User Experience (UX) and Human Impact
An Interview with Dr. Heather Turner about her journey with UX pedagogy research and its implications
By Júlia von Gersdorff ’25
The English Department is proud to share exciting new developments in Dr. Heather Turner’s UX pedagogy research! Dr. Turner has published her co-authored article on usability and user experience in Technical Communication Quarterly, and she and her colleague have signed a book contract with the Routledge Press ATTW Series in Technical and Professional Communication.
Q: What is the main focus of your pedagogy research?
A: I study how we teach user experience (UX) in technical communication classes and programs. My main question is: How can we teach UX in a way that helps students think about the human impact of their writing and design choices, not just the technical aspects?
Q: Could you share with us a bit more on the article on usability and user experience that you wrote?
A: Recently, I wrote an article with my colleague Emma Rose about how user experience and usability are taught in different ways across university programs. We found that while many programs have embraced teaching the full UX design process, some courses, especially introductory ones, still focus mainly on usability testing - like having students write instructions and test if people can follow them. We looked at how teachers are finding creative ways to incorporate broader UX concepts into their courses, working within various course structures and requirements.
Q: How the book came into being / a little bit about that part of the process
A: This research led to a book we're writing about teaching UX. We interviewed lots of teachers to understand their approaches and challenges. We're creating a framework that shows how to build UX concepts into courses in a way that emphasizes humanistic values like social justice and foundations of technical communication like rhetoric and metacognition.
Q: What are your next steps in the process; are there any forthcoming updates to share?
A: One exciting development is exploring how students can work on projects with community organizations - this gives students hands-on experience while potentially helping local groups. Our work seems to be resonating with others in our field. We recently won an award for an article about how UX is currently being taught in college programs. The big goal is to help teachers and programs enhance how they teach UX, while keeping focus on important questions like: How can we make information more accessible and technology more usable? How can we use our writing and designs to help people find personal fulfillment and meaning? These are the kinds of questions that can help students become more thoughtful designers.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Turner on achieving these impressive milestones in her impactful UX pedagogy res