2025
Jones, Derek; Boling, Elizabeth; Brown, James Benedict; Corazzo, James; Gray, Colin M; Lotz, Nicole
Studio Properties: A field guide to design education Book
Bloomsbury Visual Arts, London, England, 2025, ISBN: 9781350407503.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Creativity, Critical Pedagogy, Critique, Design Education, Design Judgment, Design Knowledge, Design Methods, Design Theory, Ethics and Values, Expertise, HCI Education, Identity, Reflection, Studio Pedagogy, Transdisciplinary Education
@book{Boling2025-tg,
title = {Studio Properties: A field guide to design education},
author = {Derek Jones and Elizabeth Boling and James Benedict Brown and James Corazzo and Colin M Gray and Nicole Lotz},
url = {https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/studio-properties-9781350407503/},
isbn = {9781350407503},
year = {2025},
date = {2025-08-01},
urldate = {2025-08-01},
publisher = {Bloomsbury Visual Arts},
address = {London, England},
abstract = {There is something special about a studio as a place of practice and learning.
Studio is a complex form of teaching and learning. If you have not experienced studio, it may seem mysterious, even chaotic. If you have experienced studio, you may want to know more about how and why it works. Either way, Studio Properties will deepen your understanding of studio to help you teach, research, or administer design education more effectively and with greater confidence and creativity.
Use Studio Properties like a field guide. You will discover the components of studio broken down into individual properties. You will find clear descriptions and a wealth of research references that illuminate studio. You will be guided in understanding the relationships between properties without being limited to one model or approach.
In this innovative and non-linear book, available in print, ebook and open access, six internationally renowned and award-winning educators and researchers from various studio disciplines invite you to explore familiar and less-familiar aspects of studio.},
keywords = {Creativity, Critical Pedagogy, Critique, Design Education, Design Judgment, Design Knowledge, Design Methods, Design Theory, Ethics and Values, Expertise, HCI Education, Identity, Reflection, Studio Pedagogy, Transdisciplinary Education},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {book}
}
There is something special about a studio as a place of practice and learning.
Studio is a complex form of teaching and learning. If you have not experienced studio, it may seem mysterious, even chaotic. If you have experienced studio, you may want to know more about how and why it works. Either way, Studio Properties will deepen your understanding of studio to help you teach, research, or administer design education more effectively and with greater confidence and creativity.
Use Studio Properties like a field guide. You will discover the components of studio broken down into individual properties. You will find clear descriptions and a wealth of research references that illuminate studio. You will be guided in understanding the relationships between properties without being limited to one model or approach.
In this innovative and non-linear book, available in print, ebook and open access, six internationally renowned and award-winning educators and researchers from various studio disciplines invite you to explore familiar and less-familiar aspects of studio.
Studio is a complex form of teaching and learning. If you have not experienced studio, it may seem mysterious, even chaotic. If you have experienced studio, you may want to know more about how and why it works. Either way, Studio Properties will deepen your understanding of studio to help you teach, research, or administer design education more effectively and with greater confidence and creativity.
Use Studio Properties like a field guide. You will discover the components of studio broken down into individual properties. You will find clear descriptions and a wealth of research references that illuminate studio. You will be guided in understanding the relationships between properties without being limited to one model or approach.
In this innovative and non-linear book, available in print, ebook and open access, six internationally renowned and award-winning educators and researchers from various studio disciplines invite you to explore familiar and less-familiar aspects of studio.
Toombs, Austin L; Parsons, Paul C; Gray, Colin M; El-Shamy, Jenny; Ostrowski, Anastasia K
The Ambiguity Amoeba and other Metaphors: Teaching Students to Sketch and Prototype Through Uncertainty Proceedings Article
In: EduCHI 2025: 7th Annual Symposium on HCI Education (EduCHI '25), Association for Computing Machinery, 2025.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Design Knowledge, Design Methods, Design Theory, Expertise, HCI Education, Studio Pedagogy
@inproceedings{Toombs2025-al,
title = {The Ambiguity Amoeba and other Metaphors: Teaching Students to Sketch and Prototype Through Uncertainty},
author = {Austin L Toombs and Paul C Parsons and Colin M Gray and Jenny El-Shamy and Anastasia K Ostrowski},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3742901.3742916},
doi = {10.1145/3742901.3742916},
year = {2025},
date = {2025-07-30},
urldate = {2025-01-01},
booktitle = {EduCHI 2025: 7th Annual Symposium on HCI Education (EduCHI '25)},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
abstract = {In this Teachable Moment article, we demonstrate how Austin
Toombs uses a whiteboard drawing of an amoeba with chaotic
borders to help students understand the role of sketching and
pro- totyping as tools for thinking, rather than as polished
representa- tions of finalized ideas. Many HCI graduate students
come from disciplines where exploratory thinking through
sketching or other approaches was not emphasized. As a result,
they often misinter- pret requests for sketches and prototypes as
calls for high-fidelity mock-ups rather than as invitations to
create provisional artifacts. The amoeba metaphor provides a
visual and conceptual scaffold to illustrate how iterative
sketching and prototyping help students navigate and refine
uncertain design spaces. We present classroom examples, student
reflections, and insights into how this approach encourages
greater comfort with ambiguity. Paul Parsons, Colin Gray,
Jennifer El-Shamy, and Anastasia Ostrowski, who also teach
students how to engage with uncertainty, describe how they would
adapt this technique for their own classrooms and share
additional metaphors they use to support students’ tolerance for
ambiguity. By sharing this approach, we hope to contribute to
broader con- versations about fostering flexible, exploratory
mindsets in HCI education.},
keywords = {Design Knowledge, Design Methods, Design Theory, Expertise, HCI Education, Studio Pedagogy},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
In this Teachable Moment article, we demonstrate how Austin
Toombs uses a whiteboard drawing of an amoeba with chaotic
borders to help students understand the role of sketching and
pro- totyping as tools for thinking, rather than as polished
representa- tions of finalized ideas. Many HCI graduate students
come from disciplines where exploratory thinking through
sketching or other approaches was not emphasized. As a result,
they often misinter- pret requests for sketches and prototypes as
calls for high-fidelity mock-ups rather than as invitations to
create provisional artifacts. The amoeba metaphor provides a
visual and conceptual scaffold to illustrate how iterative
sketching and prototyping help students navigate and refine
uncertain design spaces. We present classroom examples, student
reflections, and insights into how this approach encourages
greater comfort with ambiguity. Paul Parsons, Colin Gray,
Jennifer El-Shamy, and Anastasia Ostrowski, who also teach
students how to engage with uncertainty, describe how they would
adapt this technique for their own classrooms and share
additional metaphors they use to support students’ tolerance for
ambiguity. By sharing this approach, we hope to contribute to
broader con- versations about fostering flexible, exploratory
mindsets in HCI education.
Toombs uses a whiteboard drawing of an amoeba with chaotic
borders to help students understand the role of sketching and
pro- totyping as tools for thinking, rather than as polished
representa- tions of finalized ideas. Many HCI graduate students
come from disciplines where exploratory thinking through
sketching or other approaches was not emphasized. As a result,
they often misinter- pret requests for sketches and prototypes as
calls for high-fidelity mock-ups rather than as invitations to
create provisional artifacts. The amoeba metaphor provides a
visual and conceptual scaffold to illustrate how iterative
sketching and prototyping help students navigate and refine
uncertain design spaces. We present classroom examples, student
reflections, and insights into how this approach encourages
greater comfort with ambiguity. Paul Parsons, Colin Gray,
Jennifer El-Shamy, and Anastasia Ostrowski, who also teach
students how to engage with uncertainty, describe how they would
adapt this technique for their own classrooms and share
additional metaphors they use to support students’ tolerance for
ambiguity. By sharing this approach, we hope to contribute to
broader con- versations about fostering flexible, exploratory
mindsets in HCI education.
2014
Gray, Colin M
Evolution of design competence in UX practice Proceedings Article
In: Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '14, pp. 1645-1654, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2014, ISBN: 9781450324731.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Design Education, Design Knowledge, Expertise, HCI Education, Identity, Practice-Led Research, UX Knowledge, UX Practice
@inproceedings{Gray2014-dl,
title = {Evolution of design competence in UX practice},
author = {Colin M Gray},
url = {https://colingray.me/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2014_Gray_CHI_EvolutionofDesignCompetence.pdf
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2556288.2557264},
doi = {10.1145/2556288.2557264},
isbn = {9781450324731},
year = {2014},
date = {2014-01-01},
urldate = {2014-01-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '14},
pages = {1645-1654},
address = {Toronto, Ontario, Canada},
series = {CHI '14},
abstract = {There has been increasing interest in the adoption of UX within corporate environments, and what competencies translate into effective UX design. This paper addresses the space between pedagogy and UX practice through the lens of competence, with the goal of understanding how students are initiated into the practice community, how their perception of competence shifts over time, and what factors influence this shift. A 12-week longitudinal data collection, including surveys and interviews, documents this shift, with participants beginning internships and full-time positions in UX. Students and early professionals were asked to assess their level of competence and factors that influenced competence. A co-construction of identity between the designer and their environment is proposed, with a variety of factors relating to tool and representational knowledge, complexity, and corporate culture influencing perceptions of competence in UX over time. Opportunities for future research, particularly in building an understanding of competency in UX based on this preliminary framing of early UX practice are addressed.},
keywords = {Design Education, Design Knowledge, Expertise, HCI Education, Identity, Practice-Led Research, UX Knowledge, UX Practice},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
There has been increasing interest in the adoption of UX within corporate environments, and what competencies translate into effective UX design. This paper addresses the space between pedagogy and UX practice through the lens of competence, with the goal of understanding how students are initiated into the practice community, how their perception of competence shifts over time, and what factors influence this shift. A 12-week longitudinal data collection, including surveys and interviews, documents this shift, with participants beginning internships and full-time positions in UX. Students and early professionals were asked to assess their level of competence and factors that influenced competence. A co-construction of identity between the designer and their environment is proposed, with a variety of factors relating to tool and representational knowledge, complexity, and corporate culture influencing perceptions of competence in UX over time. Opportunities for future research, particularly in building an understanding of competency in UX based on this preliminary framing of early UX practice are addressed.