1. UX Academy Foundations

Designlab's UX Foundations provided a well-balanced learning experience. The self-guided approach with mentor feedback accommodated my full-time work schedule; and the manageable workload and abundant resources enriched my understanding. However, occasional delays in mentor feedback, likely due to their busy schedules, were a minor drawback. Overall, a valuable course for those seeking flexibility in UX education.

I really loved the UX Academy Foundations course! I feel like it gave me a good understanding of UX/UI design especially as I apply and make my way into UX Academy after the holidays. Would highly recommend. Loved the 1:1 sessions with my mentor over the 8 weeks of the program. 

I am truly surprised with how much I have learned in such a short time. This was a great course, and I especially found the mentorship part to be very helpful, as it allowed me to get personalized feedback and advice on how I can improve my work. That's not something I could have had if I was simply learning on my own.

I had a great experience with Designlab UX Academy Foundations.  I started the course knowing very little about how to design an app or a website, and I didn't feel confident at first.  Figma was completely new to me, and this was the hardest for me to learn.  There were a lot of good tutorials thugh, and these combined with help from my mentor allowed me to get to a point where I feel comfortable using it.  The curriculum was very good and the projects and feedback I got helped me learn a lot.  My mentor was awesome and very supportive.  He was positive in giving feedback while still challenging me to push my designs further.  I was doing the part-time track, and the one thing I have to say is that the suggested times for completing the projects was a bit unrealistic at times.  It took me a lot longer to complete the final project, for example, than the suggested 10 hours.  Also, taking into account the time needed to spend iterating on the feedback received took longer than I expected.  Overall, it's a great program!  I definitely learned a lot and I feel a lot more comfortable designing now than when I started!

Loved this program - totally doable with a full-time job, and teaches all the basics of UX/UI. I think it is a great starting point as it gives you all needed skills to continue learning after the program is over! Love the one-on-one mentoring, too.

The experience was fantastic. The curriculum was very well rounded and provided me with the fundamentals of design. I really like the optional and additional readings provided this allowed me to further my knowledge in the field. The projects were challenging and well prepared. The mentorship experience was really great having to interact with someone that’s actively working on the fields as a designer was very helpful. 

Designlab's UX Academy Foundations was a great Introduction to UX Design. I learn a lot about the history and basics of visual and UI design. You are also required to meet with your mentor 1 on 1 to discuss your assignments. You are added to a cohort and a discord and given access to the community which is very valuable. 

I thoroughly enjoyed every part of the eight-week course! Each project kept me engaged and challenged. My initial concern with online design courses was the potential to over-analyze projects and spend too much time on them (something I struggle with when it comes to creative work). However, this course expertly integrates deadlines and offers detailed time management guidelines for every project. They emphasize that first submissions don't need to be finished and that iteration is key, an approach that greatly enhanced my learning experience. Also, the mentorship sessions were amazing and offered in-depth feedback on my work. This feedback not only improved my course projects but also continues to be so helpful for my design work outside of this course. I highly recommend it!

projects and course material was decent for an introductory course. if there was a "day in the life of a designer chat or Q and A" for each cohort that would be great. what really made the experience great was my mentor - so knowledgable, so great at teaching. just wow 

UX Foundations course provided me with a really good foundation as to what UX/UI is. Before I started, I didn't really know too much about it. Doing the UXF course helped me decide whether this was for me or not. After doing UXF, I have decided to continue on to UX Academy so I can learn more about UX/UI and hopefully turn this into a career!

The program overall was structured very well. It was easy to follow the weeks, projects, and directions. One of the many things that I liked was the fact that we had a mentor to guide us through the process as well as giving feedback on the assigned homework was very good for my growth as an aspiring designer. One of the cons I felt could be improved would be the reading sections of the program. I don't retain information well with just reading, which made it a little difficult to understand when reading four to six different sections that laster about 20 minutes. My suggestion to this is to add videos that either could partially replace the text on readings (half reading and half videos), or having videos that have the text portion follow said video. That would help me and a lot more people understand and collect the information better.

The foundation's course will give you a comprehensive understanding of the principles and concepts behind UX/UI design. The course offers abundant reading material, complemented by a limited number of videos primarily focusing on figma and sketch tutorials.  It's like a window into what the academy offers and allows you to assess your commitment to the weekly mentor sessions and group critiques. The only downside is that the Figma tutorials provided in this course are slightly outdated and lack detail. Prior familiarity with the software will greatly enhance your learning experience.

I recently completed the foundations course and will hopefully be in UX Academy soon. I really enjoyed this course and felt it was paced well for the part-time track. I have a full time job so I wasn't able to do full-time and it was the right amount of time commitment. The lessons and projects have time suggestions to guide you and are completely self paced. Some days I had more time to go through them and other days I didn't so it was helpful to have the time stamps on them to help schedule myself. I found the lessons very interesting and well structured. My mentor, Kelly, was absolutely amazing! She gave great feedback and really helped me beyond just foundational learning. Once I understood the basics, she encouraged me to start thinking about higher level design thinking. She was extremely patient and very knowledgable! I had previous design experience (non-UX experience) so she was great at helping me incorporate it into my projects. 

The UX foundations course is a great launching point if you are someone without any design experience. It's also very flexible in regards and pacing and work load is manageable. The end of the course with the 10 hours challenge forces you to use everything you have learned to create a website. 

Before Designlab, I took a lot of free online courses, but none of them gave me practical teaching on how to use software and actually design. I appreciated that in conjunction with all the informational lessons, there were many projects that allowed me to get comfortable with the software and actually practice design principles and hierarchies. I liked how all the information in the course was developed by Designlab, meaning I was paying for unique material. I also really appreciated the mentor program. It really helps to have real feedback from a real professional. I will say, I don't necessarily feel like I got that much more connected with people in the UX/UI field in terms of making connections and networking, but that could be due to my own struggle with using the Discord networking community. Overall though, I do feel more equipped and prepared to develop my portfolio further.

For a foundations course, there's not any cons that I could think of when it comes to the overall course. The dashboard was very user friendly, which allowed me to easily follow along what lessons were next and when my next mentor meeting was. The course provided some amazing reads that really helped teach me a lot of key factors that prepared me for the unit projects. 

I've had a great time in the Designlab UX Foundations course.  I am currently waiting on feedback on my final projects before applying to the UX Academy, and am expecting to have everything finalized and my application to the UX Academy completed by the end of the week.  The course  has taken me 5 weeks going at about 20 hours per week.  I was not rushed through any of the reading, was able to complete the projects thoroughly, and feel like I have learned a lot.  My mentor was great, she always had tips and feedback for me, was able to answer any questions I had, was flexible with scheduling our meetings, and was all together a great person to work with.  This is a course designed to give you the base knowledge to succeed in the UX Academy, so there hasn't been any job support yet.  I'm hoping that my experience in the UX Academy will be as enjoyable as Foundations has been.

I've got to say that learning the foundation course here in Designlab has been super smooth. Everything's straightforward to understand, and having that one-on-one with a private mentor? Absolute game-changer. Plus, the cost is pretty affordable. Totally worth it! 

I think if you're curious about UI/UX but not ready to commit thousands of dollars, this course is the way to go. You get paired with a mentor (and don't be afraid to ask to change if you're not vibing with your first mentor) it's so worth it to go through the program and connect with your mentor to see if their career path is right for you. 

The course was well paced and had good projects that challenged me. The mentorship was great and helped me realize my mistakes quickly but in an efficient way. I felt myself progress over the course of this program and it clearly shows in my work, which is something I can look back on and see that I’m learning.