- The term User Experience Design was first coined by Don Norman in 1993.
- The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that job growth for the role of User Experience Designer will increase by 23% from 2021 to 2031.
- According to Indeed.com, a UX Designer in the USA makes from 69K to 156K, averaging around 103K.
What is User Experience Design
UX design is the art of creating products and services that are user-friendly, enjoyable, and relevant to the user. UX designers solve problems or pain points for users by understanding their needs. A UX designer designs solutions that are intuitive and efficient. By doing so, UX designers help organizations create and deliver value to their customers.
How to Become a User Experience Designer from Scratch
There are different ways to become a UX designer in 2023. You can join a UX design boot camp. Or, you can pursue self-paced online paid courses. Depending on course length, it takes about 3 to 6 months to complete. There is another path you can take to become a Junior User Experience Designer in 2023. There are a lot of free user experience design courses available online. In this article, I will share 5 free user experience design courses. These will help you learn the basics of user experience design.
1. UX Design Short Course from CareerFoundry
CareerFoundry is offering a free UX Design Mini Course. If you want to learn the basics of UX design and check if UX is the right fit, then this is the perfect course for you. This course consists of 7 emails. CareerFoundry will start mailing you the tutorials after you sign up. You will receive an email containing the lessons, videos, and reading materials. The lessons are designed in a beginner friendly way. By the end of this course, you will learn the essentials of UX design and know enough to decide whether UX is the right fit for you. There will be an assessment at the end of the course. If you score 70% or higher, you will get a discount on CareerFoundry’s premium UX Design Course. This short course will help you build a solid foundation in user experience design. After that, you can decide whether to buy a premium UX Design course.
2. Digital Skills: User Experience
This course is offered by Accenture on the ed-tech platform FutureLearn. This course has 175K enrolments as of writing this article. It has a 4.7 rating (out of 5) from 1270 reviews. The course length is 3 weeks, and there are 5 lessons and assignments.
Digital Skills: User Experience is a beginner-friendly course. It is well organized, and the reviews from the students are positive. There are videos, quizzes, and reading materials to study.
3. Introduction to User Experience Design
Georgia Institute of Technology is offering this course on the online learning platform Coursera. 408K+ learners have enrolled in this Introduction to User Experience Design course. It has a 4.5 (out of 5) rating and 7800 reviews. Senior research scientist Dr. Rosa I. Arriaga is the instructor of this course. She also has a 4.6 rating (out of 5) from 2500+ learners on Coursera.
There are 6 modules in this course. It should take about 3 weeks to complete if you spend 2 hours per week of study time. If you have a Coursera account, you can take the entire course for free. Alternatively, you can buy the course for US $49 and earn the certificate when you complete the course.
You can apply for Financial Aid as well. Each application takes about 16 days to be reviewed. You can take the course for free when your financial aid application is granted. You will receive a certificate when you complete all the quizzes and pass the assignment. The certificate is verifiable and shareable online.
4. Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design
In 2021, Google launched the Google UX Design Professional Certificate program. It is a 7-course professional series designed to prepare anyone for an exciting career in the rapidly growing UX Design field. Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design is the first course in this series developed under Grow with Google initiative. This course is offered through the ed-tech platform Coursera.
Google has a long history of developing excellent user experience through its products and services. The Foundations of User Experience Design is a perfect choice for you if you want to learn from the creator of Android, Chrome, and Google Search. This course already has 1 million plus enrollments, a 4.8 rating (out of 5), 56,405 reviews, and 99% thumbs up. The foundations of the user experience design course is divided into 4 weeks. You can complete the course material in about 18 hours.
There are 13 quizzes and 4 assessments. All the instructors are Google employees. It is a well-organized course. The instructors are excellent at explaining the concepts and lessons. You can access this course for free in audit mode. Alternatively, you can apply for financial aid and complete the course. This is a great way to begin your exciting journey in the land of user experience design.
5. UX Fundamentals
The UX Fundamentals course is offered by instructor Jim Webb. It is available on the free online learning site Gymnasium. Jim Webb is a web developer and a teacher. He has over 1800+ hours of classroom teaching experience. This course is perfect for web developers, creatives, and user experience designers. There are 6 lessons in this course. There are some prerequisites and requirements that you need to follow if you want to take this course.
User Experience Design is an exciting industry. These five courses will help you start your journey in this field. But it will not be enough. As technology is changing, the landscape is also changing. To be a great user experience designer, you need to be empathetic, passionate, and curious. You have to ask questions. You have to observe how people use and react to your product and service. You have to embrace the mind of a problem solver. I wish you the best of luck in your journey to become a user experience designer.
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