MKTG90041 Customer Experience Design
The Complete Exam Bible · Semester 2 2026MKTG90041 Overview
- University of Melbourne
- Semester 2 2026
- Graduate coursework
- Marketing
MKTG90041 Customer Experience Design is a University of Melbourne graduate coursework subject on improving customer experiences through human-centred design. It treats the experience as the whole customer relationship across physical and digital touchpoints, not as one website or app.
- Assessment Four published components total one hundred percent, including a two-hour online final examination worth fifty percent.
- Core method Move from journey evidence to a defined problem, then test a service response before scaling it.
- Project standard Carry persona evidence through the future journey and support recommendations with metrics or stated assumptions.
- Exam boundary Use current LMS guidance for final question format, permitted materials and operational conditions.
How MKTG90041 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Individual presentation 10 minutes | 10% | Throughout the teaching period. The subject guide describes an individual workshop presentation selected at random. |
| Test 1 hours | 15% | First half of the teaching period. The subject guide specifies an in-person mid-semester test in Seminar 7 covering Seminars 1 to 6. |
| Group assignment (groups of 3-4) 4000 words | 25% | End of the teaching period. The subject guide specifies a CX redesign presentation deck, class presentation and final deck. |
| Exam 2 hours | 50% | Two weeks after teaching according to the Handbook. The subject guide identifies an online end-of-semester examination covering teaching-period material. |
The official Handbook supplies the component labels and weights. The Semester 2 subject guide supplies current operational detail. Consult the current LMS guidance for hurdle, materials and final-exam conditions not displayed in this table.
Current MKTG90041 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 7 September 2026 | Mid-semester test | Seminar 7, one hour, in person. |
| 9 October to 23 October 2026 | Group project milestones | Presentation deck, class presentation and final deck milestones. |
| 2 to 20 November 2026 | Examination period | The two-hour online examination is scheduled within this period. |
Dates come from the Semester 2, 2026 subject guide. The current LMS and personalised timetable control operational updates. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.
What MKTG90041 covers
Follow the subject from whole-of-journey customer experience through discovery, synthesis, service design, testing and organisational delivery.
Customer Journeys and Experience Scope
Whole-of-journey customer experience, touchpoint limits, handoffs, journey boundaries and evidence at the right scale.Customer experience follows the person's full progress across physical and digital contacts, while a touchpoint describes one interaction.
- Customer experience as the whole relationship across channels and time
- Touchpoint performance versus end-to-end journey outcomes
- Journey triggers, intended progress and defensible end states
- Handoffs, repeated information, waiting and recovery loops
- Qualitative accounts, behavioural evidence and operational measures
- Journey-level prioritisation rather than indiscriminate touchpoint polish
Human-Centred Design Decisions
HCD mindsets, the Double Diamond, divergent and convergent thinking, and desirability, viability and feasibility.Human-centred design combines a mindset with a sequence of methods. The course emphasises empathy, co-creation, iteration, context and holistic thinking, then locates work across Align, Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver.
- Empathy, co-creation, iteration, context and holistic HCD principles
- Align, Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver in the Double Diamond
- Divergent creation versus convergent evaluation and selection
- Desirability as the human need and experience lens
- Viability and feasibility as sustainability and delivery constraints
- Iteration as a response to evidence rather than repeated polishing
Discovery Research and Bias
Recruitment, interview design, bias safeguards, ethical care and field notes that preserve a trace to evidence.Discovery research is designed to replace assumptions with evidence about real experience. The course begins with a recruitment brief, recent-use screening and an interview guide that moves from warm-up into a concrete story, probes and wrap-up.
- Recruitment briefs tied to a relevant and recent journey
- Open, past-focused, single questions that avoid leading language
- Story, sequence, emotion, workaround and consequence probes
- Confirmation, sampling, social-desirability and acquiescence risks
- Observer notes that separate behaviour, language and interpretation
- Willing adults, transparent purpose and restraint with sensitive data
Research Synthesis and Problem Framing
Affinity mapping, themes, insights, solution-free problem statements and How Might We opportunity questions.Define turns a large set of research notes into one defensible problem.
- One observation or quote per note with enough context to interpret it
- Affinity clusters that emerge from similarity rather than preset categories
- Themes supported across people or evidence sources
- Insights that state learning and significance rather than repeating a quote
- Problem frames built around people, progress, context and consequence
- How Might We questions that are focused on need but open on response
Jobs to Be Done and Personas
Progress in context, functional, emotional and social jobs, and research-grounded composite personas.Jobs to Be Done and personas answer different design questions. A job describes the progress a person seeks in a particular circumstance, including functional, emotional and social dimensions.
- Progress and circumstance as the centre of a Jobs to Be Done statement
- Functional, emotional and social dimensions of customer progress
- Forces that support or resist a change in behaviour
- Research-grounded persona patterns rather than demographic stereotypes
- Evidence labels that distinguish observation, synthesis and assumption
- Connections among jobs, personas, journey stages and design criteria
Journey Maps and Service Blueprints
Current and future journeys, moments of truth, frontstage and backstage layers, support processes and handoffs.A journey map follows customer progress across stages, actions, touchpoints, thoughts, feelings, pain points and opportunities.
- Journey purpose, actor, start, end and level of detail
- Stages, actions, touchpoints, thoughts, emotions and pain points
- Moments of truth and handoffs that shape the whole experience
- Current-state evidence versus future-state design hypotheses
- Frontstage, backstage, support process, system and evidence layers
- Failure tracing from customer symptom to operational cause and owner
Ideation, Prototypes and Testing
Structured divergence, concept filtering, prototype fidelity, fit-for-purpose tests and evidence-led iteration.Develop and Deliver turn a framed opportunity into evidence about a possible response.
- Divergent idea generation before explicit convergent selection
- Idea quantity, variation and building on others' contributions
- Desirability, viability and feasibility as transparent filters
- Risky assumptions and the lowest useful prototype fidelity
- Test tasks, observation, neutral prompts and evidence capture
- Decision rules to iterate, combine, reframe, reject or advance
Change, Reflection and Stakeholder Delivery
Journey ownership, change sequencing, stakeholder engagement, prioritised recommendations and customer-centred measures.A better future journey does not implement itself. Delivery requires clear ownership, sequenced change, stakeholder engagement and measures that connect organisational action to customer progress.
- Journey ownership across functions rather than isolated touchpoint control
- Stakeholder interests, influence, contribution and likely resistance
- Immediate, enabling and investment-dependent changes
- Recommendations linked to causes, owners, dependencies and measures
- Customer outcomes paired with operational signals and guardrails
- Critical reflection on evidence, assumptions, teamwork and learning
Students work with discovery research, personas, Jobs to Be Done, journey maps, service blueprints, the Double Diamond, desirability, viability and feasibility, concept testing, prototypes and change management.
The teaching sequence follows a practical design cycle.
Students begin with customer-experience scope and HCD principles, investigate real users during Discover, make sense of evidence during Define, generate and filter concepts during Develop, and test and improve them during Deliver. A live group redesign project carries the tools through a current-state journey, future-state journey, service blueprint, prototype and stakeholder presentation.
The subject also examines how organisational systems, processes and ownership must change for a better experience to become repeatable.
Assessment combines an individual presentation, a mid-semester test, a group CX redesign and an online final exam. The subject guide identifies the final as two hours and says it covers teaching-period material.
It sends students to Seminar 12 for the current exam context and guidelines, so the LMS remains the operational source for question format, permitted materials and sitting instructions.
Worked example · free
AskSia practice weighting: diagnose a broken onboarding journey
- 1Define the journey as gaining usable membership access, rather than treating each channel as a separate success.
- 1Identify the handoff failure: identity and status do not travel with the customer across channels.
- 1Propose a shared case status with one clear next action and a visible escalation path.
- 1Test comprehension, duplicate contact and time to first successful use before scaling.
Key terms
- Customer journey
- The connected sequence through which a person tries to make progress across time, channels and organisational handoffs.
- Touchpoint
- One interaction between a customer and an organisation, such as a call, message, visit, form or service encounter.
- Human-centred design
- A mindset and method that grounds innovation in people, context, co-creation, iteration and the whole experience system.
- Double Diamond
- A design structure that alternates divergence and convergence across the problem space and solution space.
- DVF framework
- A decision screen that examines desirability for people, viability for the organisation and feasibility of delivery.
- Affinity mapping
- A synthesis method that groups field observations by similarity so supported themes and insights can emerge.
- Jobs to Be Done
- A lens for the progress a person seeks in a specific circumstance, independent of any one product or feature.
- Persona
- A research-grounded composite that organises recurring goals, pains, behaviour, context, channels and jobs.
- Service blueprint
- A layered view connecting customer action to frontstage, backstage, support process and system delivery.
- Prototype
- A deliberately incomplete representation used to expose an assumption and obtain evidence before full implementation.
MKTG90041 FAQ
How is this subject assessed?
The official structure has four components: an individual presentation worth 10%, a one-hour test worth 15%, a 4,000-word group assignment worth 25%, and a two-hour exam worth 50%. The Semester 2 guide describes the group task as a CX redesign and supplies its presentation and deck requirements.
What is published about the final exam?
The Semester 2 guide identifies an individual, two-hour online examination under exam conditions. It assesses material covered throughout the teaching period and falls in the University examination period. Seminar 12 provides exam context and guidelines, so check the current LMS for the sitting's question format, materials and instructions.
What does the mid-semester test cover?
The guide states that the in-person test covers Seminars 1 to 6 inclusive. It lasts one hour and uses multiple-choice, true or false, and fill-in-the-blank questions drawn from the seminar material.
What must the group redesign contain?
The project follows a researched end-to-end customer experience and requires two personas, current and future customer journey maps, a service blueprint link, prototypes, testing, recommendations and customer-centred measures. The presentation should distinguish immediate actions from changes needing substantial investment.
How do the HCD tools fit together?
Discovery research supplies evidence, Define turns patterns into a clear problem, Develop creates and filters alternatives, and Deliver tests and refines them. Journey maps keep customer progress visible while service blueprints expose the organisational work required to produce the future experience.
What makes the subject challenging?
The workload is conceptually connected rather than formula-driven. Students must distinguish similar artefacts, avoid jumping from an interview quote to a preferred feature, and carry evidence through personas, journey maps, prototypes, service operations and measures. The final exam is half the grade, while the applied project also expects a defensible end-to-end redesign.
What are the subject rules for generative AI?
The guide permits defined uses in the group project, including planning research, secondary research, prototype creation and pressure-testing artefacts, with acknowledgement and citation. Human-centred insight, primary research and design decisions must remain the students' work. No AI may be used in the mid-semester test or final exam.
Questions students ask in each MKTG90041 chapter
- What is the difference between a journey and a touchpoint?
- A touchpoint is one interaction, while a journey connects the customer's progress across interactions, channels, time and organisational handoffs. Touchpoint data can diagnose local friction, but journey evidence is needed when the outcome depends on continuity between several contacts. Chapter 01 · Customer Journeys and Experience Scope
- What makes a process genuinely human-centred?
- The team must allow evidence from people and context to change the problem, concept or priority. Completing a persona, workshop or prototype is not sufficient when the preferred solution remains protected from challenge. Chapter 02 · Human-Centred Design Decisions
- What makes a participant relevant?
- Relevance comes from experience with the journey, circumstance or decision under study, not from convenience. Screening should state what the person has recently done and why that experience can inform the design question. Chapter 03 · Discovery Research and Bias
- When does a cluster become a theme?
- A cluster becomes meaningful when related evidence appears across more than one person or source and supports a coherent pattern. Repeated notes from one interview may be important, but they do not establish a cross-user theme by themselves. Chapter 04 · Research Synthesis and Problem Framing
- Is a job the same as a task?
- No. A task is an action, such as collecting a meal or completing a form. A job describes the wider progress that makes the action meaningful in context. The job can include practical completion, emotional reassurance and a social role. Chapter 05 · Jobs to Be Done and Personas
- What makes a journey boundary useful?
- It should follow a customer purpose rather than one department. Name the actor, the progress being pursued, a meaningful start and a meaningful end. A boundary is too narrow when it hides the handoff causing the problem and too broad when stages cannot be researched or acted on. Chapter 06 · Journey Maps and Service Blueprints
- Why separate divergence and convergence?
- Early evaluation makes teams defend familiar ideas and reduces variety. A separate divergent phase increases the number and range of responses. Convergence then makes selection accountable by applying evidence, design criteria and constraints rather than enthusiasm alone. Chapter 07 · Ideation, Prototypes and Testing
- Why does a journey need an owner?
- Customers experience a connected journey while organisations divide work among teams and systems. A journey owner keeps the end-to-end outcome visible, coordinates cross-functional decisions and prevents local channel targets from concealing handoff failure. Chapter 08 · Change, Reflection and Stakeholder Delivery
How to study for the exam
Revise the subject as a reasoning chain rather than a catalogue of tools. Start by defining the customer progress and journey boundary. For Discover, practise choosing relevant participants, repairing leading questions and separating observation from interpretation. For Define, move from notes to clusters, themes, insights, a solution-free problem and a How Might We question.
Distinguish Jobs to Be Done from personas, then show how each changes the journey. For mapping, follow customer actions first and use the service blueprint to locate frontstage, backstage, support and system causes.
For Develop and Deliver, identify the risky assumption, choose the lowest useful prototype fidelity, match the test to the learning question and state what evidence would confirm, refine, reframe or reject the concept. Close every recommendation with the enabling process, owner, customer outcome and measure.
Use the published mid-semester question types only for that test; rely on the current LMS guidance for the final exam format.
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