Teaching Software to Diverse UX Design Cohorts: From Flipped Classrooms to Computer-Based Scaffolding

This paper documents an ongoing curriculum building project at the University of Toronto centered on scaffolding software skill acquisition within a user experience (UX) design classroom. The expansion of UX design as a formal discipline of study has yielded larger and more diverse cohorts of students, many of whom do not hail from STEM or design backgrounds. This shift presents the pedagogical challenge of how to effectively teach relevant software to students who vary vastly in baseline technological proficiency in classroom sizes of 60+, where one-on-one support is at a premium. This project focuses on annual iterations of a required course on user interface design in a UX-aligned professional master's program. This course tasks students with learning Figma, an industry-standard application for designing and prototyping user interfaces. Drawing from existing pedagogical theories, our work aims to improve Figma skill acquisition by adapting a flipped classroom approach that has been successfully used in computer science, alongside associated forms of computer-based scaffolding. In this paper, we summarize progress developing instructional materials for students since 2020, discuss opportunities for computer-assisted evaluation, and introduce a prospective plugin for Figma that could holistically scaffold skill acquisition while providing UX educators with timely and detailed learning metrics.