Site maintained by Nancy Rasche, Associate Professor of Practice at Purdue University, nrasche@purdue.edu

Welcome to the EXPERIENCE STUDIO website!

The User Experience Design (UXD) program at Purdue University offers an industry-oriented course called the “Experience Studio” that aims to provide hands-on, experiential learning for students. Students work together on multi-level teams where undergraduate and graduate students work together in a single, integrated course experience. Each UXD student takes the course multiple times, gaining increasing responsibility and leadership experience. Students in the undergraduate UXD program can graduate with up to 5 semesters of client-based experiential education experience.

All projects are sponsored by industry partners and should address real-world problems. We encourage a variety of entities from startups to large companies. Project types can be focused on user research, exploratory spaces, speculative design, interaction design, and/or website redesigns to name just a few. Want to sponsor a team or join the Partner Program? Contact Nancy Rasche at nrasche@purdue.edu.

2025-2026 ExpStudio Partner Program

Partners agree to sponsor a Fall and Spring project and to host a Purdue UXD summer intern.*

Partner Program Details

These are the minimum program requirements to join the Partner Program.

Fall 2025

Submit 1 project proposal by August 10, 2025 for Fall 2025 and mentor your student team.

Spring 2026

Submit 1 project proposal by December 10, 2025 for Spring 2026 and mentor your student team.

Summer 2026

Host at least 1 UXD summer intern* (flexible options available)

Sponsor Feedback

“… I realized that not only did we have an established program, with deep ties into my alma mater (Purdue University), which also happened to have THE best program in the country for what I wanted to hire for, user experience design.” -from community.hpe.com article, Internships-Attract-Top-Talent

Jon Albregts, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Director

“The Purdue UX program has been a huge benefit to Crema. We were immediately surprised by the level of professionalism and were delighted with the way the students think through complex challenges. This semester the students developed a web application to support our mobile app called Jog. The students listened to our vision and needs and immediately started delivering sketches and mockups from their structured design sprints. The final designs were stunning and added new ideas that we had not considered. We will actually be implementing some of the ideas this quarter. We have sponsored Experience Studio teams for two years and can’t wait for next semester to start again!”

Landon Young, Crema, Strategist

“This is great program and I’ve very happy that UEGroup was part of it.”

Tony Fernandes, UE Group, Chief Instigator

“I came to UDX program in hopes of having something to show to investors. I came away with more than I expected in the way of design as well as research and responsibility. This is a world class program and have nothing but good things to say about my team and the program as a whole!”

Richard Pasquier, Fountain, Owner

“Bringing students into the industrial domain is fantastic because they bring in such a fresh perspective. They are unconstrained by the past and by conventions that often prevent big corporations like ours from re-framing problems and possible solutions.”

Chris Naunheimer, ABB Inc.

“Being a sponsor for a group of students in the Human Centered Design and Development program showed me the quality of instruction and the thorough nature of research and testing that students carry out first hand. If my one semester of being involved with a group in the HCCD program is any indication of what the program is about, it champions in-depth testing and analysis to support design solutions that better the lives of all users.”

John Andronowski, the SCORE, Product Designer

“I was expecting the depth the team went to, but I was mildly surprised at the breadth that they covered. Not only did they look at our project but they included some competitive analysis and even provided us a nice introduction video.”

Roger Patenaude, HPE, SPOCK Program Manager

“The design studio worked methodically through contextual inquiry, survey instruments, pretotypes, to deliver a concept prototype that had a number of ideas that could be brought to market very quickly.”

Rob Rubin, Microsoft Research, Director of Learning Science

“I was delighted with the results and the process and much appreciate the opportunity to benefit from such a talented team of students. For a startup company this was a most valuable contribution to our efforts.”

Mark Van Fleet, NeuroVigor, Founder

“We loved working with the Experience Studio. Our team was polished, professional, and productive!”

Liz Fischer, City Base, Chief Marketing Officer