UX Design Bootcamps: Yay or Nay for Product Managers?

7 min readJul 3, 2023

UX design bootcamps continue to be all the rage, heavily marketed with promises to transform novices into job-ready UX professionals in a matter of weeks.

Earlier this month I finished the Google UX Design Professional Certificate on Coursera myself, a very popular (and affordable) 6-months UX design bootcamp. The certificate specifically targets individuals who want to enter the field of UX design and “get on the fast-track to a competitively paid job”. For my part, I was seeking to enhance my skills as a product manager, rather than considering a career change.

So why take on this challenge as a product manager ?

Make no mistake, it’s a challenge. Particularly if you’re aiming to do it correctly and lack prior practical experience with UI design tools and design systems — and have a career already.

What do I mean by doing it “correctly”? In addition to watching videos and the recommended reading lessons, the certificate requires weekly deliverables in the form of documents, mockups and prototypes. If you want to deliver something that resembles a (somewhat) visually appealing design at the end, you need to work hard.

Was it worth it?

Photo by Christine Donaldson on Unsplash

Why I Wanted to Learn More About UX Design

Product management is a comprehensive field that steers the success of a product by leading a cross-functional team towards its improvement. This role demands a diverse skill set, including business strategy, product development, marketing, sales, and a mix of technical, creative, and leadership abilities.

Product is at the intersection of everything | © Product School

In my view, a fundamental understanding of the design process, tools, and systems is crucial for effective collaboration within the team. As a product manager, I often find myself at the intersection of various roles, working alongside software engineers, UI/UX designers, and project managers.

To enhance my visual skills and familiarize myself with design terminology, I pursued the Google UX Design Professional Certificate. My intention was to boost my performance in my current role and equip me with the knowledge to provide constructive design feedback, present product designs, and defend design decisions to stakeholders.

Certificate Breakdown

Google UX Design contains seven individual online courses that you can take at your own pace on Coursera. Weekly goals are proposed but you can complete the tasks and peer reviews at any time and easily extend deadlines if you miss them.

Ideally, the program should be taken in the suggested sequence as the courses build on each other. They fall into the following broad categories:

Learn the Foundations and Start the Design Process (Courses 1–2)

The first course provides participants with an introduction to foundational design concepts, emphasizing the importance of user-centered design and accessibility.
The second course kicks-off with an outline of the design process and focuses on the first exercises to empathize with users, define the problem and ideate ideas.
You will also choose your first project, which you will work on from Course 2 through to Course 5. You will create personas, user stories, user journey maps and problem statements.
Google will provide you with a number of templates that you can download and keep for later usage. The block finishes with first sketching exercises.

Practice, Test and Build Prototypes (Courses 3–5)

The third course will get you started with paper prototypes and your first attempt at creating wireframes in Figma. The first deliverable of your chosen project will be a low-fidelity prototype that you will share with peers for review.
You will test this prototype in Course 4 with real users and get an overview of interviewing styles and techniques. You will deliver an analysis of your user research results and update your prototype accordingly.
Course 5, probably the most valuable one, will explain visual design principles and give you an overview of popular design systems, that you can explore and apply to your own project. You will see your project come to live with mockups and a high-fidelity prototype, that you will test again and can showcase in your portfolio.

Two More Projects and Build a Portfolio Website (Courses 6–7)

In Course 6 you will focus on responsive design. Noteworthy is that Course 6 switches from Figma to Adobe XD and you will repeat all steps from Course 1 to 5 for your second portfolio project. The course might take longer than you anticipated if you follow all steps studiously.
To get your certificate you will complete your third and final portfolio project for “social good”. As in the previous course, you will choose a new project and go through the design process on your own (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test).
Bear in mind that the final deliverable will be a portfolio website that showcases your three projects and needs to contain a case study for each of them. Consider this when you plan how much time you want to invest in this last course. In addition, the last course focuses heavily on getting participants interview-ready for UX roles.

The Value for Product Managers

The Google UX Design Certificate provides product managers with a deep dive into user experience design and a competence boost. From my perspective, these were the most important advantages:

You will finish with at least two high-fidelity prototypes and a portfolio website. Choose topics that interest you professionally so you can showcase them to colleagues and employers. Try to get real feedback outside the coursework so you can improve your projects. For myself, these were the best take-aways from the certificate.
You will learn about the design process and design systems. You will get familiar with a structured design process (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test) and familiarize yourself with design terminology such as Gestalt principles and others.
You will work in Figma and learn to work with libraries and components. If you are not yet familiar with design tools, be prepared to work hard to use the software in an efficient way. It will get easier with each consecutive project.
You will use different UX tools that you can apply in your domain. Crazy Eights, storyboards, personas, empathy map etc. if you are not yet familiar with these tools or if your organization does not apply them, you can test them and transfer them to your job. You will have a stack of templates that you can easily reuse.
The bootcamp offers a structured learning environment for busy professionals. The material is broken down into consumable chunks with motivating deadlines that require deliverables. Rather than searching for material from different sources, the bootcamp provided an accessible library of well-structured information.
You will have more (feature) ideas that you will be able to put into your designs. Take note of them and expand your designs at a later stage. If you have chosen projects in your domain you can reuse the designs and build on them for your personal professional advancement.

Where the Bootcamp Needs Improvement

While the first five courses are nicely paced and fit into the proposed timeframe (roughly a course per month), Course 6 and 7 require more time. This is especially true if you want to follow all steps and produce an appealing prototype at the end.
Course 6 wants participants to use Adobe XD instead of Figma. In my opinion: do NOT do it. You can also do the project in Figma and focus on improving your skills in one design tool first, before considering another one.
Overall more support and integrated tutorials for Figma would have been helpful. Prepare yourself to watch some Figma tutorials additionally and use their help center if you encounter concrete issues.
The program lacks professional mentoring. The weekly submissions are peer reviewed, however, this is a real pain point and partially devastating. My experience was that that many people are just there for the ride and do not bother about the quality of their submissions. There were several empty submissions and “please just let me pass” messages with them. Unfortunately, I did not receive any substantial feedback on my designs.

My Recommendations

If you want to learn about the UX design process: Go through Courses 1–5 to get the best overview and finish strong with one complete UX project.
If you only want to learn about UI design in Figma: You could only do Course 5 and get the best out of visual design principles and practical application in a step-by-step tutorial.
If you want to have a complete portfolio: If your goal is to build a portfolio and publish it on your own website go through all Courses as proposed (1–7). Be aware, however, to schedule more time for Courses 6 and 7.
Do not switch to Adobe XD in Course 6. I need to repeat this as I did try Adobe XD and regret it because in hindsight I would have wanted to focus improve my skills in Figma. I actually lack one good second portfolio project because of this.
If you do not want to change careers: You can ignore the videos in Course 7. If you want to rewatch the information at a later stage, you can always go back to the material on Coursera.

For anyone, who really wants a job as a UX/UI designer — practice, practice, practice.

I believe that I did improve my understanding about UX design by completing this Google Certificate. Particularly I am thrilled about my portfolio website, https://www.stefaniedesigns.com, and the work and effort it represents. Compared to other bootcamps it is an affordable option to gather knowledge and practice in a structured learning environment.

It’s worth noting, however, that many industry professionals frequently highlight the wealth of free resources available online. These include comprehensive guides, tutorials, and even full courses that can provide a solid foundation in UX design. In addition to the program, I would recommend looking into these on Medium or in LinkedIn groups.

I personally also started going through the material on Uxcel and the Interaction Design Foundation, which I found particularly helpful and will continue to use.

✨ I hope you enjoyed my first article on Medium. What are your thoughts on the Google UX Design Certificate and similar bootcamps? Can you recommend any other UX/UI resources?