Creative, User Experience (UX), & Accessibility Practice

The Creative, User Experience, and Accessibility Practice (CrUX) partners with teams across Duke to shape meaningful, inclusive digital experiences. Grounded in user-centered design and accessibility, we help teams create clear, intuitive products that meet real Duke needs.

The Web Accessibility office provides free training and accessibility assessments to ensure the design, content, and development of Duke's web products are available to people with a wide range of abilities.

Why UX Matters

Every digital project balances business goals with user needs. We focus on understanding your audience and aligning those insights with your business objectives. Through clear information organization, user-centered testing, and intentional design, our partnership enables efficient development and ensures intuitive, trustworthy experiences for both digital products and AI-driven initiatives.

Student Partnerships:

We love helping students build skills, improve projects, and prepare for careers in UX and design. We provide:

• Free UX/UI Consultations: Bring your school or personal project ideas and get expert feedback.
• Free Workshops + Training: Join semester workshops to learn research, design, and testing methods. Visit the UX/UI page on the Pathways site each semester to view and sign up for current offerings.
• Portfolio Support: Get guidance on presenting your work to future employers.
• AI Tool Support: Get feedback on AI projects, including content output, chatbot design, and usability testing, ensuring AI tool accuracy and helpfulness.

Staff Partnerships:

We collaborate with departments and units to improve Duke websites, products, and applications. Our team can:

• Partner with developers on custom-built applications, aligning features and UI with validated user needs to reduce guesswork and wasted development effort.
• Improve website navigation, content structure, page layout, and content generation with AI through our custom UX packages.
• Provide accessibility assessments and guidance for compliance and inclusivity.
• Provide AI tool support: From output accuracy and accessibility to front-end design, we help AI tools work better for real users.

Faculty partnerships:

Give your students hands-on experience with industry practices and help them showcase work that stands out. We offer:

• Custom workshops for students in your class on UX topics: user research, usability testing, interface design, accessibility, etc.
• Consultation on student projects - from conducting user studies to building portfolios.
• AI design guidance for courses and research, including the evaluation of AI-powered experiences for clarity, accuracy, and accessibility.

How we help

We use proven methods to guide your project from idea to launch:

• UX Research: 
  Understand real user and stakeholder needs.
• Usability Testing: 
  See how people actually use your product.
• Information Architecture: 
  Organize content for clarity and findability.
• User Flows: 
  Map and improve the user journey.
• User Interface (UI) & Visual Design: 
  Create intuitive, consistent, and engaging interfaces.
• Workshops: 
  Align teams and solve large problems together.
• Web Accessibility: 
  Ensure experiences work for everyone.