Students will launch their human-centered digital illustration project by engaging with real users to understand how color, movement, and cultural elements influence emotional responses to digital art. They will conduct structured interviews, surface assumptions, and create evidence-based empathy maps that will serve as the foundation for defining a meaningful design challenge in the next phase.

Students will synthesize their user interview data and empathy maps to identify patterns, surface key insights about how audiences emotionally respond to digital illustrations, and craft a clear, evidence-based How Might We statement that will guide their ideation and prototyping in the next phase.

Students will generate a wide range of user-centered solution ideas for their Procreate illustration, then narrow to the strongest concepts based on real user needs identified in their empathy maps and How Might We statements.

Students will build and refine low- to higher-fidelity Procreate prototypes of their emotion-focused digital illustrations, test them with real users, and document iteration decisions grounded in user feedback before preparing for final presentation.

Students will conduct a final validation of their refined Procreate illustrations with a new user, synthesize feedback into targeted improvements, and present their full human-centered design journey at a Digital Art Gala. They will clearly trace how empathy research, problem definition, ideation, and iteration shaped their final visual storytelling decisions.