I'm Michael Lahey, an experience designer & educator in Atlanta, Georgia.

Check out my work, teaching, & research.

I'm an Association Professor on Interaction Design at Kennesaw State University. I created the program and have led it since 2016. I teach classes along the contemporary design value chain: user research, synthesizing research, defining requirements, wireframing, prototyping, & professional development.

I experiment in the ethical quagmire of llms because the students need job market advice. I believe these tools have more opportunity to harm and do good for designers-in-training and navigating the contradiction between durable learning of design principles and craft paired with the messy line skipping afforded by llms.

I write about design education and my dissertation focused on the concept of control as it related to how television companies designed experiences with audiences on digital platforms in the 2000s.
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Some things I'm into: checks & balances, systems thinking, artichokes, being an out-of-touch musical omnivore, Finland, modern art (to a point), NBA basketball (the 2003-2004 Pistons, 2013-2014 Spurs, and 2014-2015 Hawks are personal favs), the NY Mets, owning less, composting, running, ceaselessly learning and forgetting Spanish, and space ice cream.