The next wave of industry-academia partnerships
TryMyUI is accelerating the evolution of the UX/usability field by changing the industry-academia relationship from a transactional one to a transformational one.
- (1888PressRelease) June 23, 2016 - The bridge between tech companies and universities is often transactional. Educators use tools to teach students skills for their classes but often have their choices fall short of the industry standard because of a limited budget and lack of accessibility. Employers hire and train graduates to apply their knowledge at the industry standard. This exchange of technology and talent is inherently transactional because there is little exchange of ideas, collaboration, or interaction between the creators of curricula and creators of the technology. TryMyUI has disrupted this environment by involving industry professionals and students in a collaborative, interactive space to learn and advance UX. Unlike its competitors, TryMyUI fosters industry-academia partnerships that are transformational, not transactional.
TryMyUI is a usability testing platform built for and by web designers. The company's EDU Program (Educational Partnerships) engages experts and audiences from both industry and academia. This engagement begins at the institutional level (where faculty, students, and staff of universities get free, unlimited access to the industry-facing TryMyUI software suite), and seeps down into an exposure of UX culture and trends through collaboration in curricular and co-curricular initiatives such as webinars, clinics, case-studies, among others. TryMyUI has become a space for faculty and students from different institutions to network, collaborate and contribute to the evolving field UX technology.
Consider East Carolina University, where Assistant Professor Guiseppe Getto and his students used the TryMyUI platform to test and improve in-house applications like the North Carolina Coastal Atlas. Or Youngstown State University, where students of Interaction Design build and test their own innovative OS Concepts; in Fall 2015, TryMyUI showcased their presentations worldwide through a YouTube live session. At Dartmouth University, the Web Services staff and students use TryMyUI's tool and resources to revamp academic departments' websites in their new Content Corps Program. Projects like this allow students to use the tools and perform the tasks designers and user researchers in leading tech companies do. This practice facilitates a learning experience that is relevant and applicable to the real world.
Students are the primary beneficiary of TryMyUI's partnerships. Students of Marist College and Elon University (among other universities) have used TryMyUI to conduct user testing and draft their own reports on the UX success and failures of popular public domain websites like Nike. These reports have been showcased and discussed on the company blog, LinkedIn group and social media. Students of art, design, and visual communications also participate in the annual UX Wars Case Competition, which can translate into year-long and summer career opportunities at TryMyUI and other technology companies in the bay area.
The success of TryMyUI's partnerships is evident from two aspects. The first being the growing number of projects that the company stakeholders and university partners collaborate on. At TryMyUI, the Director of Educational Partnerships works closely with faculty from various design universities to explore best practices in design through webinars, talks at conferences (including UCDA, USDLA, among others), and designing curriculum supplements for UX classrooms. The second is a plough back of information. Educational partnerships have been successful in acceleration of new technologies for understanding, analyzing and enhancing user experiences. TryMyUI's own usability testing software undergoes iteration (adding features and new technological abilities like The UXCrowd, UX Diagnostics, and the upcoming Stream) based on feedback from educational partners.
The overarching success of this partnership program is that it has attracted more than 80 institutions across 11 countries and continues to grow every week. TryMyUI's partners include design colleges in the US, a startup accelerator in Paris, to an educational nonprofit Madagascar. Read more about partner stories at blog.trymyui.com. For more information on the EDU Program, visit trymyui.com/edu
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