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Classes

Classes are designed to challenge your thinking and develop your professional skills. You’ll leave each class with a unique set of tools to approach new communications challenges.

Tailor your experience to your career goals by focusing on one of eight areas of specialization. Use the search widget below to sort classes by quarter, specialization, instructor and degree track for each quarter. Get a comprehensive view of the full academic year in our Course Guide.

View the University of Washington Academic Calendar for important dates, including quarter start and end dates, registration dates and deadlines, and campus holidays.

Registration numbers (SLNs) are located on the Time Schedule. Please read the Department’s statement on internet resource requirements for access to courses.

COMMLD 540B: Human-Centered, AI Augmented Internal Comms

(

Abplanalp

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 1/7 – 3/11, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 12714

Course Description:

This course explores the intersection of internal/ organizational communications and artificial intelligence (AI) with an emphasis on human-centricity and organizational culture. Topics will focus on organizational brand, leadership and voice; automation tools and techniques; pitfalls of artificial intelligence; and considerations for diversity, equity, and inclusion, anti-racism, and accessibility.

Students will examine the impact of AI on internal communications practices and strategies within organizations, including integration of AI technologies in communication development and its implications for leadership and decision-making. Students will also develop strength as human-centered, AI-augmented internal communicators, enhancing workflows and sharpening editorial acumen and critical thinking. Each week, students will engage in case study discussions to analyze real-world scenarios and explore the application of AI in different aspects of internal communications.

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COMMLD 537: Principles of Storytelling for Social Impact

(

Kessler

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Saturdays In Person 1/11, Online 1/25, 2/8, 2/22, In Person 3/8, 9:00am – 5:00pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 12712

Course Description:

Storytelling for Social Impact is a foundational class that focuses on the art and craft of nonfiction storytelling to communicate ideas and emotion, build relationships and community, promote change and inspire action. The class reflects the need in all sectors for superb storytelling. 

The class explores, investigates and discusses the elements of narrative — what makes a story a story – and looks at examples of nonfiction storytelling across media (text, sound, still image, moving image and multimedia combinations). This platform-agnostic, birds-eye view of story is about learning how to reframe/ reconceptualize “information” and “report” as story, how to locate the small story that illuminates the larger issue, and what it takes to produce such work.

At its heart, the class is about learning how to conceptualize issues, topics, brands, and ideas as narratives. Students will learn to “think story,” to pinpoint, pitch and gather material for the production of original, compelling and persuasive content.

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COMMLD 531: Foundations of Video Storytelling

(

Christensen

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 1/7 – 3/11, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 302
Registration SLN: 12711

Course Description

Approximately 183 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube every minute. Video isn’t the future of marketing, the revolution is already here and how brands leverage that storytelling capability sets them apart from the competition.

Whether you want to create video content as a full time job or you want to have the skill set in your back pocket as you navigate your communications career, this class will provide a strong foundation for maximizing video content in your marketing endeavors.

We will go over basics of how to use cameras but we will also talk about why content is successful and how we can best emulate those formulas. You are expected to exercise the craft of content creation while at the same time critically evaluating and deconstructing content you see in the marketplace.

This class is a good match for students who:

• want to work in marketing and a foundational knowledge of how compelling video content is created;

• want to specialize in video content creation long term;

• are prepared for a time-consuming and rigorous learning experience.

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COMMLD 521: Digital Media Branding and Marketing

(

Mottola

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 1/8 – 3/12, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Registration SLN: 12710

Course Description

This course is designed for students who will be utilizing their education and experience in the marketing career tracks or in leadership functions where an understanding of marketing is critical. The focus of the course will be on how to build a brand online or extend a legacy brand digitally by applying marketing fundamentals and examining how the most interesting and dynamic brands operate today. We will simulate brand management and building campaigns for real-world brands and explore how they reach target customers to meet objectives and participate in online culture. While online platforms have offered us many more opportunities and “shiny objects” to reach and communicate with customers, the fundamental marketing skills and theories don’t change much or quickly. Learning to be strategic about how to apply these fundamentals will allow students to remain flexible and relevant.

This class is a good match for students who:

• want to learn to create a portfolio-level brand plan

• want to build expansive, omni-channel marketing strategies and tactics for brand building

• want to develop a CMO view of brand management and building marketing capabilities

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COMMLD 520B: Qualitative Research for Social Media Marketing

(

Wang

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 1/7 – 3/11, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 230
Registration SLN: 12709

Course Description

From selling the newest runway fashions to promoting donations to Greenpeace, successful online marketing campaigns and product launches often start with well planned qualitative research. This course offers a qualitative methodological perspective on how to conduct interviews and focus groups. This course explains the who, what, why and how of qualitative research with practical applications for those professionally interested in marketing, branding, and even user experience as well. Students will work throughout the quarter to design and implement their own qualitative research project.

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 581A: Communications in the Age of AI

(

Schiller

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Sundays 1/12, 1/26, 2/9, 9:00am – 5:00pm | CMU 302
Registration SLN: 22146

Course Description

This class will teach frameworks for thinking about AI’s impact on communications work across enterprise organizations, and practical applications for integrating it into daily work. Students will learn how to use AI strategically – to increase agility and accelerate work – while protecting key objectives of clarity, authenticity, security, and employee engagement.

Note: This class assumes you have a basic understanding of the kinds of communications that typically occur in a professional organization. If you are totally new to corporate communications and have never worked in a communications environment, you can expect a steep learning curve.

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COMMLD 515: Advanced User Design

(

Levine

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 1/8 – 3/12, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 104
Registration SLN: 12707

Course Description

In this class, students will work in small groups to design and prototype innovative user-centered solutions to real-world problems and develop an application. Students will develop their projects from a user experience (UX) design perspective and produce a strong piece for their portfolio.

The course emulates real-life aspects of UX design teams, including in-depth experience with user research, usability testing and iterating on the product with real-life users. By the end of the course, students will construct a map of a product’s full customer journey, develop personas with use cases, design a working prototype, and build a proposal with requirements for the concept.

Prerequisite: COMMLD 511, 512, or 517.

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 512: User Research and UX Strategies

(

Porter

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Thursdays 1/9 – 3/13, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Registration SLN: 12706

Course Description:

This course focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of user interfaces from a usability perspective. The aim of the class is to study the concepts, methods, and techniques of usability engineering, with a focus on the artifacts where user experience is essential. Historically, usability has covered aspects of efficiency, learnability, and ease of use. Today, a large number of other measures for success rely on elements such as playability, engagement, entertainment, immersion, and aesthetics.

The above concepts will be detailed with the expectation that by the end of the quarter, students will recognize the aspects of each of the following deliverables within Interface Design and User Research. At the completion of this course, students will have portfolio-ready, end-to-end work examples. The work examples are designed for students to demonstrate they can: understand basic principles of user interface design, implementation, and evaluation, design and conduct usability studies, select an appropriate evaluation method and articulate its advantages and disadvantages, establish useful test objectives, and prepare reports and presenting results.

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 510C: User Interface and Visual Design

(

Gordon

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Mondays 1/6 – 3/17, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | DEN 113
Registration SLN: 12704

Course Description

Design encompasses a variety of interconnected concepts. User Interface Design (UI ) is concerned with how navigational components are organized  within a system interface to ensure the layout is intuitive and helps users achieve their goals. Visual Design emphasizes aesthetics and the strategic use of communication elements, such as images, colors, fonts, and other graphic components, to create visually appealing layouts that achieve a business purpose.

Some of the topics we’ll cover are research, mood board creation, testing, user flows, Figma essentials, component libraries, general layout and design, wireframing, prototyping, microcopy, and more. At the end of this course, students will know how to create impactful UI designs and have knowledge of the tools to bring designs to fruition.

This class is a good match for students who:

• want the fundamentals of human perception and cognition that inform effective interaction design;

• want to understand how UI and Visual Design complement each other;

• want to learn the essential steps, tools and knowledge that inform effective UI & Visual Design workflows

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COMMLD 510A: Persuading Ethical UX Design

(

Evans

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

MCDM Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 1/7 – 3/11, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | PCAR 297
Registration SLN: 12703

Course Description:

When you are in an ethical debate at work about a product or UX design that clearly focuses on business goals at the expense of customers, the experience can feel very isolating. What can you do?

In this course, you will learn how ethical debates have many moves in common, not unlike a chess game. You will learn moves you can make to stop debates before they start, like responsible setting of KPIs and brainstorming unintended consequences. You will also learn common arguments from folks in business, legal, executive, and product roles and how to counter them. Finally, you will learn all-new moves involving research, brand equity, and the psychology of moral judgments that give Comm Leaders an edge. 

This course is about learning how to do well by doing good. Assignments include weekly 5-slide persuasive decks and a final group-project making a storyboard of a full ethical debate. Readings will alert you to societal issues around Dark patterns in UX design, Privacy and employee surveillance, Socially-responsible marketing and Ethical uses of AI.

This class is a good match for students who:

• have some understanding of the fundamentals of human centric and UX design;

• want to work on a portfolio-level group final project built on the foundations of moral, psychological, and business principals;

• are keen to engage in ethical debates with peers and the instructor

Meets Law & Ethics requirement.

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COMMLD 503A: Practicum: Building Community Through Livestreaming

(

McLean

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Mondays 1/6 – 3/10, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 12701

Course Description:

In this practicum course, students will learn to design live streams that bring people together and create a genuine sense of belonging.

By experimenting with strategies that invite participation and make audiences feel seen and heard, students will develop skills to produce live streams that integrate seamlessly into a broader communications strategy. Throughout the quarter students will have multiple opportunities to work on live stream projects related to their own interests, current job roles, or other areas within the Comm Lead department. With this practice and knowledge, students will work together on a culminating challenge: to produce a live stream for Comm Lead’s annual Connects conference.

By the end, students will have a strong foundation to lead live stream projects in real-world settings, with principles that are relevant for everything from simple webcam setups to large-scale productions with professional crews and equipment.

Note: This is not a video production course. The focus is on content design and project leadership for marketing and communications professionals, using accessible, web-based tools that are easy to adopt in any communications role.

About Communication and Leadership Practicum:
Communication and Leadership Practicum courses can be taken at any time in your Comm Lead Journey. They give you the opportunity to engage in contemporary professional practice by addressing the challenges of real-life organizations. Each section is matched with a client organization or group of client organizations, and focuses on a distinct professional skill or practice that is deemed essential across a variety of professional fields. 

Designed to mirror a professional setting, our Practicum offer you the opportunity to work at a higher level and with greater responsibility than what you might encounter in an internship or in entry-level work. In the span of a quarter, you will enhance highly-desirable professional skills, produce work that you can include in your own professional portfolios, and most importantly, leave with a story–your story – of what you did in this project to create value for your client.

Credit/No Credit Only

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COMMLD 512: User Research and UX Strategies

(

Levine

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Mondays 9/30 – 12/9, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 104
Registration SLN: 13050

Course Description

This course focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of user interfaces from a usability perspective. The aim of the class is to study the concepts, methods, and techniques of usability engineering, with a focus on the artifacts where user experience is essential. Historically, usability has covered aspects of efficiency, learnability, and ease of use. Today, a large number of other measures for success rely on elements such as playability, engagement, entertainment, immersion, and aesthetics.

The above concepts will be detailed with the expectation that by the end of the quarter, students will recognize the aspects of each of the following deliverables within Interface Design and User Research. At the completion of this course, students will have portfolio-ready, end-to-end work examples. The work examples are designed for students to demonstrate they can: understand basic principles of user interface design, implementation, and evaluation, design and conduct usability studies, select an appropriate evaluation method and articulate its advantages and disadvantages, establish useful test objectives, and prepare reports and presenting results.

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 600: MC Research Project

(

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Application Required

Course Description:

After completion of a minimum of 50% of Comm Lead course work, students can choose to conduct a scholarly research project. An MC Research Project is roughly the equivalent of a master’s thesis in scope and rigor, and requires the student form a committee of at least two faculty members to evaluate the work, as well as give a public presentation of the final deliverable. See complete details and application instructions on the Guide to MC Research Project page.

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COMMLD 593: Internship

(

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | 1-5 Credits
Application Required

Course Description:

An internship can be a useful way to give students a fundamental understanding of the industry and to accelerate one’s career path. Internships should be directly relevant to the student’s field of study (degree or specialization). Part-time jobs not related to the degree will normally not be approved for internship credit, as the purpose of an internship is to apply what you have been learning in your degree to a real world work experience. See complete details and application instructions on the Guide to Internships page.

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COMMLD 591: Independent Research

(

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | 1-5 Credits
Application Required

Course Description:

Independent Research projects are student-driven, with faculty serving in a loose advisory capacity. This option is for students with a clear project in mind who will only need minimal faculty support to accomplish their end goal. See complete details and application instructions on the Guide to Independent Research page.

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COMMLD 583: Communications for Emerging Web Technologies

(

Tang

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Saturdays 9:00am – 5:00pm, 9/28, 10/12, 10/26, 11/9, 11/23 | Online
Registration SLN: 13081

Course Description

This course examines emerging forms of communication arising from the development of artificial intelligence tools, deep neural networks, web 3 technologies, interactive digital spaces, and online communities connected via social media platforms. We’ll lay out a framework to understand the emerging use cases of web 3 technologies such as blockchain, cryptocurrencies, decentralized autonomous organizations, decentralized apps, trustless/permissionless environments, and smart contracts. The course also investigates the use of interactive digital spaces such as massively multiplayer online games by users and the concept of the metaverse to create new standards of communication. We’ll use the evolution of online communities and social media platforms to examine the fundamental ways people communicate online. Last, the course explores the use of AI tools to generate content and its impact on communication standards. We’ll discuss how businesses, organizations, governments and individuals would leverage these emerging technologies to achieve communications goals.

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206.543.6745
4101 E Stevens Way NE, Seattle, WA
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© Copyright 2022 Department of Communication. University of Washington

University of Washington

Department of Communication

© Copyright 2022 Department of Communication. University of Washington