Stories

Institutions of higher education are looking for new approaches to retain students, ensure timely progression and graduation, and maximize learning. University culture, structure, and incentives can often paralyze institutions, making it challenging to focus the work of faculty and administrators in a meaningful and timely way. Research conducted at Boise State University shows that design thinking has the potential to increase the creative capacity of university staff at all levels to rapidly improve the student experience.

When Fidelity Labs, the innovation arm of Fidelity Investments, decided to help borrowers gain a greater sense of control over their student loans, it became apparent that it was extremely hard for borrowers to obtain a clear picture of their total debt. The Fidelity Labs team used human-centered design techniques to distill the complexity of student loans and give borrowers the agency to take control of their financial futures.

Welcome to the first edition of the Design Reader, presented by the School of Design and Creative Technologies at The University of Texas at Austin.

Fidelity Labs has created a process called ADEPT to create and evaluate the future of new product offerings. In this process, user experience (UX) designers are brought in at the pilot phase of a project, bringing their expertise to the table at a key juncture to ensure its success.

The New York Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity used design thinking, empathy, and journey mapping to understand the experience of a homeless person engaging in the complicated process of obtaining housing. These insights helped the city use existing resources to their full potential and provide a better experience for all of its citizens.

Sensely’s app uses an avatar-based nurse to have a daily check-in “conversation” with patients to help them manage their health as they deal with chronic congestive heart failure. Human-centered design is key to building a smart artificial intelligence platform that improves health outcomes for patients on a daily basis.

Fidelity Labs has had a growing Design Thinking team since 2005, helping people in all parts of the company adopt a design-forward approach to their work. More recently, the practice has evolved to focus on design strategy in the firm’s incubators, or small startups run by Fidelity tasked with exploring adjacent spaces to its core business. Fidelity’s design strategists apply a human-centered lens to uncover unmet needs and hidden opportunities.

From radically redesigning the syllabus, to reimagining the role of facilitators inside and outside of class, to considering student-directed learning as a human-centered design challenge, designers are leading the way in transforming the collegiate classroom.

In May, Julie Schell joined the College of Fine Arts as the new Executive Director of Executive and Extended Education in the School of Design and Creative Technologies, where she has served as a Clinical Assistant Professor since 2017. In her new role, Schell will use her expertise with designing and scaling successful start-ups in universities to launch extended education programs minted at the College of Fine Arts and the School of Design and Creative Technologies. 

Clay Damron is a Senior Arts and Entertainment Technologies Major in the School of Design and Creative Technologies at the University of Texas at Austin.