Graduate Program Coordinator for Interaction Design
Department of Design, UNT College of Visual Arts and Design

Michael Gibson brings more than 39 years of experience in visual communication, product design, user experience, and interaction design, along with over 30 years as a design educator and researcher.

Now in his 27th year at UNT, Gibson coordinates the planning and delivery of graduate programs in Interaction Design (M.A.) and Design Research (M.F.A.). His role includes supervising sponsored projects, capstone experiences, and thesis and practicum work. These projects frequently serve small to mid-sized businesses, nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, community groups, and educational institutions across North Texas.

Since 1999, Professor Gibson has led cross-disciplinary, design-led research initiatives focused on children’s physical and mental health and K–12 education. Partnering with public school personnel, healthcare professionals, and UNT faculty from diverse fields, he and his student teams have worked to:

• Help teens across Texas quit tobacco use
• Improve mental health resource access for K–12 students and families in Denton County
• Introduce middle and high school students to design thinking as a tool for problem solving
• Support diabetic patients in rural Texas in better managing their day-to-day care

Undergraduate Program Coordinator, Communication Design: User Experience Design
Department of Design, UNT College of Visual Arts and Design

Keith Owens has taught university-level design practice, thinking, and research for over 27 years. Between academic appointments, Owens worked as a designer, creative director, and studio principal in Houston, San Francisco, and Dallas. Client focal areas included corporate branding, simulation technology, hardware-based telephony, gaming development, textbook design, and real estate marketing.

For the last 23 years, Owens has taught Communication and UXI Design and Applied Design Research at UNT. He is also the past UNT CVAD Design Research Center director. The DRC was an urban laboratory where interdisciplinary teams of faculty and graduate students fused design thinking with evidence-based, human-focused research practice to tackle complex, real-world problems. With department colleague Michael Gibson, Owens continues to co-develop undergraduate and graduate courses, curricula, and programs, all anchored by the central tenets of design-thinking theory and practice. His current design research interest centers on the nature of design thinking as a discrete phenomenon and its thoughtful application in industry and educational settings. This research's central question is whether business strategies and learning approaches grounded in heuristic reasoning, iterative form-making, active empathy, collaboration, and critical questioning effectively foster innovative, resilient, and responsive outcomes in rapidly changing professional and educational settings.

Program Director, of the Bachelor of Science in Information Science Program
Department of Information Science, UNT College of Information

Xin Wang specializes in user-experience metrics, information architecture, and health informatics. She previously served for six years as a senior user-experience researcher at the Information Experience Laboratory at the University of Missouri, where she led a team that delivered UX research and usability evaluation services for high-profile organizational clients.

An accomplished scholar, Dr. Wang has published in leading journals in the field of information science, including Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Scientific Reports, The Electronic Library, and the International Journal of Multimedia Data Engineering and Management. She has also presented her work at numerous prestigious international conferences.

Dr. Wang has been awarded several research grants and actively contributes to the profession through service roles. She has served as a juror for the Watson Davis Award and the ProQuest Dissertation Award for the Association for Information Science & Technology, ASIS&T. Additionally, she is a regular manuscript reviewer for journals such as JASIST, The Electronic Library, Journal of Information and Knowledge Management, and Journal of Information Discovery & Delivery.

Traditionally, UX research has relied on data gathered from surveys, interviews, and A/B testing to understand user preferences. AI-powered analytics tools can generate insights from real-time user experience research and then inform design decisions, ensuring that UX strategies are based on empirical data rather than assumptions or purely reactive methods. 

Graphic design focuses on visual communication, applying principles from the print world—such as color theory, typography, layout, and imagery—to create visually engaging digital products. UX design, on the other hand, is research-driven and centers on wireframing, prototyping, information architecture, interaction design, and overall usability. It’s concerned with how systems work, not just how they look.

Today, generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, and DALL-E 2—as well as UX-focused platforms such as Uizard—are transforming the design process. These technologies serve as co-creators, helping teams generate ideas, solve design challenges, and streamline early-stage development. AI can recommend interface solutions, experiment with new visual directions, and even build user flows based on best practices. This accelerates innovation and expands what’s possible in UX strategy and execution—making AI a valuable partner in shaping the future of user-centered design.