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Lasell University
Lasell University

Interactive Design

Major

What You'll Learn
Career Outlook
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The Interactive Design degree will prepare you to work in the rapidly evolving digital content production field. The program brings together design skills, interactive principles, new media literacy, branding, and product development into a single major.

Be career-ready for roles in interactive media including UX/UI design, digital content production, web and mobile development, and media management.

Program Features

  • Emphasizing interactive design and media production skills, the major focuses on User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design.
  • Learn the fundamental creative, media, and branding principles needed to prototype and create user-friendly workable designs.
  • The major covers the top skills needed for UX/UI Design: user interface design, design, UX wire frames, and interaction design and information architecture. Courses cover coding languages such as HTML. CSS, and JavaScript, as well as software such as Adobe XD, Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Illustrator.
  • The program culminates with students completing at least one required internship and a capstone experience in which they develop a digital portfolio to showcase their undergraduate projects and skills. 

What You'll Learn

From your first day, you’ll take courses in your major and advance towards graduation with a yearly plan. Not sure what classes to take? We’ll help you create the perfect plan. 

Courses and Sample 4-Year Plan

This example four-year plan is provided as a broad framework that you can follow in order to complete your degree within four years. Be sure to always consult your academic advisor before registering for classes.

FYS103
First Year Seminar

The First Year Seminar (FYS) is part of the Core Curriculum and a requirement for all incoming first year students and transfer students with fewer than 15 credits. The First Year Seminar is a theme-based inquiry course that engages students in a specific area of interest while providing support for a smooth transition into the Lasell University community and the Connected Learning philosophy. Through studying an academic topic, students develop and apply core intellectual skills and receive an introduction to the core knowledge perspectives. At the same time, students connect to the experiences and people that make up the Lasell University Community. Course outcomes are accomplished through engaging activities including reading, writing, class discussions, presentations, team projects, field trips, and exploration of campus resources. Civic engagement and service-learning activities are often part of this course as is participation in the Connected Learning Symposium. Through the seminar, students develop close ties with faculty and peer mentors who serve as advocates for first year students' academic success. Past course titles have included: The Immigrant Experience, Fashion & Film of the 20th Century, The Social History of Rock & Roll, Exploring Cultures & Languages, The Spark of Creativity, Women and Sports, and Latin America: Food And Traditions. This requirement may be fulfilled by taking either FYS103 or HON101 (for students enrolled in the Honors Program).

In this course, students gain understanding of and confidence in strategies for effective writing by composing and reading in a variety of genres. The course emphasizes writing as a process and focuses on the rhetorical choices writers make. Students engage critically with sources by examining how genre, context, purpose, credibility, and bias work together to create meaning and impact audiences. Students who choose to take Writing I Workshop are provided with time during class to work on their writing while the instructor and a writing tutor are present to provide assistance. Students must earn a “C” or higher in order to pass this course

This course is the foundational course for mathematical and quantitative reasoning at Lasell College. Mathematical reasoning is the critical skill that enables a student to solve real-world problems involving quantitative analysis by making use of particular mathematical skills. Through the development of their mathematical reasoning skills, students will recognize the power of mathematics in its own right as well as its relevance in the real world. Students will develop and enhance their mathematical reasoning skills through a project/application-based curriculum supported by readily available current technological tools and topics that will include, but not be limited to, the following: solving systems of equations, linear programming, statistical, and graphical data analysis.

This course offers an introduction to three of the most important software applications in the Adobe Creative Cloud for a student who is interested in Graphic Design:  Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Students learn image generation and editing in both pixel-based and vector-based environments as well as digital page composition for print publishing. This is a project-based course that initiates and improves students' skill set for the implementation of computer graphics.

This course is an introduction to the basic principles and strategies for visual art-making and art appreciation, with an emphasis on developing an awareness and sensitivity to art as an integral part of one's life and as a way to complement one's aesthetic needs. This is a lecture course with studio art-making modules designed to complement visual material, critical essays, museum/gallery trips and impart basic skills in visual communication.

This course is a continuation of Writing I and focuses on research and public writing. Theme-based courses provide students with lenses to explore issues of interest and develop their reading, research, and writing skills. Students work with a topic of their choice, broadly based on the course theme. Assignments build upon each other, lead up to a researched position paper, and culminate in a public piece. Students who choose to take Writing II Workshop are provided with time during class to work on their writing while the instructor and a writing tutor are present to provide assistance. Students must earn a grade of “C” or higher in order to pass this course. Prerequisite: WRT 101

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

This course provides an introduction to the basic concepts of digital imaging as applied to Photography. Students combine traditional photographic methods with the latest digital techniques, using image manipulation software, scanning equipment and other computer-based tools. Students are responsible for providing their own digital camera.

This illustration course is designed to develop students' compositional and image development skills for the field of Graphic Design. Using a combination of traditional and digital methods of imaging, students expand their visual vocabulary for successful graphic communications. Prerequisite: GRAP105 Digital Design Essentials or equivalent (such as FASD205 Digital Design for Apparel or FASH207 Digital Tools for Fashion).

COM219
Social Media Management

Communication professionals must to be able to utilize different social media platforms to both engage audiences and increase brand impact and influence. This course is designed to introduce students to the key concepts and practices of managing social media channels. Through case studies, interactive assignments, and a social media project, students will learn necessary skills to managing a social media platform, including conducting a social media audit, developing a strategic social media plan, building an editorial calendar, identifying key metrics and using data analytics to assess and report the impact of social media posts and campaigns. Students will also earn Hubspot Certification in Social Media during the course. Prerequisite: Sophomore status.

This course surveys the application of expressive letterforms since the invention of the printing press. With a historical overview that illuminates the terminology used by professional designers, students are encouraged to explore their own means of typographic expression. The fundamentals of structure, spacing, and rhythm are emphasized as they influence form and function. Prerequisites: GRAP105 Digital Design Essentials.

Equity & Intersectionality(KP)

In this course, the fundamentals of marketing are explored for practical application in today's business environment. The process of creating value for customers by utilizing the tools of marketing -- market segmentation, targeting and positioning, marketing research and communications, product development, channels of distribution, and pricing -- are explored with a project-based, interactive approach. Additionally, there is a service learning component included in this course that enables students to further apply the course concepts while working to advance a participating non-profit organization. Prerequisites: BUSS101, COM101, HEM101, HEM102, FASH101, or SMGT102 AND ENG102 or WRT102.

This course introduces the student to the most current coding and markup languages that are integral to successful Web site development. It also introduces the student to authoring software, such as Adobe Dreamweaver, that assists designers with the coding demands of Web authorship. Other topics which add to this comprehensive course are the history of the Internet and World Wide Web Consortium, the power of CSS, and the design and layout principles that contribute to successful Web site development from technical, interactive, and aesthetic viewpoints. Prerequisite: GRAP105 Digital Design Essentials or equivalent

This course provides instruction and practice in preparing and delivering the various kinds of oral presentations encountered by professionals. Students learn how to analyze audiences, organize different types of presentations, prepare and use visual aids, deliver presentations to different audiences and respond to questions. Students are taught to express themselves in a clear, confident, responsible, and appropriate manner. The classroom environment is conducive to confidence building and overcoming the fear of speaking.

In this project-based course, students explore a social or intellectual problem using at least two knowledge perspectives. Faculty and students follow a collaborative process of exploration, discussion, and problem solving that integrates knowledge perspectives and core intellectual skills.

This Knowledge Perspective course will provide students with the opportunity to interpret and analyze the complex interrelationships and inequities in human societies in a global historical context. Emphasizing the interrelatedness and mutuality of influence between East and West, we examine questions of exclusiveness, intolerance, and cooperation. Prerequisite: ENG101 with a C or better

COM399
Pre-Internship Seminar

This seminar helps students to develop professional objectives and identify potential sites for their internships. In this seminar students identify their personal work style and strengths, will identify a good career match, will create an effective cover letter & resume, will develop effective networking, interviewing, and negotiation skills. This course will help students apply search tools for finding internships. A goal of this course is to secure an internship for the following semester. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.

This course offers a deeper exploration of designing and authoring interactive content on a variety of platforms with an emphasis on user experience (UX), building upon skills and strategies acquired in basic web design and graphic design courses. Students will use designer tools such as Adobe Animate and Adobe XD, which offer designers the opportunity to create code-based interactions with minimal knowledge of programming languages, such as HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and proprietary app building languages and workflows. Prerequisite: GRAP207 Web Design and Development and GRAP105 Digital Design Essentials or equivalent.

Video Production introduces students to the basics of video production from an EFP (Electronic Field Production) perspective. Students will learn the functionality and art of digital videography and digital editing by completing a roll test, editing project, photojournalism package, and a TV commercial. The course will also examine the business of video production. Finally, this course introduces students to the competency of visual communication.

This course will address the interaction between the lives we lead and the application of traditional (and some nontraditional) ethical theories and principles to important decision points in our lives. Students will take on real-life ethical problems and dilemmas for each class; each student will be responsible for presenting a number of issues, as well as for guiding the discussion of those issues in class. The problems we address will largely span a lifetime of experiences and concerns. Students will also write several papers that evaluate formal arguments, using standard tools of critical thinking and philosophy. The course is discussion based, so a willingness to read carefully, to think critically, and to engage in classroom presentations and discussions is essential. Prerequisite: Junior standing, MDSC203 & ENG102.

In this course, students develop conceptual and visual problem-solving skills as they relate to motion studies and time-based art. Through demonstrations, studio sessions and critiques students create portfolio-quality animation and motion study projects.

Modern development relies on frameworks which provide developers with powerful tools to speed up development. If you want to build apps, you need to understand how to use frameworks. This course, which has been built in collaboration with Google, will introduce you to Django - a framework used for data-driven web applications. You’ll learn the fundamentals of Django, improve your database management skills, and begin developing your own apps. This online class has optional live sessions.

Digital Video Editing teaches students the basics of editing digital media using the popular software program Adobe Premiere Pro. The aesthetics of editing are also discussed and analyzed through screening various types of edited media. Projects for the course include editing TV commercials, news packages, movie scenes, and music videos. It is recommended that students have acquired basic computer skills prior to taking this class. Finally, this course introduces students to the competency of visual communication.

This course is the professional component of the capstone experience in the Communication Department. The course provides students with a work/skill development opportunity to practice communication theory and skills in a real work setting. The internship course is comprised of a minimum of 150 hours in the field, the weekly seminar, and its assignments, including an oral presentation. Students also write weekly reflections on their experience, complete written assignments, and do an oral presentation to a group of their peers. The field supervisor contributes to the student’s learning through guidance, feedback and evaluation of the students work. Prerequisite: COM399 Pre-Internship Seminar

GRAP403
Senior Portfolio Development

This course prepares design students for effective and personalized presentation of their design work. Students are encouraged to create an online portfolio and relevant self-promotional materials (business card, designed resume, artist statement). Prerequisite: Senior standing.

This project-based course introduces students to the practice of digital storytelling to engage, inform and persuade audiences. Students will explore narrative structure and aesthetics of different storytelling media, with emphasis on micro, short form and episodic audio and video for social and online platforms. Students will develop story ideas, use desktop and mobile tools to acquire content in a variety of settings, and edit and repurpose content to maximize its usefulness. Through creation and analysis of their own and others’ digital stories, students will increase their understanding of effective digital storytelling. Prerequisite: COM101

This course prepares design students for effective and personalized presentation of their design work. Students are encouraged to create an online portfolio and relevant self-promotional materials (business card, designed resume, artist statement). Prerequisite: Senior standing.

The senior practicum provides an opportunity for students in their final semester of the design program to produce a self-directed capstone project that applies the design theory and studio techniques that they have been developing over the last four years. The practicum project is presented in a Senior Show at the end of their final semester. Prerequisite: Senior standing.

New products and services are crucial to successful growth and increased profits in many industries. A major goal of this course is to help students learn to use an analytic decision-making approach in developing and marketing new products and services that meet customer needs in the consumer, industrial, and service settings. At the end of the course, the student should understand the role of decision models in analytic marketing decision-making; be able to follow the basic steps in opportunity identification, design, testing, and implementation; and know how to read and interpret new product and service market research. Prerequisite: BUSS220

This example four-year plan is provided as a broad framework that you can follow in order to complete your degree within four years. Be sure to always consult your academic advisor before registering for classes.

4-Year Plan
Student Profile
Lynn headshot

Initially, the proximity to the city caught my interest. However, what truly resonated with me was the emphasis on smaller class sizes."

Lynn Hilton '23

Communication

Read Lynn's Student Profile
Lynn headshot
Courtney Hannon

"The Communication program has given me hands-on experience that I can bring to my first job."

Courtney Hannon '27

Communication

Read Courtney's Student Profile
Courtney Hannon
Grace headshot

"I am confident in moving forward in a career in graphic design."

Grace Highum '24

Communication

Read Grace's Profile
Grace headshot

Learning Outcomes

  • Use creativity and design thinking skills to be able to frame a problem, perform user research, create prototypes, and test results that results in a working solution.
  • Be able to critically evaluate and determine which visual media solution is the most effective for a target audience.
  • Effectively use interactive design tools, images, and writing to reach diverse audiences across different platforms with engaging messages and usable features.
  • Understand the influence and impact of media and how to use it ethically in a diverse and global society.

For a complete list of courses and learning outcomes, view the Academic Catalog

Career Outlook

Students will be ready for careers such as:

  • UI developer
  • UX designer
  • Digital content producer
  • App developer
  • Digital product designer
  • Digital experience specialist
Beyond the Classroom
COMArts Conversations

Each year the School of Communication and the Arts hosts award-winning media and design professionals who cover topics such as UX research and design, storytelling and documentary filmmaking, influencers on social media, and marketing strategy.

Student-Run Publications

Lasell's student-run publications include the 1851 Chronicle newspaper, TARNISHED covering visual and written arts, and POLISHED, our award-winning fashion magazine.

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