About
Master of Design
The toughest societal problems are rarely solved within a single discipline. They demand boundary-spanning designers who can lead at the scale of systems. The Design Lab at UC San Diego has spent more than a decade developing the design research, methods, and faculty to train this type of designer. In that time, the Lab has become one of the world’s most recognized hubs for interdisciplinary design research, education, and training.
The MDes grew out of that work, drawing on the Lab’s research and teaching in sociotechnical systems and humanity-centered design. The result is a degree grounded in evidence. It prepares designers to frame ambiguous problems, lead across disciplines, and take ethical responsibility for the systems they shape.
About the Design Lab
The Design Lab at UC San Diego is the home of the MDes and one of the most distinctive design research institutions in the world. It was founded in 2014 by Don Norman, who popularized user-centered design and wrote The Design of Everyday Things. He was joined by co-founders Jim Hollan, a pioneer of human-computer interaction and distributed cognition, and Scott Klemmer, known for his research on design tools and online design education.
Today, the Lab is directed by Mai Thi Nguyen, a leader in the field of urban planning, and it includes more than 60 affiliated faculty working across health, technology, and civic systems. These faculty hold joint appointments across departments at UC San Diego, which keeps the Lab at the intersection of disciplines. Its home in the state-of-the-art Design and Innovation Building provides studio classrooms, a fully equipped makerspace, and dedicated project space for a studio-based program.
