Design Education Symposium Nov. 11 & 13

The AIGA National Design Conference and the DEC Educators Symposium will be held virtually Nov. 9-14. View the conference schedule overview. The Design Education Symposia will take place Nov. 11 and 13. See below for the full schedule of DEC sessions. You must be registered for the conference to attend all DEC sessions. Click here to register.

Keynote Speaker: Derek Ham

Join the DEC on Wednesday, Nov. 11 at noon EST as we kick off the Design Education Symposium with keynote speaker Derek Ham, Department Head of Art + Design and Associate Professor at NC State University. Ham’s research interest spans the areas of game-based learning, algorithmic thinking, and digital fabrication/making. In his work, he continues to investigate both virtual reality and augmented realty technology to find ways these tools can expand the possibilities of interaction design. He will present a talk entitled “Intentionally Undisciplined.” 

Design Educators Schedule

The Design Educators symposium responds to Bridging Digital and Physical Experiences, one of the AIGA Design Futures. User experiences are no longer just in the physical world but in the digital world as well. How do emerging technologies impact our experiences? Are there ways for digital processes to enhance physical experience? What happens when there is a disconnect between these online and offline environments? The Educators symposia will address these questions and more. Wednesday will feature our keynote speaker, Derek Ham, and the first several paper presentations.
Friday will feature our final paper sessions and will conclude with rapid-fire sessions. Click here to view the symposium abstract book PDF.

Tuesday, Nov. 10  |  10-10:45 a.m. EST

ROUNDTABLE
AIGA DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion)
Gaby Hernández

Wednesday, Nov. 11  |  10-10:45 a.m. EST

ROUNDTABLE
Dialectic
Michael Gibson

Wednesday, Nov. 11  |  12-2:30 p.m. EST

DESIGN EDUCATION SYMPOSIUM

DEC Welcome + Opening Remarks

Intentionally Undisciplined
Keynote Speaker: Derek Ham

Thinking out loud: designing for the tangible intangibility of Voice User Interfaces (VUI)
Liese Zahabi

Projection Mapping: An Introduction to Augmented Reality
Danielle Foushee

Discovering Data using Augmented Reality
Marty Maxwell Lane

Thursday, Nov. 12  |  10-10:45 a.m. EST

ROUNDTABLE
Diversity and Education
Gaby Hernández + Rebecca Tegtmeyer

Friday Nov. 13  |  12-2:30 p.m. EST

DESIGN EDUCATION SYMPOSIUM

Methodologies for Sensory Design: Converting Information to Experience
Renee Walker

Digital design for physical experiences: leveraging current skills for prototyping in extended reality
David Hardy

User Experience Design of Online Physics Education
Eugene Park

Fox Fridays: Low-Risk Experimentation with A-typical Technologies
Jonathan Hanahan

[Dis]embodied Senses: Interaction Beyond the Screen
Tristen Click

The Collaborative Nature of Narrative VR Applications
Abigail Ayers

Reducing Psychological Distance to Climate Change with Virtual Reality
Victoria Gerson

Design of Digital Dissent
Dina Benbrahim

Beyond UX: Designing for Complete Experiences
Dennis Cheatham

Bridging Data and Human-Centered Experiences
Courtney Marchese

DEC Closing Remarks

Saturday, Nov. 14  |  10-10:45 a.m. EST

ROUNDTABLE
Curriculum and Pedagogy for Complex Problems
Meredith Davis + Alberto Rigau

Graduate Research Posters + Visual Essays

For the 2020 Virtual AIGA Design Conference, the Design Educators Community Steering Committee invited graduate students to submit research posters and/or visual essays that address the topic of Bridging Digital and Physical Experiences, which is one of the trends defined in AIGA’s Design Futures. These seven posters investigate answers to these questions and speculate possible scenarios. Click here to view the posters.