How to make the most out of the Google UX Course

If you’re someone that’s just starting to explore the field of UI/UX and are looking for a way to dive into the field- the Google UX Course is perfect for you (at least it was for me).

Now, I know a bunch of people that started this course and like many other self-paced courses they either lost interest mid way and gave up, or are struggling to finish and it keeps getting dragged on. I’m going to share a few tips that helped me finish it in 2.5 months and helped me build a portfolio that landed me a job as a Product Designer soon after.

About the course

The course takes you through a typical UX design process and as a requirement expects you to produce 3 projects which you can put in your portfolio. The course material is more UX inclined than UI inclined so if you’re not someone that’s good with graphics you might have to work a tad bit harder in producing these outputs.

The course is divided into the following 7 modules:

1. Foundations of UX Design
2. Start the UX Design Process- Empathize, Define, and Ideate
3. Build Wireframes and Low Fidelity Prototypes
4. Conduct UX Research and Test Early Concepts
5. Create High-Fidelity Designs and Prototypes in Figma
6. Responsive Web-Design in Adobe XD
7. Design a User Experience for Social Good and Prepare for Jobs

The course is designed for someone that doesn’t know anything about design or UI/UX at all so it starts from the absolute basics including what UI and UX means and the value of the field. While that makes sense from the perspective of someone designing the course, more often than not that isn’t the case for the student. Anyone who decides to do a course, especially a paid one, has some basic knowledge about what the field is. So personally, I would suggest just skip the first module. In case you’re a little unsure about how much you really know, skim through the content and watch it at 1.5x speed.

Modules 2, 3, 4, and 5 take you through the step by step process to create one portfolio project. Module 6 and 7 are longer courses with their output being one project each. So you’ll get through the initial few parts much quicker than the latter ones which is what feels a little stretched out towards the end where people tend to lose motivation. However, modules 5, 6, and 7 are arguably the most important parts of the course because they lead to physical outputs you can put in your portfolio that demonstrates your knowledge on the subject rather than just watching videos and learning.

How to approach it

• Since this is a course for beginners, it covers all the bases which is great but it’s slow paced which sometimes makes it feel tedious. I actually went through the entire course at 1.5x or 1.75x based on the pace of the different speakers and it worked great for me. If you’re someone that prefers reading over watching videos- there are transcripts of the entire video so you can quickly go through that content. There’s a written summary at the end as well.
• More than the main video content, what I found to be super helpful were the references. The course has tons of links and additional references on varying topics with examples and case studies. Moreover, they’re from different websites/platforms so you can often find similar articles and delve deeper into a topic you might find interesting.

Additional References

• Work smart, not hard. Each module has a bunch of quizzes and assignments and they take you through a prompt that they’ve given for practice as well as ask you to pick a prompt or a problem statement of your own for your portfolio project. The trick here is that all the assignments that are based on their prompt do not have to be submitted and are self-checked. The assignments based on your portfolio project are peer-reviewed and graded. I simply did not attempt their prompt and focused solely on the portfolio projects.
• While this might seem like you aren’t getting everything out of the course and you aren’t getting enough practice, all of the assignments based on their prompt have an exemplar solution/example they’ve given as well. So you can read through their approach and outputs carefully to understand how to apply it and then go ahead and apply it on your portfolio project. Not only does this save you time, it also makes you focus on valuable outputs because the prompt they give will be in thousands of students’ portfolios and not to forget also in the exemplar solution of the course itself. This would be extremely repetitive to a recruiter which reduces your chances of standing out amidst the masses.

Activity Exemplar for all self-tested assignments

Portfolio projects

The best part about the Google UX Course is that you need to produce 3 projects to get your certification. Which means if you go through the course as a means of building your portfolio, you’ll be ready to apply for jobs as soon as you complete the course.

In fact, the way the course is structured, you’ll have three different projects which would include one responsive website and it would cover two software tools- Figma and Adobe XD. While firms use various different tools, Figma is currently very popular and knowing Adobe XD as well just shows that you aren’t attached to one software and are comfortable learning and upskilling as and when required.

The most crucial part about doing this course is to avoid using a prompt generator. I used one for my first project because I couldn’t think of a prompt myself and while the output turned out fine. However, for the next two projects I identified my own problem statement and those turned out to be much better thought out and explained, in my opinion.

Project 1: Art for you

Coming up with your own problem statement will help you understand and empathize with it better and it’s definitely more engaging as a designer when you can relate to the project or are highly interested in delving into a certain topic. Furthermore, while explaining projects, I think it’s important to make the reader take some time to grasp the goal so they understand and appreciate your output. Which in my experience I was able to do far better with my latter two projects than the first one, since I was so invested in it.

Project 2: Link.it

Project 3: Nishaan

The more you’re involved, the more you’re interested, and thereby the more likely you are to go the extra mile.

This is genuinely something I believe and constantly try to implement in different aspects of my life.

Time management

This is probably the most important contributor when it comes to completing this course. Think of it this way, the longer you take to do the course, the longer it would take for you to actually delve deep into the profession and actually get started in building your UX career. These are a couple of things I did to help me finish the course in 2.5 months:

• I paid for only the 3-month package of the course. This sets a hard deadline for you which would push you to complete it within that time. And frankly speaking, the course is very doable in 3 months as long as you’re consistent. I know, first-hand, that this works because towards the last month I found myself procrastinating immensely to just finish off the 15% of the course. But I knew I had to because I didn’t want to pay extra just for the last little bit.
• A key player in being consistent is finding someone to keep you accountable. I was fortunate enough to have a friend from school who I shared my 3 month plan with and he ensured that I texted him daily with progress updates.
• I used to work full-time as an architect while I was doing the course so I would majorly only get time on the weekends. I split my week and course material in a way that I dedicated about 2 hours daily after work on the course videos and about an hour on the reading material whenever I got time throughout the day. I skipped on doing any major assignments that would require more than an hour on the weekdays and binged them all on the weekend.
  Especially when it comes to working on hi-fidelity mockups of your projects. It really helps to have that continuous 5/6 hours to really get in the flow and be able to produce more work. There’s a reason why so many designers end up working through the night- they just don’t want to lose the creative productivity they built up in that moment. The only qualm about this system is that sometimes the video and reading part of the course doesn’t move along with the assignments. However, it’s something that stopped bothering me after the first 1/2 weeks because I realised it’s not affecting my output in any way.
• The key is consistency. I know this is a piece of advice that’s grossly overused but it does work wonders. There have been plenty of days where I’ve been tired from work or had to work late and came home at 10pm. On those days I just muster up some motivation and at the very least open up my Figma board. I just spend half an hour moving around some buttons or maybe reading something or spend some time on Dribble or Behance getting inspiration. Putting in that half an hour may seem like it’s not contributing much in the larger scheme of things. But just the fact that every single day, for almost 4 months, I did something UX related, kept me in the zone.

That’s all about my experience with the Google UX Course. Here’s a link to my Behance that has the output of the course curated on it, I’d appreciate any feedback or suggestions to improve on it! c:
https://www.behance.net/nechalmaggon