Dennis Cheatham
I am an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. My research explores how design thinking, processes, and outcomes affect and are influenced by human perception, behavior, and actions in societally systemic problems. Through getting to know people groups via field work and facilitating co-creation of design interventions, my work benefits communities while producing a clearer understanding of how people construct meaning by studying the solutions they create.
Prior to my work as a researcher and educator, I practiced design for fifteen years as a creative director, graphic, interaction, and service designer and worked in agency, in-house, corporate, non-profit and freelance environments. I’ve worked with and for organizations including Southwest Airlines, HKS Architects, Cook Children’s Hospital, Water is Basic and public broadcasting television station, KERA. I hold an M.F.A. in Applied Design Research from the University of North Texas as well as a B.F.A. in Communication Design and a B.A. in Creative Writing from Texas Tech University.
Prior to my work as a researcher and educator, I practiced design for fifteen years as a creative director, graphic, interaction, and service designer and worked in agency, in-house, corporate, non-profit and freelance environments. I’ve worked with and for organizations including Southwest Airlines, HKS Architects, Cook Children’s Hospital, Water is Basic and public broadcasting television station, KERA. I hold an M.F.A. in Applied Design Research from the University of North Texas as well as a B.F.A. in Communication Design and a B.A. in Creative Writing from Texas Tech University.
less
InterestsView All (6)
Uploads
Papers by Dennis Cheatham
Conference Presentations by Dennis Cheatham
With both early and late-career undergraduate graphic design students I am exploring the facilitation of four "engaged" approaches to teaching critical thinking. Both hands-on classroom activities and evidence-centric assignments challenge students to recognize their own assumptions by requiring them to make meaning of culturally charged concepts and to solve problems solely based on gathered evidence. These approaches have been successful in highlighting how humans make meaning in different ways and the usefulness of evidence-based approaches for accurate problem formation and solving.
In-use field research and alien culture immersion experiences require students to leave campus, removing them from their normal environments, challenging them to address how and why human agents and non-human factors impede or encourage meaningful interactions. These experiences have provided fuel for discussions and lessons that highlight the need for critical analysis of problem complexity and increase students' awareness levels as they are forced to become "users" in foreign environments. The results of these implementations highlight how an experience-based approach to teaching critical thinking in undergraduate design programs can be an effective means for strengthening critical thinking skills and applications.
At the core of this endeavor to teach graphic design as a practice that hinges on compelling aesthetics while embracing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding languages is a desire to challenge students to craft outcomes that most effectively satisfy all three aspects of Sanders's "UUD" model. This approach activates instructional methods that promote student research and decision making on what types of interaction or graphic design outcomes would be most useful when solving problems, such as the use of print-based media or the development of web sites or mobile apps. Knowledge of coding languages and processes for building interaction design experiences enables the creation of prototypes that allow students to critically analyze the usability and desirability of their designs in tandem, strengthening the rigor of designed outcomes and the depth of learning outcomes. In design practice, graphic and interaction design are becoming synchronous and embracing the teaching of current tools of building interactive experiences via code is warranted.
This paper explains the decision making process taken when choosing to shift programmatic goals to embrace the teaching of coding languages as part of graphic design curriculum at Miami University. Evaluation of the effects of this curricular shift is based on data collected via student performance assessments, student interviews, as well as observations. Strengths and weaknesses of implemented courses, technologies, and assignments are reviewed, based on research findings. The analysis of the data collected results in recommendations for future curricular development in order to inform the shape of graphic design education that embraces interaction as a significant component of the future of the discipline in such a way as to support graphic design, not to supplant it.
-------
Sanders, Elizabeth B.-N. “Converging Perspectives: Product Development Research for the 1990s.” Design Management Journal 3 (1992): 49–54.
With both early and late-career undergraduate graphic design students I am exploring the facilitation of four "engaged" approaches to teaching critical thinking. Both hands-on classroom activities and evidence-centric assignments challenge students to recognize their own assumptions by requiring them to make meaning of culturally charged concepts and to solve problems solely based on gathered evidence. These approaches have been successful in highlighting how humans make meaning in different ways and the usefulness of evidence-based approaches for accurate problem formation and solving.
In-use field research and alien culture immersion experiences require students to leave campus, removing them from their normal environments, challenging them to address how and why human agents and non-human factors impede or encourage meaningful interactions. These experiences have provided fuel for discussions and lessons that highlight the need for critical analysis of problem complexity and increase students' awareness levels as they are forced to become "users" in foreign environments. The results of these implementations highlight how an experience-based approach to teaching critical thinking in undergraduate design programs can be an effective means for strengthening critical thinking skills and applications.
At the core of this endeavor to teach graphic design as a practice that hinges on compelling aesthetics while embracing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding languages is a desire to challenge students to craft outcomes that most effectively satisfy all three aspects of Sanders's "UUD" model. This approach activates instructional methods that promote student research and decision making on what types of interaction or graphic design outcomes would be most useful when solving problems, such as the use of print-based media or the development of web sites or mobile apps. Knowledge of coding languages and processes for building interaction design experiences enables the creation of prototypes that allow students to critically analyze the usability and desirability of their designs in tandem, strengthening the rigor of designed outcomes and the depth of learning outcomes. In design practice, graphic and interaction design are becoming synchronous and embracing the teaching of current tools of building interactive experiences via code is warranted.
This paper explains the decision making process taken when choosing to shift programmatic goals to embrace the teaching of coding languages as part of graphic design curriculum at Miami University. Evaluation of the effects of this curricular shift is based on data collected via student performance assessments, student interviews, as well as observations. Strengths and weaknesses of implemented courses, technologies, and assignments are reviewed, based on research findings. The analysis of the data collected results in recommendations for future curricular development in order to inform the shape of graphic design education that embraces interaction as a significant component of the future of the discipline in such a way as to support graphic design, not to supplant it.
-------
Sanders, Elizabeth B.-N. “Converging Perspectives: Product Development Research for the 1990s.” Design Management Journal 3 (1992): 49–54.