Designing Your
Phygital World
EDUCATION | CURRICULUM DESIGN | HUMANITY-CENTERED DESIGN
Bridging the physical and digital through humanity-centered design.
Scope
Co-designed and co-taught SE 298, mentoring students through research, prototyping, and final design projects.
Duration
16 weeks (Spring 2025 semester
Year
2025
Backstory
In Spring 2025, I designed and taught SE 298: Designing Your Phygital World with Professor Molly Goldstein, Director of the Product Design Lab at the University of Illinois.
As UX Designer & Industry Mentor, I guided students through a course that bridged the physical + digital (phygital) world — encouraging them to see design not just as a discipline, but as a way of thinking and building.
This course was approved for General Education credit in Natural Sciences & Technology, recognizing its interdisciplinary focus on engineering, systems thinking, and creative design.
The Opportunity
Our vision for the class was to expose students to the many ways design principles shape both products and services. We wanted them to explore how constraints — whether technical, environmental, or cultural — can spark innovation rather than block it.
At the same time, we emphasized humanity-centered design as a guiding philosophy, encouraging students to consider inclusivity, empathy, and ethics in every decision they made.
The course also gave them hands-on experience with agile methodologies and rapid prototyping, showing how iteration and collaboration are essential for solving real-world design challenges.
To bring this to life, I built a 16-week syllabus that moved students from design thinking and research methods into low- and high-fidelity prototyping, with tools like Figma anchoring much of the digital work. I delivered lectures, facilitated workshops, and mentored teams as they developed phygital solutions to societal and environmental challenges.
The students’ final projects showed just how far they had come. One team designed Guardian U, a solar-powered bike lock and companion app with NFC technology to improve security and usability. Another developed GotchaGluten, an app that simplifies gluten-free grocery shopping by integrating shelf-scanning and user feedback to support people with dietary restrictions.
The course outcomes were as meaningful as the projects themselves. In formal evaluations, 88% of students rated the teaching effectiveness at the highest level, and 100% gave top marks for instructor care and concern.
Students described the class as highly interactive, creative, and grounded in project-based learning that gave them both freedom and structure.
Project Scope
Teaching Philosophy —
My Quiet Revolution
Teaching has always been my quiet rebellion — not about imposing answers, but about unveiling what students already carry within them. As I write in my book Designed to Feel, “To teach is to whisper: you already know more than you think.”
I see education as an act of healing and liberation. It must be rooted in curiosity and wonder, rather than rote mechanics. It should borrow from Montessori principles, giving students permission to run wild with their questions. It should balance systems and softness — offering structure, but never letting structure confine.
For me, design and education are one and the same. Both are acts of love and resistance, reminding students they can belong, build, and imagine futures worth living. This course allowed me to live that philosophy in practice, combining rigor with humanity and showing students how to design not only products, but also lives.
Conclusion
Teaching Designing Your Phygital World remains one of my proudest experiences. It proved that design education can be both rigorous and deeply human. It showed students how to move fluidly between engineering systems, creative ideation, and storytelling. And it reaffirmed my belief that the future of design will be built not only in industry but also in interdisciplinary, compassion-driven classrooms.
