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.
(
Holmberg
)
- 2020-2021 | Autumn
MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement
Mondays 10/5-12/7, 6:00pm-9:50pm | Online
Course Description:
This course focuses on the fundamentals of user experience design, identifying the skills and concepts needed to successfully design products and services for humans. We will learn the principles of design thinking so that students come away from the class with a framework for understanding how to identify real user problems, design solutions for how to solve those problems, and then test those solutions with real people.
(
Schwieterman
)
- 2020-2021 | Winter
MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 1/6-3/10 | 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Course Description:
The goal of this course is to provide a strong foundational knowledge of product content strategy as a function within a user experience design team. Skill areas include responsive content strategy, inclusive design, content auditing, performance auditing and more. Specific focus is also given to understanding the perspectives of partner roles, building skills around collaborating and communicating with each role type. You should walk away ready to join a real team and get to work. You will also gain real work examples by working with brands from around the region.
(
Faris
)
- 2020-2021 | Spring
Track Neutral Elective | 2 Credits
Saturdays 4/3 – 5/5, 9:00AM – 11:00AM PST (Note: instructor and class will determine meeting dates based on project needs) | Online
Course Description:
A strong creative brief guides a creative project from concept through distribution and serves as a strategic outline. Usually developed in the project initiation phase, it’s a critical document that gets all members of the team on the same page – creatives, clients, and other stakeholders. It captures specifics on project goals and objectives, target audience, messaging and other essential information to drive your creative ideation, and execution. In this practicum, we’ll explore what makes a brief strong and learn the key elements of an effective brief. You’ll practice doing all the necessary research, preparation, and strategic work that goes into developing a creative brief for an actual, organizational client. You’ll work directly with the client to understand their project needs and creative request. You’ll turn that into a solid brief and present your work to the client at the end of the quarter.
About 503 Communication and Leadership Practicum
Communication and Leadership Practicum was designed as a complement to COMMLD 502, intended to help shape the beginning of the Communication Leadership journey. The course gives students an early opportunity to engage with and understand the uses of course concepts in contemporary professional practice by addressing the challenges of real-life organizations.
Each section of the Comm Lead Practicum focuses on a distinct professional skill or practice that is deemed essential across a variety of professional fields. Students can choose their section based on their interests and needs. Each section is matched with a client organization or group of client organizations who are interested in partnering with Communication Leadership students.
he span of a quarter, students analyze the issues faced by the client organization(s), collaborate and brainstorm collectively in small teams, and with the support of their faculty mentor create a deliverable for the client organization(s) that relates to the specific practice. Students may also create creative samples as part of the project. In doing so, students can develop and enhance skills, build foundations of practice, and produce work that they can include in their own professional portfolios.
Structure of Class
Class will convene online during the time indicated by section for a minimum of 5 classes led by a faculty mentor. This may occur every other week, or at different intervals that serve the needs of the project. On dates that the faculty mentor is not in attendance, students will have that time together to work with their teams.
During the times that faculty mentors are in attendance, students will report out on the current status of their projects, hear from experts about best practices, receive feedback, and provide feedback to one another. At the end of the quarter, students will present their project deliverables to the client organization, faculty, and their peers.
In addition to the final presentation, students will plan to meet with the client organizations mid-way through to report out on the current status of their projects and receive important feedback on their developing ideas and processes. Depending on client availability for these two meetings, time may need to be rescheduled from the regular class meeting time, with consideration of faculty mentor and student schedules.
(
Salkowitz
)
- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021
Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Sundays, 10/24 (9:00AM – 1:00PM PDT), 11/7 (9:00AM – 5:00PM PDT), 11/21 (9:00AM – 1:00PM PDT) | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 23412
Course Description
Scenario Planning is a methodology that organizations use to plan for unexpected risks and opportunities by creating multiple stories about possible futures. The construction of these stories follows a very carefully defined structure and process, starting with the identification of uncertainties that can impact future operations, then building narratives that reflect different possible permutations and outcomes. With these scenarios in mind, we can provide a range of rich “What if” examples to help guide strategies in the face of evolving conditions. In this class, we will undertake an abbreviated version of the scenario planning process to examine a core question: the shape of the Comm Lead Program in the 2030s.
Students will participate in a community scenario planning workshop conducted by industry expert and scenario planning consultant Daniel W. Rasmus (who is serving as guest speaker for the class). They will then work in teams to construct stories around different futures, developing narratives that reflect the experiences of students, faculty members, staff, partners and the broader community. Ahead of the first class session following the workshop, students will work individually to gather further resources to inform the scenario planning process, conducting interviews, doing secondary research, compiling questions, and filling out the research agenda. In the first session, we will use these resources to construct the narrative frameworks and provide professional-level guidance on refining the scenarios into planning tools. In the second session, we will share and discuss the scenarios and apply them to the specific issues related to the future of the CommLead program. Student teams will present and discuss their finding with members of the Comm Lead leadership.
About 503 Communication and Leadership Practicum
Communication and Leadership Practicum courses give students an opportunity to engage with and understand the uses of course concepts in contemporary professional practice by addressing the challenges of real-life organizations.
Each section of the Comm Lead Practicum focuses on a distinct professional skill or practice that is deemed essential across a variety of professional fields. Students can choose their section based on their interests and needs. Each section is matched with a client organization or group of client organizations who are interested in partnering with Communication Leadership students.
In the span of a quarter, students analyze the issues faced by the client organization(s), collaborate and brainstorm collectively in small teams, and with the support of their faculty mentor create a deliverable for the client organization(s) that relates to the specific practice. Students may also create creative samples as part of the project. In doing so, students can develop and enhance skills, build foundations of practice, and produce work that they can include in their own professional portfolios.
(
Porter
)
- 2021-2022 | Winter 2022
MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Thursdays 1/6 – 3/10, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | CMU 126 | Hybrid
Registration SLN: 22072
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.
(
Wilson
)
- 2021-2022 | Spring 2022
Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Mondays 3/28 – 6/6, 6:00PM – 7:50PM | CMU 230 | Partially In-Person
Registration SLN: 21603
Course Description:
One Vax Two Lives is an evidence-based communication campaign to increase COVID-19 vaccination among pregnant and breastfeeding individuals by promoting scientifically accurate information about the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination and dispelling myths and disinformation in social media. In this practicum, students will take part in this campaign by analyzing and creating visualizations of data gathered through the initial phase of the One Vax Two Lives campaign. This data will inform the design of focus group discussion guides to test digital content and understand the reasons for vaccine hesitancy. At the culmination of this practicum students will present the FGD guides and insights (including analytics and visuals) to the client.
Credit/No Credit Only
About 503 Communication and Leadership Practicum
Communication and Leadership Practicum courses give students an opportunity to engage in contemporary professional practice by addressing the challenges of real-life organizations. Each section of the Comm Lead Practicum focuses on a distinct professional skill or practice that is deemed essential across a variety of professional fields. Students can choose their section based on their interests and needs.
In the span of a quarter, students analyze the issues faced by the client organization(s), collaborate and brainstorm collectively in small teams, and with the support of their faculty mentor create a deliverable for the client organization(s) that relates to the specific practice. Students may also create creative samples as part of the project. In doing so, students can develop and enhance professional skills (such as learning how to manage ambiguity), build foundations of practice, and produce work that they can include in their own professional portfolios.
(
Gordon
)
- 2021-2022 | Summer 2022
MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Thursdays, 6/23-8/18, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | DEN 213 | Partially In-Person
Registration SLN: 14390
Course Description:
This course focuses on the fundamentals of user experience design, identifying the skills and concepts needed to successfully design products and services for humans. We will learn the principles of design thinking so that students come away from the class with a framework for understanding how to identify real user problems, design solutions for how to solve those problems, and then test those solutions with real people.
Meets Research Methods Requirement.
(
Wilson
)
- 2022-2023 | Autumn 2022
Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Tuesdays 10/04-12/06, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | Online
Registration SLN: 13011
Course Description
Grow It Forward Restoration connects volunteer gardeners to organizations working to restore native wildlife habitat. In this practicum, students will collect and analyze data, synthesize insights into coherent stories and produce a set of testimonials for the client that will provide relevant, engaging, real-life examples of how the program helped volunteers and habitat restoration organizations.
This practicum is designed to simulate a professional setting, where you may not be clear on what is expected of you and where you will succeed if you can learn to embrace ambiguity, see challenges as opportunities and demonstrate the ability to solve complex problems with aplomb. Students will examine the challenges faced by the client organization, collaborate with their team to manage a project, and meet with members from the client organization to report on progress and receive feedback on developing ideas and processes. At the end of the quarter, and with the support and feedback of the instructor, students will create a final deliverable for the client organization.
Credit/No Credit Only.
About 503 Communication and Leadership Practicum
Communication and Leadership Practicum courses 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. Students can choose their section based on their interests and needs.
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.
(
Baltus
)
- 2022-2023 | Winter 2023
Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Mondays 1/9 – 3/6, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 12773
Course Description:
In this practicum, students will design and deliver a marketing campaign strategy with creative assets for a real client: Meditation for Actors [meditationsforactors.com](MFA), an app “where wellness meets tech for the benefit of performing artists.” The purpose of the marketing campaign strategy is to help MFA be less ad hoc and more strategic in growing and engaging potential audiences. Students will map current outreach approaches, learn from some marketing research currently underway, and proactively identify and work through the process of understanding the needs of the client, who will provide real-time feedback. By the end of this practicum students will develop a pitch deck for the client with some potential creative assets.
About Communication and Leadership Practicum:
Communication and Leadership Practicum courses 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. Students can choose their section based on their interests and needs.
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
(
Gordon
)
- 2022-2023 | Spring 2023
Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Mondays 3/27 – 6/5, 6:00PM – 7:50PM | CMU 230
Application Required – See Description
Course Description
In this practicum, students will work on a real-world design problem—forming a partnership among design students, instructor, and a client. Students will work in a team-based context and apply their design-thinking skills to improve a business’ website by reducing user frustrations and helping the business reach its goals.
The final deliverable will be a client presentation highlighting what frustrations were discovered through research and testing, how the design thinking process was applied to maximize user and business needs, and will include a prototype to visually express the proposed solution incorporating the totality of the evaluation.
Credit/No Credit Only.
**Since this class takes foundational concepts to the next level, students who register must have either already taken COMMLD 510: Introduction to Information Architecture, one of our intro courses (511 or 512), or Content Marketing (513) or have equivalent UX experience. Please fill out this form to the best of your ability. If your form is approved, you will receive an add code to register for the course. (Note: applications will be time stamped, and qualified applicants will be added to remaining class spots on an equitable basis determined by time of application and remaining time in the program. The application can be found here: https://forms.office.com/r/SCLBjnYa2w
About 503 Communication and Leadership Practicum
Communication and Leadership Practicum courses give students an opportunity to engage with and understand the uses of course concepts in contemporary professional practice by addressing the challenges of real-life organizations.
Each section of the Comm Lead Practicum focuses on a distinct professional skill or practice that is deemed essential across a variety of professional fields. Students can choose their section based on their interests and needs. Each section is matched with a client organization or group of client organizations who are interested in partnering with Communication Leadership students.
In the span of a quarter, students analyze the issues faced by the client organization(s), collaborate and brainstorm collectively in small teams, and with the support of their faculty mentor create a deliverable for the client organization(s) that relates to the specific practice. Students may also create creative samples as part of the project. In doing so, students can develop and enhance skills, build foundations of practice, and produce work that they can include in their own professional portfolios.
(
Joslyn
)
- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023
Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Mondays 10/2-12/4, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | CMU 242
Registration SLN: 23615
Course Description:
This course will guide students through a variety of techniques and processes to building experiences that are inclusive, and designed to directly serve their intended audience. This includes a lightweight look at understanding and defining your audience, testing for a variety of accessibility challenges, designing for inclusion, and an overview of ways to get feedback from your audience.Students will then be able to leverage these techniques to evaluate experiences to identify opportunities to improve.
(
Long
)
- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024
Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Thursdays 9/26 – 12/5, 6:00pm – 7:50pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 13042
Course Description
In this practicum, students will work on a real-world Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy—forming a partnership among SEO students, instructor, and a client. Students will work in a team-based context and apply their SEO skills to be able to give the client an SEO strategy recommendation for their website to help them improve their keyword rankings in Google.
The final deliverable will be a client presentation highlighting keywords that the client should target based on the use of various analytics tools resourced with help from the instructor. Students will also deliver a sample of a page that has been optimized on the client’s website as an example, with resources the client can use to further optimize their site. By the end of the Practicum, students will have a sample for their portfolio to demonstrate their knowledge of SEO.
About Communication and Leadership Practicum:
Communication and Leadership Practicum courses 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
(
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
(
Morrill-McClure
)
- 2016-2017 | Winter
MCDM Elective, Meets Research Methods Core Requirement
Wednesdays, 6:00-9:50pm | CMU 126
Course Description:
What makes interactive experiences compelling and how are they designed? This course analyzes existing interfaces, discussing what makes them effective, and provides an overview of tools and theories that guide user experience designers in their practice. Students will be introduced to information architecture (wireframes, sitemaps), information design (information graphics) and visual design (composition, typography, composition, color) and encouraged to apply their learning towards practical design assignments. Our focus is on computer interfaces but is not limited to its traditional “keyboard/mouse/monitor” triangle, as we will also discuss innovative consumer products such as Kinect. The course “Foundational User Centered Design” will provide good foundation for discussion in this class but is not required. A basic understanding of Adobe Creative Suite software, CSS or Visio is helpful, but not necessary for success in this course.
Student Testimonial:
From this course, I learnt theories and tools help UX designers in their practice. I have applied different UX research methods, such as creating personas, designing wireframes, etc. Moreover, this course gave me a concrete idea of how to become a UX designer and what I should pursue more in the future.
(
Holmberg
)
- 2016-2017 | Spring
MCDM Elective, Meets Research Methods Core Requirement
Mondays, 3/27/17-6/5/17, 6-9:50pm | COM 126
Course Description:
This course will focus on advanced content strategy, in two senses of “advanced”: both as the next level of the skills taught in the intro courses, and as next wave content strategy as it relates to the advancement of emerging technologies. We will therefore build off of skills learned in the foundational content strategy courses, while looking simultaneously toward the future of the discipline and the hypothetical technologies of tomorrow.
For the advanced skills, we will take deeper dives into some of the core content strategy skills, including journey mapping, information architecture, and teardowns. Our goal with these tools will be to focus on the strategy which informs how we build products that solve real user problems.
We will also look “beyond the screen” to apply these content strategy tools to the Internet of Things, VR, AR, and more future technologies. But to understand the opportunities and challenges these new technologies bring, we will peer into to the future through the lens of science fiction. Science fiction both predicts and influences future technology; for example, in the 1960s Star Trek communicators foreshadowed the flip phones of the 1990s, and video chat existed in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey long before Skype in the 2000s. Because sci-fi explores the human side of technological advancements—especially how people live and interact with these technologies—looking at several science fiction examples will help us think through tomorrow’s user challenges today.
This course will assume you have a basic understanding and familiarity with content strategy principles, so previous experience with content strategy, such as the completion of either COM 585: Multi-platform Content Strategy: A Practical Approach to Immersive & Responsive Content or COM 597: Design + Content: Introduction to UX Content Strategy is recommended (but not required).
(
Guy
)
- 2016-2017 | Spring
MCDM Elective, Meets Research Methods Requirement
Thursdays, 6:00-9:50pm | CMU 126
Course Description:
This course will introduce basic programming and data science tools to give students the skills to find, access, and synthesize data into information. We will cover the basics of the Python programming language, web APIs including APIs from Wikipedia and Twitter, and basic tools for statistical hypothesis testing, data manipulation, and visualization. Students will be encouraged to bring questions and problems from their own area of interest and apply Python and Data Science to those problems through an independent project. Our target audience is students with no previous programming experience. There will be two major additions to the material we teach in the Community Data Science Workshop. First is a capstone independent data research project where students will be expected to practice what they’ve learned by sourcing, cleaning, and analyzing a data set that is relevant to their interests. Second will be special topics from the world of online social media analysis including A/B testing and measuring online success.
Student Testimonial:
“This course was intense and fast-paced, but it was an absolute blast! I took this course because I had taught myself a little bit of HTML, CSS, and C++ before, but I really wanted a more structured environment in which to better learn coding principles. Learning how to code is like learning another language; it takes a lot of practice and effort but you learn a lot of actionable info in a short period of time. From the beginning Professor Guy set the expectation that we weren’t going to become expert Python coders in 10 weeks, but we were going to learn the basic coding logic and syntax, how to pull and manipulate social media data, how to derive meaningful analysis, and how to speak about our technical coding methods in a clear and effective manner. He really made sure the course was as practical and applicable as possible. During the class we had weekly challenge problems where we learned how to manipulate data and then how to access it from website APIs. We got a lot of class time to work together and tackle these problems. These exercises gave us the skills to access and analyze data that we would eventually use for our final project, which we got full autonomy over. We learned basic skills for the first 6 weeks or so, and then had the rest of the classes to work on our final projects and ask Guy questions. He is incredibly enthusiastic and an insanely skilled programmer. This class made me feel that coding was much for accessible and gave me some skills that I could fall back on if I need to do some heavy data analysis in the future. I would highly recommend this course if you are curious about programming and up for a little bit of a fun challenge!”
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206.543.6745
4101 E Stevens Way NE, Seattle, WA
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University of Washington
Department of Communication