This is a 10-week part-time or 1-week accelerated course.In this 12-week course, students learn to build wireframes, implement best practices for common design patterns and analyze business goals from a user perspective.
Skills & Tools: Use industry standard tools such as Sketch and Invision to prototype and wireframe design solutions.
Production Standard: Put together a full suite of UX documentation for a digital product, from user personas and wireframes to interactive prototypes.
The Big Picture: Connect and convey how insights into customer behavior—from problems to solutions—can optimize any product or service.
What You'll Learn:Unit 1: Design Process Intro to UX & Design Thinking - Explain course expectations in terms of pre-work, homework, projects, office hours, Schoology, etc.
- Define the elements of User Experience Design.
- Develop basic skills in creative problem solving, innovation, and human-centered design through a fast-paced design thinking activity.
- Sketch out potential design solutions to the problem you have defined.
Prototypes, Feedback, & Critique - Practice adapting to rapidly changing stakeholder requirements.
- Create a paper prototype of your proposed solution.
- Present designs and justify design decisions.
Unit 2: Rapid Prototype User Research - Describe the skills required to conduct and recruit for an effective user interview.
- Define contextual inquiry and articulate its benefits.
- Prepare unbiased interview questions.
- Conduct an effective user interview.
- Draft a research plan and write a discussion guide for final project interviews.
Competitive Research - Compare products in the same space or in adjacent industries, including competitive reviews and task analyses.
- Conduct competitive research to help inform your final project concept.
- Explore how surveys and task analysis inform research.
Synthesizing Research & Creating Personas - Use research to create an affinity map that identifies trends and insights within your research findings.
- Articulate the benefits and shortcomings of personas as a design tool.
- Use research to create personas that reflect the target audience.
Defining User Goals & User Flows - Effectively synthesize research into a problem statement and design direction that reflects the primary need of your target audience.
- Apply sketching techniques to ideate through solutions.
- Explore examples of how to map the flow of a specific product or experience.
- Construct a first draft of the user flow for the primary user goal for your final project.
Paper Prototyping & Usability Testing Basics - Articulate the value of testing early in the design process.
- Apply paper prototyping techniques to iterate on your design concept.
- Practice formulating task scenarios and running usability tests.
Unit 3: Hi-Fidelity Prototype User Stories & Feature Prioritization- Break down your user goals into more granular user stories.
- Use a common framework to prioritize features that align with your vision.
- Discuss struggles with feature prioritization and vision alignment and how to address them.
Information Architecture & Navigation - Define the field of Information Architecture and explain when its techniques are used in a project.
- Explore methods for organizing complex and diverse types of content.
- Apply card-sorting techniques to structure and validate your proposed information architecture.
- Use card sorting results to construct a sitemap that will then become navigation.
Responsive / Native Design & Design Patterns - Describe the respective technical capabilities of responsive sites and native mobile apps.
- Evaluate options and choose what format is most advantageous to your final project.
- Gain exposure to design patterns.
Wireframing - Define best practices for wireframing and annotating.
- Use industry standard tools (Sketch) to create high-fidelity wireframes
- Download UI kits and discuss their role.
- Explain the difference between human interface guidelines, design principles, pattern libraries & style guides.
Visual Design Basics - Explore principles of design and how they relate to digital interfaces.
- Learn to apply fundamentals of visual hierarchy, grid systems, and typography to give your final project UI more structure and clarity.
- Make visual hierarchy and typographic choices that enhance the appeal and clarity of your content.
High Fidelity Prototyping - Identify and describe the different categories of tools for prototyping.
- Create clickable prototypes using InVision that will support usability testing goals.
- Discuss gestures and motion how they are commonly applied.
Advanced Usability Testing - Prepare a discussion guide to test your final project.
- Run 3 usability tests using best practices.
- Synthesize your testing results and identify major takeaways from testing.
- Outline 3-5 improvements that you will make to your work.
Unit 4: Refine Onboarding & Behavior Change - Describe what makes a great onboarding/first time use experience.
- Practice designing an onboarding experience that communicates the value of your product to potential users.
- Learn about Nir Eyal’s Hooked model of habit formation and how it may be applied to the final project.
- Practice applying different types of variable rewards to final project concepts to create experiences that will keep users wanting more.
Final Project Workshop - Receive instructional team feedback on your final project.
- Turn your project into a stakeholder presentation
Unit 5: Present UX Mini-Project - Practice going through real industry UX design problems from beginning to end.
- Work in teams or independently to develop design solutions for the industry design problem.
- Present your design solution.
Presentation Day 1 - Define and describe the principles that drive a strong user experience with search & results
- Identify the components of search & results, recognize their function, and how to use them effectively
- Review & evaluate examples of search & results
- Evaluate how the use of specific search & results components, in given contexts, enhances or detracts from the user experience
- Design a search experience that provides a strong user experience
Presentation Day 2 - Effectively communicate your design solution in final project.
- Critique and provide feedback for classmates.
Portfolios & Next Steps - Explore examples of good UX portfolios and discuss the story aspect of portfolio building.
- Write the 5 most valuable takeaways from your project.
- Practice telling your personal story to different types of stakeholders.
- Identify next steps and receive project rubrics and grades.
School Notes:
For students enrolling in 12 week part time and immersive classes, it is not recommended that you book more than one class simultaneously.