User Experience (UX/UI) | Arts University Bournemouth

Course summary

The MA User Experience (UX/UI) is a forward-thinking postgraduate course that empowers students to critically design, prototype, and evaluate sophisticated digital experiences. Informed by human-centred design, the course challenges students to push beyond surface-level aesthetics and develop meaningful, research-informed solutions for complex user needs across digital platforms, services, and systems.

At its core, the course is underpinned by a critical, values-led approach that positions UX and UI design as tools for social inquiry, cultural intervention, and ethical innovation. Students will engage with advanced debates around the role of experience design in shaping human behaviour, mediating socio-technical systems, and responding to urgent global challenges—such as digital equity, algorithmic bias, environmental sustainability, and data governance. Through a research-informed lens, students are encouraged to interrogate the broader cultural, political, and technological frameworks within which digital design operates, preparing them to contribute to the future of UX/UI as critically reflective and socially responsible practitioners.

Students develop advanced skills in:
• UX strategy and design leadership
• Complex user research and evaluation
• Prototyping for multi-platform environments including AR/VR and AI
• Service and systems thinking
• Critical design theory and speculative design
• Ethical and inclusive UX methodologies

Through studio practice, live projects, and independent research, students will work across disciplines and collaborate with industry, culminating in a self-directed Final Major Project. As part of AUB’s creative postgraduate community, MA UX/UI students graduate with the confidence and expertise to lead innovation in digital design, whether in industry, consultancy, or further research.

Modules

Course Modules

Modules: deconstructing practice; professional development portfolio; research methodologies and design processes; strategies for practice; master’s project.

Assessment method

Your performance in terms of production and presentation will be judged in the context of the criteria of the Learning Outcomes for each Unit. The course uses a range of different assessment methods, the forms of which include written submissions, verbal presentations, practice based work and critical analysis and evaluation.

Entry requirements

We encourage application from students with a broad range of qualifications and we welcome students from all educational backgrounds. We'll take into account the knowledge and skills that you've developed outside the classroom as well as your previous qualifications.

Academic entry requirements
You'll usually have BA (Hons) degree graded at 2.1 or above, or an equivalent UK or international qualification in your chosen subject or a related discipline.

Alternative Qualifications/Experience

Applicants with other than the required academic qualifications will be considered for entry if there is sufficient evidence to indicate that they have the potential to fulfil the objectives of the course of study and to achieve the standard of the final award.

Applications are also welcomed from those with other qualifications or with work experience which demonstrates appropriate knowledge and skills to study at postgraduate level. https://aub.ac.uk/apply/postgraduate

English language requirements

Test	Grade	Additional details
IELTS (Academic)	6	6.0 overall with a minimum of 5.5 in each component (reading, writing, speaking and listening). We will also accept the Academic IELTS Online.
Cambridge English Advanced	C	Overall score of 180
Cambridge English Proficiency	C	Overall score of 200
PTE Academic	64	Minimum score of 59 in each component (reading, writing, speaking and listening)
TOEFL (iBT)	4.5	A minimum score of 4 in each section. Please note the home version of this test is not accepted.
Trinity ISE	Pass	An overall score of 90 with at least 80 in each skill
Institution's Own Test	OIDI ELLT overall score of 6	Oxford International Digital Institute's English Language Level Test with a score of 5 or above in each section. If you wish to take this test at a discounted rate, please contact international@aub.ac.uk for a bespoke link.

See our website for more information on other accepted English qualifications including national curricula and required scores.https://aub.ac.uk/elp

Fees and funding

Tuition fees

Per year tuition fees

Location	Fee	Year
England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Channel Islands & Republic of Ireland	£9975*
EU & International	£19950*

* This is a provisional fee and subject to change.

Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website.