The Master of Science in Information Experience Design (IXD) program is an innovative blend of the information science (IS), human-computer interaction (HCI), and user experience (UX) disciplines. The IXD program educates students and prepares them for careers in the rapidly growing UX profession, which includes UX designers, information architects, interaction designers, UX researchers, usability analysts, and content strategists.
With its empathetic, research-based, and human-centered approach to technology design, the IXD program teaches students to be well-rounded UX professionals who are not just strong designers but also skilled researchers, communicators, and strategists.
The IXD program teaches students how to design understandable, useful, and engaging digital interfaces and become well-rounded UX professionals. The program is designed for people from any background; previous design or technical knowledge/experience is not a prerequisite.
The IXD program is not a UX boot camp. It is an intensive two-year graduate program where students will not only learn the knowledge and skills needed to be a UX professional, but also engage with creative, critical, and ethical challenges. Throughout their time in the program, students will create a unique and strong UX portfolio that is essential for a career as a UX professional.
For international students, please note that the IXD program is designated as a STEM program by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and thus qualifies for the STEM optional practical training (OPT) extension for F-1 students.
What will you do?
Recent job titles obtained by program graduates include:
UX/UI Designer
UX Researcher
Product Designer
UX Specialist
Information Architect
Design Researcher
Where will you work?
A selection of organizations where these graduates work:
Throughout the IXD program, students will create a digital portfolio to highlight the work they have completed and demonstrate they have met the program’s five student learning outcomes:
Research – Apply appropriate research methods to identify meaningful insights about people’s needs, behaviors, and experiences
Communication – Compose compelling narratives and convey information to diverse stakeholders using appropriate communication styles (visual, written, and/or oral)
Tools – Choose and effectively employ industry-standard software associated with all phases of the user-centered design process
Experience Design – Create quality digital interfaces through an iterative and purposeful user-centered process that incorporates relevant technical, social, and cultural factors
Ethical Practice – Construct a strong professional identity that reflects a commitment to the ethical application of design and research and critically considers their impact on individuals, communities, or ecosystems.
School of Information courses are small (average class size is 12 students) and are held at 11:30 AM, 3 PM, and 6:30 PM, with the evening session offering the most options to help accommodate students who are working during the day. 80-90% of courses are held in-person at Pratt Manhattan Center, and 10-20% are held online. Select required courses in the IXD program include:
INFO 643 Information Architecture and Interaction Design This course provides students with practical knowledge and hands-on experience designing digital interfaces from a user-centered perspective through an exploration of the dual practices of information architecture and interaction design.
INFO 644 Usability Theory and Practice Students will learn and apply usability principles and gain hands-on experience with several common usability evaluation methods, including traditional user testing and inspection- and field-based methods.
The IXD program also offers a wide-variety of elective courses. A selection of them includes:
Selecting a program concentration allows IXD students to focus their studies and build a cohesive set of knowledge and skills targeted to a specific career pathway within the User Experience (UX) profession. Students are encouraged to select a concentration early in their studies, but are also free to create their own customized study plan based on their career interests and academic goals.
Two program concentrations are available:
The Design concentration is for students interested in designing engaging and understandable digital interfaces and services. Coursework in this concentration emphasizes the full user-centered design lifecycle, from discovery research and content architecture to ideation and prototyping.
This concentration prepares students for the following types of roles:
The Research and Evaluation concentration is for students interested in understanding user needs, identifying insights to inform design decisions, and evaluating digital products. Coursework covers both qualitative and quantitative methods for gathering user feedback, assessing design quality, and measuring user engagement.
This concentration prepares students for the following types of roles:
Our faculty consists of full-time faculty, who are researchers and scholars holding doctoral degrees, and our part-time faculty, who are accomplished professionals holding a range of roles in New York City institutions and companies. Full-time faculty members act as advisors to students, help connect career goals with the program curriculum, and teach over half of the courses.
All applicants are considered for merit scholarships during review of applications; a separate scholarship application is not required. Scholarships are significant and can cover up to 80% of the cost of tuition. For students in good academic standing (i.e., if the student maintains a minimum 3.0 GPA), merit scholarships are automatically renewed for the second year of study.
Fellowships
Second-year students in the program can apply for a nine-month fellowship with a leading NYC organization. IXD students have completed fellowships at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.
Other Support
Support for research-based scholarly and/or creative projects that enhance students’ professional development—individually or through small student teams—is available through the Graduate Student Engagement Fund (GSEF). Students can also take advantage of research opportunities working closely with individual faculty or with the team through graduate assistant funding, including at the Center for Digital Experiences.
In addition to support from the School of Information office, all students are assigned a faculty advisor upon entry, and can access a variety of services from Pratt’s Student Services division.
The School of Information meetup at the Whitney Museum of American Art (photo by Carol Choi)
The School of Information has five student groups that enrich the academic experience by organizing guest lectures, workshops, tours, site visits, and other events that will help deepen and expand your professional network. IXD students created the first student chapter of the User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA): UXPA@Pratt. Students can also form new organizations through Pratt’s Office of Student Involvement.
IXD students also participate in School of Information activities, such as the annual showcase of student work (Infoshow).
Located at the crossroads of the Greenwich Village and Chelsea neighborhoods, our home at Pratt Manhattan Center offers an excellent environment that provides easy access to all that New York City has to offer. Our specialized facilities facilitate our hands-on curriculum: from usability eye-tracking studies to archival reformatting projects and beyond. Specialized facilities designed specifically to support our IXD program include:
The User Experience Lab Participant Room is a space designed for bringing in participants for testing various interfaces, such as desktop and mobile interfaces, as well as eye-tracking studies.
Designed as a space for researchers to observe the testing activities happening in the Participant room, the Observation room is a comfortable space for IXD student researchers.
We are pleased to announce a new @prattischool fellowship for the spring '25 semester in the area of archives with the Hauser & Wirth Institute (@hauserwirthinstitute). The Hauser & Wirth Institute Archives fellow will work on creating metadata from print ephemera and visual material (slides, photographs, etc.) digitized by HWI from The Drawing Center’s (@thedrawingcenter) extensive exhibition archive. The Drawing Center is a museum and a nonprofit exhibition space in Manhattan, New York City, that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary. Application deadline is November 26th! For more details and to apply, please visit our Fellowships page; link available in our bio.
Alumna Mariame Kaba created the Audre Lorde Justice Endowed Scholarship to support librarians and archivists committed to social justice and inclusivity. Read about it in story in our bio.
Photos: 1) Mariame Kaba, MSLIS ’22 (Gioncarlo Valentine)
2) Audre Lorde teaching at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, 1983 (Robert Alexander/Getty Images)
3) Kimberly Angelica Barnes, MSLIS ’27 and MA History of Art and Design ’27
Open Call - "Corpus: Bodies of Data" -- Data Through Design 2025
Data Through Design (DxD) has extended the submissions deadline through November 4 for proposals for the March 2025 exhibition, "Corpus: Bodies of Data." DxD is an independent collective that organizes an annual art exhibit featuring works that creatively analyze, interpret, and interrogate data from NYC’s Open Data portal in conjunction with Open Data Week. The DxD collective includes Pratt visiting faculty members Rachel Daniell (MSDAV '19), Can Sucuoglu, and Sara Eichner, as well as Pratt SI alum Tereza Chanaki (MSMDC '24), and past shows have included art by Pratt SI faculty Nancy Smith and Claudia Berger as well as alum Gabriella Evergreen (MSLIS '24). Learn more and submit your proposal on the DxD website: datathroughdesign.com.
We have 6 exciting new special topics courses for this Spring '25 semester, including:
Automotive UX
Deceptive Design & Ethical UX
Archives & Art-Making
Artists’ Archives: Rome/New York
Experience Design for the Internet of Things
Service Design: Principles, Processes & Interventions
Links to the flyers available in our bio!
Happy 100th Birthday to President Jimmy Carter! This 1983 photo of him taken by Bill Maris for Family Circle Magazine was digitized at @prattischool in 2019 by students in INFO 665 Projects in Digital Archives.
Our neighborhood has seen a lot of construction lately, and we are happy to see some of the fruits of that labor: new elevators on 14th St F/M station went into operation this week. #accessibility
MSIXD students and recent alums are included in a Pratt News article about redesigning the world of travel. Students/alums include Bhavna Paikattil, Anjali Rao, Jiayi Jiang, Jennie Lin, Nehal Sharma, and Laiba Sarwar. Link available in our bio.
