Marriott School of Business

DEPARTMENT OF EXPERIENCE DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT

Experience Design and Management (ExDM) is the systematic practice of researching, designing, staging, and continuously improving human experiences, through rigorous measurement and evaluation, to create valued outcomes while promoting human flourishing.

The most effective experience designers speak both the language of design and the language of business. Most professionals speak one or the other. ExDM trains students in both, holding them to professional standards in each. As organizations increasingly recognize that how people experience what they offer shapes outcomes that matter, they need professionals trained to design those experiences well. That capacity is rare, and ExDM prepares students to provide it.

Experiences are not just a professional domain. They are how people learn, grow, connect, and find meaning. ExDM prepares graduates to design them well, with skill and genuine care for the people who experience them.

ExDM prepares graduates for three professional functions that appear wherever organizations serve people: Experience Research, Experience Design, and Experience Production. Every industry needs professionals who can do these things well.

VISION

We aspire to lift the world through intentional experiences.

MISSION

We follow Jesus Christ and embrace our uniqueness as we develop and inspire tomorrow's experience design and management leaders.

Core Values

  • Designing and Managing Experiences Grounded in Truth – We value and design experiences rooted in eternal truth, supported by scientific theories, and validated by rigorous data gathering and analysis. By anchoring ourselves in these forms of truth, we are inspired to question our assumptions and set aside our personal biases in our quest to discover, refine, and solve human-centric problems.
  • Practicing Courageous Curiosity and Creativity – We value and practice curiosity and creativity and recognize them as essential to effective experience design. Practicing curiosity and creativity means having the courage to approach all situations with an open mind and a willingness to seek new perspectives. Intentionally cultivating this mindset enhances empathy, which builds a stronger foundation for innovative and collaborative problem-solving.
  • Building Community – We value human connection, and we are committed to building a community as we love God and follow the example of His Son in our day-to-day interactions. Our community thrives when we remember to recognize our shared humanity and divine nature, extend compassion, and give grace.
  • Experience Impact – We value experiences that help people and organizations flourish. We implement experience strategies and processes that cultivate well-being, support holistic, balanced development, and achieve individual and organizational goals. Our focus on creating positive impact extends the reach of the experience design and management discipline and motivates us to continually improve.

GROUNDED IN CHRIST'S EXAMPLE

Experience is the medium God uses to help His children progress: mortality itself is a designed experience through which His children could exercise the agency that becoming like Him required (see Moses 1:39). ExDM takes experience seriously as a genuine phenomenon. A patient's fear in a waiting room, a new student's first day, a customer's frustration with a return policy are not incidental. They are structured, consequential, and capable of being designed well or poorly, whether or not anyone intended them.

Christ's own example points the way to designing well. Scripture teaches that He entered fully into the suffering of those He served, "that his bowels may be filled with mercy... that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities" (Alma 7:11-12). That pattern, genuine understanding of the people you serve before responding to their needs, is the foundation of human-centered design. ExDM prepares students to create experiences that honor agency, direct attention with integrity, and build genuine bonds. That is what it means to lift the world through intentional experiences.