This blog acts as a central hub to the new media research modules delivered at the University of East London. You can also read about our student's work and find out more about our approach to design and user experience research.
Find out more about the two degree programmes and come along to our taster days. These talks provide an introduction to the School of Art and Digital Industries' unique approach to designing, researching and developing interactive mobile apps and web technologies. It includes examples of award winning student work, industry links and discusses our recent investment in a user experience design lab (emotionUXD).
17th May 2012
We finished off this year with another show of work at the School wide Creative Futures 2 event. Here's our prize winners...
5th May 2012
Digital Agency Award Sponsored Prizes to Students at UEL New Media Design Show
Eleven students from UEL’s School of Arts and Digital Industries (ADI) have been awarded industry sponsored prizes including paid work experience and tickets to attend a top industry design show. The awards are the culmination of a joint level two employability project managed by a team from the award winning digital agency company Cyber-Duck and staff from ADI. To win the award students from Multimedia Technology Design, Interactive Media Design and Computer Games Design degrees competed with each other to design engaging interactive content for the company’s website. On Friday 4th May Gareth Drew, Neil Dawson and Ben Speakman from Cyber-Duck visited the New Media Design Show to hand out the prizes to the winning student groups (pic).
Also representing Cyber-Duck at the show was HR Executive, Karolina Pajewska, who plays an important role in sourcing and recruiting the best talent for the Cyber-Duck team. Karolina said “there is no better way to meet talented students than offering them an opportunity to work on real commercial briefs from one of the country’s top digital agencies, Cyber-Duck Ltd. We are looking forward to welcoming the awarded groups in our office in Elstree over the summer time.”
Programme leader for the New Media Design degrees, Dr Tony Sampson, thanked Cyber-Duck for their continuing interest in UEL’s new media students and ongoing support for the show. “The work experience opportunities offered by Cyber-Duck will make wonderful additions to our student’s CVs and portfolios. They will gain value experience working on apps and games development and potentially see their efforts go live on the Cyber-Duck website.”
Catherine Harper, the Dean of ADI also attended the show. “The enthusiasm of students and staff at this year’s event was remarkable,” she commented, “student projects were hugely exciting and imaginative, but what really impressed me was the conviction with which students talked about their work and the compelling sense that these are ideas could seamlessly enter the market as well as stretching its boundaries”.
Prizes were also awarded to best individual level one and three projects. Most notably Jerome Defreitas won a prize for his striking augmented reality project.
Mark Flint most promising level one student project...
... and Ivan Ramos won best achievement.
10 November 2011
Recent Graduate Gives Talk at Thomson Reuters hosted World Usability Day
The UK UPA in association with Thomson Reuters Design Team hosted the 2011 World Usability Day on 10 November 2011. The theme for this year was Education: Designing for Social Change offered a broad platform from which to explore how what we are learning and teaching about user centred design will influence social change in the future.
Building Something Special
Earlier this year, teams from the BBC, Aardman Digital and System Concepts Ltd collaborated to produce a new accessible web site for the CBeebies TV Show Something Special. In this talk, those involved in the project will share the lessons they learnt about designing an online website specifically for children with physical and cognitive impairment. The talk will cover how online resources are currently used in SEN schools, how requirements were gathered for the new site, the importance of user research and what challenges the development team had to overcome during the sites development.
The photo below shows Stuart Norman, UEL MMDT grad now with System Concepts Ltd (standing), Jake Manion – Aardman Digital and Tom DuCroz – Ambitious about Autism
Source
See video about the project.
Images above: Channel Five's Gadget Show. An Interactive Dracula app designed by one of our 2007/8 graduates and a current MMDT student on work experience. Digital Britain Minister and MP Stephen Timms visits the Affect-ed student project demo at UEL.
Read what our students say about studying new media at UEL:
"The Multimedia degree at UEL provided me with a fresh perspective on the digital world. During the course of my degree I stopped being a passive consumer of digital media and became a researcher and a designer.”
“My project work involved producing physical interactions using hacked technology, this allowed me to be creative and explore an area that was of interest to me.”
“The lecturers are passionate about their subject and continually encouraged us to explore our own interests and the latest trends.”
“The research focus is extremely relevant to industry. The design of digital products has moved away from being based solely on efficiency and increasingly on how users 'feel' about them. Companies have to produce better user experiences in order to generate customer loyalty.”
“Thanks to my UEL degree I gained the both the practical skills and theoretical knowledge required to become a user experience consultant. My current role involves researching the effectiveness of websites/apps and other digital interactions in order to improve the experience of the user. In this role I have worked for major broadcasters/telecommunications companies and have spoken at major industry events."
“Studying Interactive Media Design BA (Hons) at the University of East London has helped propel me into an exciting career as a director of an award winning digital agency.”
“In the fast paced world of interactive design and new media, this degree enables students to grow through acquiring necessary practical skills in design, programming and client management as well as understand the theory behind it all. The interactive comic I produced for my final year project won a prestigious British Interactive Media Award, to which I owe a great deal of gratitude to my tutors who guided me throughout the development of the project.”
"As someone with previous experience in graphic design for print, studying Interactive Media at the UEL not only helps me to expand my skills and knowledge but also my career opportunities.”
“I’m now in level 3 completing my project. A special highlight for me was to be recommended by my tutor for a work placement with an award winning design agency. Through this experience I learned how much I was capable of, even getting my work featured on television on the Gadget Show."
“I gained the internship that has led to my current role via the University's good industry connections and in turn I am continuing that relationship through my company Cyber-Duck with us taking on more talented UEL students via an internship scheme; in return we are providing UEL students with live client briefs giving them the opportunity to learn how real creative and technical agencies work in the new media industry.”
“I’m in level 2 and the work is really good; an interesting experience. There is a good balance between technical and research. The Flash project this year was really good. It helped me put everything I've learned so far into practice; including interaction design theories, as well as the technical skills necessary to produce the work.”
“Working with my tutor is brilliant. He is teaching us to use technology and produce work in a professional way, which can be challenging, but he is really supportive and committed to helping us succeed.”
"With its combination of mutli-talented staff both in the Digital Industries and Academia, MMDT is a course I would recommend to anyone with an interest in Multimedia. The course offers the opportunity to work on multimedia design projects in conjunction with ‘real clients’, and prepares us so that we are not only great graduates but work-ready too. Graduates of this course not only leave UEL with a broad range of practical skills at their finger-tips but also with an excellent grounding in multi-media theory in their portfolios."
"Having studied the BA(Hons) Interactive Media Design, I have been very impressed with the variety of topics and disciplines that were covered on the course, helping me to develop my skills for both practical design and managing research projects. After completing the course I was able to enter employment in the user experience industry where I now work on projects for large international companies. I feel that the course did a lot to prepare me for my current job, both in terms of literature and techniques. I am delighted with how relevant the course is to commercial work. The tutors on the course were all very helpful and provided me with a great breadth of knowledge, but with a level of depth that I would not have expected from an undergraduate degree."
