
Honors Bachelor of Digital Experience Design
Toronto, Canada
DURATION
4 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
Jan 2025
TUITION FEES
CAD 21,387 / per year
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
Introduction
The Honors Bachelor of Digital Experience Design Degree is a four-year program that produces designers who can solve problems using human-centered, socially conscious, and economically viable digital solutions.
Digital experience design includes related fields such as service design, user experience design, and interaction design. It involves understanding human behavior and human-computer interaction, conducting research and usability studies, managing projects and working in teams, applying business skills, working with existing and emerging digital technologies, prototyping new ideas, and anticipating future trends.
In this program, you will develop the ability to critically analyze and adapt to the ever-changing conditions of technology and culture. Foundational courses build your analytical, technical, and business skills. In upper-year courses and capstone projects, you will collaborate on digital interfaces and applications, as well as interactive environments and objects.
This design degree curriculum focuses on three areas of learning based on the digital experience design process:
- Think: design thinking, theory, culture, and research
- Make: designing, building, and testing digital experiences
- Ship: entrepreneurship and the commercialization of digital products
Interactive Digital Media is a growing industry that is quickly changing, driven by shifts in consumer behavior and technology. Graduates of this program will be able to contribute to and eventually lead interdisciplinary teams to solve problems across a variety of fields such as security, transportation, education, and manufacturing. The degree also prepares students to pursue graduate studies in a wide range of academic disciplines.
Why study Digital Experience Design at George Brown College?
The School of Design at George Brown has an established reputation for design education that focuses on imagination, hones critical thinking skills, and engages with the latest technologies. Our faculty bring a combination of professional experience and advanced education to offer course content that is always evolving and reflective of trends in industry and academia.
The School of Design resides in a new 103,000-square-foot facility in the Daniels Waterfront – City of the Arts development. This state-of-the-art building supports academic programs and industry projects with features such as:
- virtual and augmented reality lab
- usability and testing lab
- Future Ways of Living lab
- peer tutor lab
- digital sandbox
- incubators
- prototyping and workshop spaces
- design and innovation showcase spaces
Our facilities and computer labs include the latest hardware and software and are complemented by the Digital Media and Gaming Incubator and Digifest, an annual festival that brings together industry, academics, and the public to think about how digital tools and technology will shape our lives and our future.
A curriculum that reflects changing industry demands
The Honours Bachelor of Digital Experience Design was created in consultation with industry, faculty, alumni, and students. It provides specialized skills training, knowledge, and hands-on experience to prepare students for current and future job market demands, as well as for graduate studies.
Applied research: The Innovation Exchange and the Design Centre for the Smart Economy
The future School of Design building will include the Innovation Exchange and Design Centre for the Smart Economy, a research hub where students and businesses will team up and bring new ideas to market.
Apply to the Honours Bachelor of Digital Experience Design bridging program
Students currently in year two or three of George Brown’s existing three-year Interaction Design advanced diploma program may be eligible for advanced entry into the Honours Bachelor of Digital Experience Design program.
Following the Winter Semester (January–April), students who have successfully completed the second year of Interaction Design and Development (G113) with a GPA of 3.2 (75%) or higher will be eligible to complete a Fall bridge program. Upon successful completion of the bridge, students will enter into semester 5 of the degree program.
Your Field Education Options
Students must complete a 420-hour paid co-op work term in the spring/summer period between the third and fourth year.
Students have the opportunity to complete this co-op domestically and/or internationally, as opportunities arise. The majority of co-op work terms are completed in the Greater Toronto Area, where the design sector is robust and the majority of interaction jobs are located.
The School of Design Field Placement team works with many notable training partners, including agencies such as Publicis, K9 Strategy + Design, Trevor/Peter, and Relish Interactive; larger, well-known brands such as Nelvana (Corus Entertainment), Rogers Media, Mozilla, Crayola, and PUR Gum; and a variety of industry-relevant arts and design institutions, including the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD) and Applied Arts.
The work term allows students to apply the skills, abilities, and knowledge they've acquired in the program in a workplace environment or through an appropriate interaction design research project or initiative. Students gain valuable experience and the opportunity to reflect on the application of previous learning. A faculty member evaluates the student based on feedback provided by the employer.
Students will develop a digital portfolio demonstrating artifacts completed during the co-op work term.
Admissions
Scholarships and Funding
Scholarships for international students at George Brown College are generally in-program awards based on students’ academic performance (and other criteria) at George Brown College after the beginning of the academic program.
Curriculum
Required Courses
Semester 1 | Semester 2 | Semester 3 |
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Semester 4 | Semester 5 | Semester 6 |
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Between Semester 6 and 7 in the Spring/Summer | Semester 7 | Semester 8 |
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Program Outcome
The graduate demonstrates the ability to:
- Integrate digital experience design theories and methodologies to solve real-life problems and address societal issues.
- Explain the relationships between digital interactive experiences and products and other fields of practice and study.
- Provide human-centered and research-based solutions and design opportunities across sectors.
- Determine the usability of interactive systems to optimize the performance of a product or service.
- Incorporate key theoretical concepts of design to inform the planning, production, and critique of interactive digital experiences.
- Develop applications based on trends in digital experience design.
- Incorporate relevant technological systems in the process of developing digital experiences.
- Use human-centered design principles to develop and test digital products, systems, and services to enhance the aesthetic and functional experience.
- Select the appropriate tools that allow for designing, building, visualizing, and programming digital interactive experiences.
- Create interactive products, systems, and services using appropriate technologies, materials, and manufacturing methods.
- Collaborate with and lead interdisciplinary design teams and stakeholders in the process of designing a product or service.
- Manage a design project by applying business, legal and ethical principles.
- Conceive economically viable projects with accompanying business models.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
Career Options
Graduates of this program will have acquired the skills necessary to be employed in the design and digital media studios, creative labs, in-house design, and digital departments within larger corporations across sectors, or to work independently or in a start-up.
This program prepares graduates for positions such as:
- Digital Experience Designer
- User Experience Designer
- User Interface Designer
- Human Interface Designer
- Interaction Designer
- Information Architect
- Digital Designer
- Digital Product Designer
- Visual Designer
- Mobile Designer
- Web Designer
- User Experience Researcher
- Usability Tester
- Entrepreneur
Industry
Digital Experience Design
Digital Experience Design embeds and influences human experience through the novel and interactive forms of digital technology, combining hardware, software, and design. The term “experience” refers to the multifaceted interaction between humans and technology that respects the contextual and situational features of each. The future of digital design lies in understanding this interaction.
Digital Experience Design is gaining currency in the field of research and practice. IDEO, a prominent global design consultancy, lists “Digital Experiences” as one of its core areas of expertise. IDEO sees “Digital Experiences” as those in which there are no boundaries among platforms. They use hardware, software, web and mobile elements, and interactive media to develop effective means for people to share, create and communicate. Thus, Digital Experience Design is a dynamic field, continually adapting to new technologies and interfaces, such as smart devices, sensors, adaptive architectures, mixed realities (AR/VR), immersive environments, multi-screen, and multi-sensorial displays. Digital experience design is revolutionizing how organizations serve customers and how we interact with each other and the world around us.
Interactive Digital Media (IDM)
The Canadian Interactive Alliance defines interactive digital media companies as creators of “digital content and environments that provide users with a rich interactive experience – either with the content itself or with other users – for the purposes of entertainment, information, or education, or that provides services that directly enable these products/services” (2012 Canadian Interactive Industry Profile). IDM in Canada is a growing industry that is quickly changing, driven by shifts in consumer behavior and technology. The comprehensive IDM sector includes companies that produce interactive content as well as firms that provide various types of products or services to enable the production of interactive content. These are sometimes called “core” and “peripheral” IDM. Core IDM content includes but is not limited to video and mobile games, cross-platform entertainment, web series, e-learning, and training products (Interactive Digital Media, OMDC).
The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) leads North America in offering a diverse, talented pool of Interactive Digital Media workers. The GTA has 15,000 technology companies employing more than 168,000 people, making Toronto Canada’s largest technology hub and the third-largest North American center for technology firms, in addition to being the third-largest center for design on the continent.
Educational Pathways
If you are a George Brown College student who has completed the second or third year of the Interaction Design and Development Advanced Diploma (G103) with a grade point average of 3.2 (75%) or higher, you may be eligible to enter a degree completion pathway to this program.
Future Study Options
Graduates of the Honours Bachelor of Digital Experience Design program may qualify to pursue further graduate studies in relevant program areas. Students should contact universities directly to explore graduate school opportunities.
Examples of potential graduate study and research areas include design, interaction design, digital/interactive media, digital experience, human-computer interaction, systems design, e-health, e-learning, game design, interactive arts, and critical practice.