Industrial Design Students' Perceptions towards a Career in User Experience Field in Turkey

The rapid growth of the user experience (UX) field has brought efforts to meet the increasing demand for specialists by welcoming professionals from diverse disciplines, including industrial design (ID). UX field offers ID graduates extended professional possibilities, potentially appeasing the challenging conditions of the ID job market in Turkey. Although there are some educational efforts on getting prepared for a career in UX, how ID students perceive such a career path has not been investigated. For this purpose, this paper presents a survey study conducted with senior ID students to understand their perspectives regarding the likelihood of a career in UX. The findings outline the extent and reasons of their interest in UX, benefits of their educational background, and perceived readiness and individual efforts towards building a UX career. We discuss the potentials of ID background for UX, and present implications for design education and practice to better prepare students for a career in UX.