MA Interaction Design

MA Interaction Design has a particular aim to appeal to communication designers who are interested in exploring these new and emerging areas of design practice.

The course seeks students who have a critical understand of how technologies and digital culture are affecting design practices, and who are keen to work with network digital systems and in areas of design research and practice that challenge preconceptions.

Although not an entry requirement, you should be comfortable with some basic coding (some i.e. HTML CSS) in order to communicate ideas with colleagues, although strong creative experience in this area is an advantage. We will introduce you to various coding languages and design prototyping platforms during the course, but expect that individuals will develop their skills base within specific project work.

The course team welcomes applicants from a broad range of backgrounds, from all over the world. MA Interaction Design attracts students who apply direct from an Honours degree course in a field relevant to graphic design, or those with other, equivalent qualifications.

The course team also welcomes students with relevant experience or those who may have previously worked in industry.

Educational level may be demonstrated by:

• Honours degree (named above);
• Possession of equivalent qualifications;
• Prior experiential learning, the outcome of which can be demonstrated to be equivalent to formal qualifications otherwise required. Your experience is assessed as a learning process and tutors will evaluate that experience for currency, validity, quality and sufficiency;
• Or a combination of formal qualifications and experiential learning which, taken together, can be demonstrated to be equivalent to formal qualifications otherwise required.

APEL (Accreditation of Prior Learning)

Applicants who do not meet these course entry requirements may still be considered in exceptional cases. The course team will consider each application that demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence. This might, for example, be demonstrated by:

• Related academic or work experience
• The quality of the personal statement
• A strong academic or other professional reference
• OR a combination of these factors

Each application will be considered on its own merit but we cannot guarantee an offer in each case.

For fees and funding information, please see website 

Graduates of the course are equipped to work in an increasingly technologically informed and interdisciplinary design world with real skills in areas such as: interactive art and design, foresight and futures, interdisciplinary studio practice, though leadership, and digital arts.

A high number of our graduates continue to PhD research and become BA and MA lecturers, shaping the future of their field.  Graduates are often awarded funded opportunities to exhibit their work around the world with work produced on this course.

Roles and destinations of recent graduates include:

• Mat Denney – Artist and Lecturer in Emergent Technologies, London College of Communication
• Eleni Xynologa – Interaction Designer, Red Design Consultants
• Mariana Marangoni – Artist and Lecturer in Computational Arts, London College of Communication
• Shuo Wang – Game Interaction Designer, ByteDance
• Rania Svoronou - Lead visual interaction design, IBM iX
• Qingyi Ren – PhD Researcher in Digital Technology and Gender, University of Linz
• Anqi Wang – PhD Researcher in Machine Learning, Aalto University
• Simona Ciocoiu - Interaction Designer, ICRI (Intel)
• Masatato Seki - Creative Technologist, The Neighbourhood
• Elliott Hall – Creative Technologist and Support Technician, London College of Fashion

Some international students choose to remain in the UK to gain valuable industry experience whilst others return to their home countries to pursue successful careers.

High quality written work on this course is ready to publish in academic and artistic contexts; high quality practice work is regularly exhibited internationally either during or after the course.

Autumn, block 1 

Block 1 of the course introduces you to the theories and concepts that are core to the course’s research-led and critical form of Interaction Design. 

• Theories and Practices of Interaction Design (40 credits)
  You’ll develop a critical understanding of interaction design and its relevance to current theoretical, social and cultural contexts. Through a seminar series you’ll be introduced to both historical and contemporary theories, as well as practices drawn from the worlds of art and design, giving you an understanding of the research context for the course. You’ll produce and reflect on a series of individual and group practical projects that engage with social, cultural and political concerns, drawing from you own perspective and context. Through this, you will develop a considered framing for your practice throughout the course and beyond. 

Spring, block 2 

Block 2 offers you the opportunity to engage further with your critical practice to produce research-led and experimental interaction design projects. 

• Collaborative Unit (20 credits)
  You’ll complete a group studio project in response to a brief from an external partner. Previous partnerships have been with organisations such as the V&A, the Design Museum, and BBC Research and Development. Alongside brief-specific content, you will be supported by seminars on organisation and working methods, expanding your approaches to working in a contemporary interaction design context.
• Explorative Practice (40 credits) 
  This unit will give you the option to choose between distinct electives to pursue your own thematic path in the field of interaction design. You will explore new practices and methods to develop your skill-set and allow you to produce an innovative project that applies your in-depth research to the practical context of interaction design.

Summer, block 3 

Block 3 offers you the opportunity to use both the critical and technical skills gained in block 1, alongside the research and development skills you developed in block 2, to produce a new work of interaction design that is creatively and technically ambitious and underpinned by in-depth critical research. You will be supported in reflecting on the place and impact of this practice on the wider world. 

• Masters Project (60 credits)
  Weighted 50% research component and 50% practical component. 
  You will undertake a Masters Project which relates to the expanded field of design and interaction developing your own research domain and specialism for your work. You will use broad theoretical models and practical skills spanning multiple disciplines to actively develop and produce a critically aware major project. You will reflect on this project’s capacity and potential in the world, and for an audience, and contextualise it within your future aims for your practice.

Examples of Masters Projects

• BE IN LAND_SCAPE (Yili Zhao) A reflection on how we perceive industrial landscapes and exploration of the connection between material, memories, and these landscapes. 
• Into the Ethereal (Nella Piatek) Divided into three chapters a film that poses questions regarding physical and digital traces, haunted objects, and eternal memory. 
• Nepenthe (Mariana Marangoni) An interactive fiction that depects the Cesium-137 incident in 1987 which happened in Brazil. It was the second worst radioactive incident globally, excluding power plants.

However, the government tried to hide information about it.

If you are unable to continue or decide to exit the course, there are two possible exit awards. A Postgraduate Certificate will be awarded on successful completion of the first 60 credits and a Postgraduate Diploma will be awarded on successful completion of the first 120 credits.