weekly, for 2 hours. This DRG is exclusive to and required for participants in the HCDE in London Study Abroad program. 

Spring 2023

Climate Migration Design Workshops

This DRG is a week-long experiment connecting UCD and transition design practices. Inspired by a local project exploring assisted climate migration for the Western Red Cedar, we will explore the connections between creative practice and human and nonhuman worlds. As members of this DRG you will be responsible for the continuity of ideas over the week. In other words, you will be the “designer glue,” shepherding initial ideas to realization.
The DRG will be run by Drs. Tyler Fox, Brock Craft, and John Fass (from the MAUX program at the London College of Communication), and PhD Candidate Michael Beach.

Spring 2022

Design Artifacts and Toolkits

Service design is a growing field focused on the success of an organization beyond an individual product or user experience.

In collaboration with CX/service designers at Microsoft, we will explore a suite of artifacts that support service design. We will see how they are currently used in industry, and begin to assemble service design toolkits with an eye on adding new tools to enhance future service design. Working in teams, students will develop toolkits for possible services. Designers from Microsoft will partner with us, offering insight into service design at Microsoft and will join us periodically for feedback, critique, and mentorship.

This will be a fast-paced DRG, focused on understanding the design artifacts for service design. Students with a strong interest in service design, or an established expertise in a design practice (visual design, interaction design, etc.) are encouraged to apply.

Spring 2022

Human Centered Design in London Preparatory Seminar (1 credit)

This bi-weekly seminar will prepare students for the design work that they will undertake during the Study Abroad Program. We will prepare to explore the cultural and design context of London and discuss readings on design strategies and methods. Practical considerations for the program will also be covered.
This course meets bi-weekly, for 2 hours. This DRG is exclusive to and required for participants in the HCDE in London Study Abroad program. 

Winter – Spring 2021

The UX of Climate Change: Western Red Cedar Dieback

How do we notice and experience climate change? How might we design human-centered experiences that contribute to science, while also considering the impact on local communities? In this DRG, we will partner with Forest Health Watch and approach these questions through Western red cedar dieback.

Western red cedars are a critical organism in PNW forests. Environmentally, they perform critical roles such as storing carbon, filtering water, and cleaning the air. Western red cedars also have cultural importance with many indigenous communities. Currently, Western red cedars are dying back across the region, most likely caused by climate change. Scientists believe that Western red cedars offer a unique opportunity to track the effects of climate change in our region.

In Spring 2021, we will shift focus from current conditions and solutions to consider future conditions. Drawing upon discursive design techniques, we will seek ways to understand, imagine, and envision future states of a changing world.