How Can You Effectively Learn UX/UI Design Online?
There are way too many online resources, courses and classes to learn UX, UI, and Interaction Design. UX Design is good business and a good investment.
The first thing anyone should do before starting a new online course is choosing a method.
As it’s also my experience, learning about UX Design online is an excellent choice. However, this doesn’t go well for everyone.
It usually goes like this:
- You see an awesome online course, great material, fantastic combination of video and text-based content, recognized institution, cool instructor.
- You rush in to enroll in the course.
- Reality hits.
- Are you ready to commit on this?
- Does it need more, less or the same level of commitment with the traditional instructor-led class you are used to?
- What are the best strategies for studying in online learning?
- Did you check the previous requirements?
- Was the advertising honest?
Yes, all of us internet learners have been there. Yet I can share a few tips to not fall in that cycle and make the most out of your UX training. I’ve found an amazing article with many tips for people who want to learn online on the eLearning Industries site.
From this point on, I’ll use that eLearning industry article as my base to explain how to succeed at your UX training using the same courses I used at the Interaction Design Foundation (IDF). Asides from being the company where I’m a happy employee I believe on it’s mission and values, you can read more about it here: About The Interaction Design Foundation and, as a bonus 7 reasons to join the IDF
1. Understand online learning practices and expectations. Online courses are not an easier way to learn, but rather a more convenient one. Online learning requires the dedication of a significant amount of time, focus, consistency and commitment.
2. Identify your learning objectives and goals. To stay on track with your online course, make sure that you always keep in mind what you hope to accomplish by the end of it. That is, answers to questions like:
a. Why are you doing this?
b. What do you want to achieve?
c. What is your ideal work in the UX field?
d. Do you want to be a user researcher, a UI designer, a service designer?
3. Define which field you’d like to focus. After deciding a field, you can commit to objectives and goals. Once you’ve defined a goal, you can rely on the learning paths tool in the UX Design Courses sections to figure what courses are better suited for the job title you aspire. Selecting a job title from the list is really simple, as you’ll see below:
Then, unfold the drop-down menu:
After selecting a job title, you’ll get a short description and the suggested courses to achieve it. The courses are organized from the foundations courses, beginner, intermediate and advanced courses. For example, if you choose the UX Designer learning path, you’ll see as follows:
4. Use the learning path as a road map during online learning. read carefully the job descriptions, the course highlights and the requirements.
5. Enroll in the courses and keep checking on your learning path to see how you’re doing. It’s also useful to see what should your next steps be. You may enroll in all the courses at once, and do them in parallel, but I wouldn’t recommend starting the advanced courses if you’re a beginner, for example.
6. Do not overwhelm yourself. It’s tempting to start many courses at once, as you’ll find the content appealing. Though, it’s recommended to not “bite more than you can chew.” If you’ve planned and committed a number of hours per week to your online training, it’d be counterproductive to go over those numbers.
7. Build a study plan.
For this, you should:
a. Plan ahead.
IDF courses are self-paced. Lessons are released on a weekly basis, each course lesson has a built-in evaluation. Either a multiple choice (MCQ ) or an open ended question (OEQ). MCQ are graded instantly, while OEQ are graded by the instructors and might take up to a week to be reviewed.
b. Use the calendar.
When you enroll in a course you’ll have all of the lessons’ ahead schedule ready to be added to your calendar. There aren’t mid-terms or finals, so your calendar will only show you when lessons are available, so you can plan from there on when to do them.
c. Create to-do lists based on the course lessons.
Lessons are usually split as follows:
Lesson 5. comprises Lesson 5.1; Lesson 5.2; Lesson 5.3… and so on. You can create your own plan with the number of items you’re ready to tackle in each study session. E.g. Lesson 5 will be released on Sunday, September 29, 2018. And it contains lessons 5.1; 5.2; 5.3 and 5.4. You can now plan that you’ll do lesson 5.1 on Sunday September 29, lessons 5.2 and 5.3 on September 30 and finish up lesson 5.4 on October 4.
d. Set time limits.
Lessons provide a estimated time to complete. However, you might need to add up the time to answer any OEQ, as the estimated time is mainly for you to go through the lesson material. You should aim to keep your sessions on the lower side of 90 minutes, doing not more than 45 minutes at a time with a 15 minutes break in between.
e. Stick. To. Your. Plan.
I get how hard it’s to balance work, family and free time. But 90–180 minutes a week to grow your career shouldn’t be that hard to find. After all, that’s less than it takes to watch a football game, a movie, or a few episodes of your favorite show.
8. Ask for help when you need it. We all want to be the smartest person in the room, but the smartest persons are those who ask more questions, not less. If you don’t get a lesson or an assignment, and don’t ask for help when necessary, you may end up falling behind, which may lower your self-esteem, as you probably won’t be able to keep up with the online course. That could be a major distraction from your goal, so when you’re in doubt, don’t hesitate to contact your instructor or peers.
9. Participate in online discussions. There are many, many communities on the internet where you can go and read, ask questions, expose your case, ask for advice, and even for feedback on UX design discussions. Plus, it will help you to not feel alone as you’ll see that you’re not the only one in a journey of learning.
10. Stay motivated. Don’t underestimate your effort and reward yourself. Take breaks, snack on something healthy and delicious, tell your friends about your new journey, have a cup of coffee or tea while studying. Remember you’re doing this for you, and in the end, you’ll have tools to improve other people’s life, so stay focused on your goals.
Once you’re there, learning and doing these courses, you should focus on covering the foundations learning about the psychological and sociological reasons that make design appealing to people, why a design is successful, and which combination of elements make for a pleasant user experience. After all, the rational, logical and subconscious reasons that made something work for the masses in 1980 are the same reasons that will make it work in 2020.
After you’ve mastered that, you can focus on specific skills, tools, etc. Each experience and goals are different, so you should know all the options so you can choose your own path.
From there on, you will create your portfolio. It may contain anything you want, but it shouldn’t be all over the place, because you might end up looking like a “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Instead, you’d want to be seen as a “Jack of all trades, master of -at least- one.”
This means, for example: if you’re attracted to UI you could/should focus your portfolio on UI design backed with some study cases, and maybe even a small proof of a secondary top skill you acquire, such as coding or HTML skills.
Having this in mind, I have nothing else but to wish you a happy learning!
