PhD Student - Texts & Technology, University of Central Florida
Intersecting Digital Media, AI and User Experience
Hello! This page serves as a brief overview of my research interests and scholarly identity as a Ph.D. student focused on Digital Media and User Experience (UX).
My core scholarly mission is to understand and critically analyze the experience and interaction between users and emerging digital platforms, especially in the context of Generative AI. I believe that technology, design, and culture are inseparable, and my work aims to ensure that the future of digital experiences is both usable and equitable.
Key Research Focus Areas
My interdisciplinary approach is driven by the following questions:
1. The Shifting Landscape of UX Design
I am interested in how the professional field of UX is being reshaped by Generative AI (GenAI). My research investigates:
- Workflow Transformation: How are core UX tasks, like wireframing and prototyping, changing as designers shift from traditional tools (Figma, Sketch) to AI-integrated platforms?
- Creative Agency: How does GenAI redefine the designer’s role? Are they becoming “makers” or “orchestrators” of technology?
2. Usability and Digital Literacy
I focus on the critical implications of digital design, ensuring technology serves diverse global users.
- Criitcal AI Literacy: My work explores how a user’s (and a designer’s) digital literacy level influences their interaction with complex interfaces and the resulting product usability.
3. Critical Making
My methodology is grounded in the belief that one must critically engage with technology to understand it.
- Critical Making: I use hands-on, practical exercises to uncover the ethical oversights and design challenges of GenAI that purely theoretical study might miss. I actively seek to reveal the “black box” of design automation.
My Toolkit & Skills
To address these questions, my research leverages a mix of critical theory and technical practice:
- Research Methods: Qualitative Interviews, Case Studies, Data Analysis.
- Theoretical Frameworks: Design Justice, Critical AI Studies, Activity Theory
- Technical Skills: UX Research, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, Critical Making, and Platform Analysis.
My goal is to provide a comprehensive, human-centered analysis that drives both academic discourse and practical change in the field of digital product development.
Outside the Borders of Research…
Curiosity has not “killed my cat,” it has made me a better writer, a better singer, songwriter, and guitarist, a better everything. Curiosity is what drives learning; we stop wondering, we stop knowing.
I enjoy being around intellectual discussions often, listening or speaking. And time has no limits with me when music is involved; singing or listening to it - unless I fall asleep.
I have enough jokes, scripts, lyrics or adulting plans in my head that can keep me going throughout a day.
Most of the things I know about cars would be because my dad did not forget to tell me what the difference between the front wheel and back wheel drive is, the reasons for oil change that I should not miss and other experiences he remembers to narrate to me after his visits to his mechanic. So, I am cool when I converse with a mechanic, with lines in my mind that ‘I am not the typical girl that will be cheated, because I do know something about car parts - yes.’ My siblings think I should eat more and better, while my mom believes my decision to eat healthily is profitable. So, I am torn between eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, or eating a lot so I look my age in stature, on days when I care about food.
I am dedicating my portfolio to my family. They have made life, homely.
One quote that I hope will be on my byline is: “If you are looking forward and upward, you will never find out who is looking down on you.”
Contact
- Email: favour.boluwade@ucf.edu