1. UX Academy Foundations

The course is designed very well to fit anyone's schedule, has great mentors with real UX experience who provide relevant feedback, in-house lessons, and is extremely affordable. I will be continuing my journey at UX Academy!

I loved this course! Great curriculum that will definitely get you up to speed with UI design. I learned a lot of design principles. The mentorship aspect of this class was also amazing. It’s great to have an industry expert you can bounce ideas off of and is willing to give feedback. 

Designlab foundations provided me with an in depth understanding of a field completely new to me. The course teaches so much information and is set up in a way that feels manageable to complete. Overall a great program for anyone new to the field to learn and gain an understanding of UX/UI design. My overall experience was great and my mentor helped me a lot. 

Overall , great learning experience. Learned so much about ux design in two months. One on one mentorship helped alot , access of community of learners was great. Managed to Learn one new thing atleast in every unit. 
Cons - figma videos were outdated, mentorship access was limited , if I needed help on one thing I had to Just google it. Good pace but became too fast pace and it felt like they were trying to teach us everything that would have taken people months to learn. Some units felt like too much busy work that didn’t benefit me overall as a student. 

This was a great course to begin learning UX with. Everything was structured really well, easy to navigate and I felt extremely supported due to the mentor sessions. If you are thinking about learning UX design, I highly suggest looking into Designlab.

I liked how the course was organized. My mentor was really helped me throughout the process, he was always available and answered my all questions. It was also nice to see the other students’ work and make some comments on it.

I had such a great experience with DesignLab Foundations! They prepare you ahead of time, the courses are well thought out and they really set you up to succeed. I loved getting to meet with my mentor each week and look forwards to the UX Academy. 

As someone who does not have a design background, this course is an excellent choice. The curriculum covered all the basics of UI design. The course material was simple and easy to understand. The tone of the lessons is professional and friendly. The course exercises are all super hands-on. Highly recommended! Definitely moving onto the actual bootcamp!

The best reason for attending UX Foundations course with Designlab is how they are genuinely committed to the fostering of the next generation of designers. The individual mentors are assigned based on student specifications and interests. The format for interaction helps students (even the shyest of learners) to gain valuable insight from practicing designers and experience the more realistic workplace feedback and conversations around design since they work closely alongside you as you work on different design briefs. My mentor spent a great deal of time with me to review opportunities to reiterate my work and furthermore become more comfortable talking and analyzing design efficacy in my own work and that of others. Nishant Rai was especially helpful as a mentor since he made ample time to discuss design concerns and demonstrate best practices and more sophisticated techniques.

Having no professional design experience, DesignLab actually provides all the tools needed for a career in UX. The course is constructed very professionally with tons of resources and materials available to their students. I feel very well prepared going into the UX academy and feel confident DesignLab will give me everything I need and more for a career in UX design. So grateful to have discovered DesignLab, cannot recommend it more! 

I highly recommend taking UX Foundations if you're unsure if you want to take the leap into bootcamp. It is an affordable intro course that will give you a feel for the full course.Pros:-Foundations is a short (4 or 8 week course) and affordable way to introduce you to UI/UX design and get a feel for the full UX Academy course. I looked into General Assembly which has a much higher price point and you aren't able to 'test' out the course in a short 4 or 8 week way to ensure it's something you really want to do before making the big investment-I work full-time and had other commitments but the course is self-paced so I could spend more time some weeks when I knew I had the time and still stay on track-The Designlab platform is so easy to use! It tells you which week of the program you're in, it tracks your mentorship sessions (and makes scheduling with your mentor easy).-The 1:1 mentorship was so helpful for me to get feedback and learn from someone who is working in a UI/UX designer role.-The support team and admissions is super responsive. I always received a response in 24-48 hours which is helpful since the course is short.Cons: -This isn't a con per say but my own struggle/ something you may want to consider based on your needs. The program is self-paced instead of having a dedicated time from 9-5 with an instructor leading the course, I had to manage my own time very well and hold myself accountable to do the lessons! 

Pros: -The volume of reading materials and hands-on projects was sufficient. -hands-on projects consists of up-to-date content and are well associated with UX.- The webinars provided by the design lab are informative.cons- sometimes there is a time slot limit for scheduling with a mentor.

I really enjoyed my experience in the Designlab Foundations course. The course provided me with the UI tools necessary for UX design. I learned how to create sketches and how to make webpage and mobile designs in Figma. 

I attended DesignLab's UX Academy Foundations course with the intention of doing the full-time, 4-week course. Unfortunately, my mentor was sick one week which pushed me back to a 5-week course. I was expecting to devote about 20 hours a week to the program, but realistically I probably spent 30 hours a week. The time estimates on the website seemed to be based on the expected time to read and complete the assignments, but didn't take into account the time for project reiterations, mentor meetings, crit reviews, and engagement in the Discord channels. I also spent extra time digging deeper into areas that were interesting through outside books or websites. (Not that I had to do that, but felt compelled to because I was so excited about everything that I was learning!) The coursework is really well designed, other than the occasional spelling error, and is a mixture of written lessons, video instructions, short assignments, and full-length projects. The assignments build upon each other and there are some units where you then use all the small projects you have designed to complete a large project. This sort of learning structure worked really well for me. I sincerely enjoyed the course, learned a ton of new things, and am really proud of the projects that I designed.  You are paired with a mentor that you meet with 1-2 times a week, depending on how many weeks you are devoting to the course. My mentor provided great feedback on my designs and taught me new techniques to employ in Figma. She also gave me insight into the industry, the path she took to get where she is, and how to approach the job hunt and interview process. The downside with the mentors is that there doesn't seem to be very much regulation with how they mentor. Some mentors provide written reviews of your work through the platform, giving feedback every 1-2 days, but mine only interacted with me during our meetings. That meant that sometimes I just had to plow ahead in the course without knowing if I'd completed the previous section successfully. It worked out fine in the end, but it did make me wish that DesignLab employed more questions on their mentor matching form in regards to learning style and work ethic.  You also are asked to critique one student project and attend one crit review with other students during the course. Though I thought these were great ideas in theory, the execution was a little wonky. There wasn't enough time in the crit review for everyone to present their work and I felt like it was difficult for students to take advice seriously from some random student that they didn't know. This aspect of the program could potentially be improved by placing students (or promoting them to place themselves) into small groups of 20 that could get to know each other and their design work. This way the critiques would hold more weight for the students.  That said, overall, I highly recommend the course, am impressed with how much content is included at the price point, and think it is useful whether taken alone or used as a prerequisite for the full UX Academy.

I attended DesignLab's UX Academy Foundations course as a prerequisite for their full-length UX design bootcamp, UX Academy. I studied on a 4-week track, devoting approximately 20-30 hours per week on my coursework. Although the course is intensive, it is extremely well designed with a mixture of lessons, short assignments, and full length projects. Each part of the course builds upon your skills and sets you up for success in the next assignment or project. I never felt unprepared for what was being asked of me. Additionally, you are assigned a mentor that you meet with at least once per week throughout your course and is responsible for providing feedback on each of your assignments and projects. My mentor gave very detailed and thoughtful feedback, and was encouraging, yet challenging. I think this was a crucial aspect to my growth in the course. 

Design Lab is rigorous and it serious about preparing you for the UX Academy. I did not expect to learn as much as I did in such a  short amount of time, and the format for online learning is the perfect mix of support, content availability, and hands on projects. I am looking forward to the Academy and feel prepared going in. I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a career switch. 

Enjoyed this course! The course was fully online. Felt the curriculum was what I was looking for in that it taught basic design principles and how they relate to UX design in a general sense. Projects where hands on, robust and aligned well with the curriculum that was being taught. Mentor feedback was helpful, I liked the flexibly of being able to schedule time blocks that worked well with my schedule. It was rewarding getting see how my skills had improved in just a short month after taking this course. 

Pros:- Great mentorship experience. You get to talk to some of the greatest minds in UX and network with them while picking at their brain for knowledge and expertise.- Super fun course material that efficiently teaches UX concepts.- Design briefs and projects were relevant to real world design problems. Great practice for anyone planning to design for corporate or start up.Cons:- Difficult to stay motivated. There would be periodic emails sent to keep you motivated but at the end of the day, it took me way longer to complete the course than I was originally planning. 

The Designlab UX Academy Foundations course is great!  It helped me prepare for applying to the UX Academy bootcamp.  The coursework was well structured and timed appropriately.  I have a background in tech product dev but not in design and I think this course is really helpful for those without an artdegree to get a good basis on design principals.  The one on one mentoring sessions are great - definately helped me understand concepts more quickly and improve my design process.

Foundations is a fantastic way to get started in design. I researched a tonnnn of bootcamps for UX/IU and I'm so glad I landed on this one. The projects are really fun to complete and I felt like they aligned really well with the course objectives. I learned so much in the 4 weeks and I'm really excited to continue with the UX Academy. Having a personal mentor was a huge bonus and really added to the value of the course overall. If you're going to do design I encourage you to choose this program!