Designlab

in the 4 weeks with designlab, I learned enough to know I want to give up my work as a copywriter and have a career in this field, even though I am color blind. I had a lot of theory and practice and my mentor Sara gave me so much advice in such a short time that I can't believe how my skills and designer's taste improved. WoW. I mean, it's just four weeks, during which, of course, I was working hard on my homework but still, it's just four weeks. I am definitely applying for UX academy and hoping they accept me Read less

This was my first step to a career change! I plan to move forward into the UX Academy with Designlab. 
This course was a great tool to get started in UX! You learn everything you need to know before jumping into a longer and more expensive course! The best part is your mentor who is beyond helpful throughout the entire course! You get plenty of time to work with them and they offer great notes and suggestions on your projects!

I would absolutely suggest this course to anyone getting started or even interested in UX!  Read less

Overall great experience with DesignLab on Design 101 course! I've decided that this would be the year of changing careers into UX Design (yes, 2020 out of all years!), but as a complete newly to the design world, I needed to gather some basic knowledge before moving forward with my studies. I've went through the lectures during the 4 weeks of the course quite effortlessly, they seem to follow a consistent rhythm, demanding effort from you with at least 4 deliverable projects per week, but not overloading you with work that makes you feel overwhelmed and unmotivated (of course that being stuck home quarantining all the time also helped). 
The nicest aspect of it all, besides having a project to make you look forward to lessons and advancing on building your own results, I also really enjoyed the experience of having a mentor that would go through my improvement every week through video call sessions and help me analyze  if I'm making the right decision on moving to Design, how the market and the work look like, tips of resources and references to help me kick things off... Besides, of course, evaluation of my work and making comments on what I'm nailing and what I could improve. I graded it as not 100% helpful on Job Assistance because, as it sets out to be, it is a  Design course designed (aha!) to gather basic principles and not sure if you can really consider yourself a full-on designer after this 1 month of online course, but if you want to learn more about the job (either for fun or for longer-term planning), I definitely recommend the course and the school after my really pleasant and easy experience! Read less

I came into this course with absolutely zero design experience and finished feeling like I could call myself a designer. The course offers excellent content and mentorship and exceeded my expectations. A strong commitment and motivation are required, but there was so much to gain and to me it was worth the time and price. Highly recommend especially if you do not have much (or any) design experience and plan to get into UX!  Read less

I came into this course knowing absolutely nothing about design, and I came out of it as prepared as I could have ever hoped to be. It really teaches you the basics of design from a completely blank slate, and does so in a manner that's easy to understand. The projects are wonderfully tiered so that they really build on each other and allow you to learn in a hands-on manner. The mentor calls were an invaluable resource for feedback. Having someone to bounce ideas off of or to answer general questions really allowed me to learn "how things are" in the real world that only serves to supplement the course. I could not recommend this place enough. Read less

I would definitely recommend the Designlab's Design 101. Although I wasn't originally planning on taking it, it's a pre-requisite for enrolling on their UX Academy - and so worth it! Lots of good, useful information, the course material is interesting and easy to digest, the platform is visually appealing and intuitive, and my favorite - excellent mentoring.
On a side note, I wasn't a fan of their file upload limit (I had to find a file compressor online), and the estimated time for completing lessons and projects is way off - it took me almost double the time to complete, if not more.

Overall it was a great experience to go from no design background to building a project of my own that I'm proud of!

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I did a lot research before deep diving into a bootcamp. Glad I chose Designlab. What set this bootcamp apart for me aside the price was the helpfulness of having one on one mentorship meetings weekly to go over material and the career services portion after graduation has been better than my college career services when I received my bachelors. Read less

As a newbie to visual design, I really enjoyed Design 101 with one highlight being my DesignLab mentor as I found his feedback very helpful. He was very flexible in terms of our meeting times, and happy to reschedule when I had other work commitments pop up. He provided thoughtful feedback in my designs, but did not necessarily tell me exactly what decisions to make (which I appreciated). He was helpful in showing examples when I was stuck on certain decisions in the visual design process.  I learned a lot in this course and felt challenged.  Overall my experience throughout Design 101 was great!

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Like anything in life, you get out of this course what you put into it. It's self-paced and there are no deadlines (which I didn't love), but there is a lot of good content and the most important thing for me was my mentor, who was awesome. She really helped guide me through the concepts, how to apply them, pitfalls to watch out for, etc. 

I had always known about various UX concepts, but this course helped me focus on which ones were industry standards and gave me confidence to use terms and apply concepts in actual conversations with clients. Probably the best thing for me was that I was able to use concepts as soon as the second week on a client project and help drive their UX strategy. 

In the end it was well worth the cost. 

Pros: - great mentor
- good content

Cons: - no deadlines
- "prototype" project is kind of lame
- I struggled to get through all the materials on time (mostly out of laziness)

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This course exceeded my expectations. While I finished the course in the time frame given, I could have dug down even deeper into the materials! And the plentiful resources are there for me to take advantage of for years to come. The mentor support is also key to discussing the projects and materials. The project-based course really helped to make the materials come alive.

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Great course! The Design 101 course was an enjoyable experience where I could learn the basic of the Design making a good starting portfolio. 
The modules are well developed with useful knowledge to build the final project peace by peace. It is also offered a mentor to guide you during this process and give tips about how to improve later on and how is the daily life as a Designer.

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Course UI Design at Design Lab was great experience. I would recommend  it to everyone (beginners and professionals). 
Course is divided in sections that consists reading material and small projects. 
All those small projects are steps to create mobile or web app. Reading material is very good and you can find a lot of interesting additional links that can help you in your designs. 
The best thing about the course is mentoring. You get 4 hours of video call mentoring and if your mentor is as good as mine was it will be a big bonus for your knowledge.

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Great hands on, one on one mentoring, but terrible portfolio review process. I am a mid level professional who wanted a career change but didn't want to commit to another time consuming, expensive degree program. I needed to update my skill set and Designlab's UX Academy seemed like a perfect fit. Their one on one mentoring sold me along with the hands on projects and portfolio I'd have once I was done. Another selling point since I've been at the same comaony for 19 years was their career services. I need help and some guidance in that area. The problem is I can't get my portfolio through their review board. It's a terrible process that needs to be changed. You can't review a someone's work over email. That is how they give feedback: in an email. What they need to do is set up a video conference and review the portfolio in real time so the mentors can give constructive feedback. Most of the feedback I've gotten is not constructive at all, but more subjective. I can't act on subjective feedback because what one person likes another won't. So how do you ever get approved? Everything was great up until this point. Now, the one thing I placed all my hope in changing my career has let me down. I feel defeated, disappointed and no one at the school will help me. All I can do is warn you not to sign up for this program until they have changed the portfolio review process. Read less

I could not recommend DesignLab more. For me, self-directed learning is essential but also challenging because I am a kinesthetic learner. A colleague recommended this course and a few others on the DesignLab platform as the starting points for me to use to make a career transition. I feel so lucky, I was given this recommendation. My mentor has been the most incredible resource. To learn from a working professional and have one on one tailored support is invaluable. I did not finish the course in the exact timeline prescribed because of my pre-existing workload and my mentor made arrangements to keep up with me through the finish line. I can not guarantee others would have this experience, but to have a mentor who intrinsically values teaching and watching another learn has been such a joy. I was afraid of online learning and I know I am coming back for another course, or two!

 

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After moving into a more design focused role I was looking introductory course to get my head into the world of design.

Design 101 by Designlab was a perfect choice - it gave me a comprehensive introduction into the professional space and allowed me to develop some strong foundations that I can build on going forward!

The course was well structured and well paced - helped by the great variety of content (lessons/quizzes/projects/etc) and interesting topics.

The mentoring system was extremely valuable too! Being able to get quality feedback and iterate on projects and designs was such a valuable and educational experience. It's also a perfect opportunity to make a great connection in the industry!

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It is just a month in your life but it is a month that you will always remember, 
if you have had zero experience in UX design like me. 
It is a bootcamp with a mentor that has your back and keep putting your back on track. 
You do so much research. You have so many design projects and have to do the stuff that you had never imagined you could ever do before. 
From zero, you go up a steep hill and 1 month later when you post your projects online and share with your friends and ex-colleagues...They just wow. 
This is how I describe the course. 
I have enrolled in my 3rd course at DesignLab (Design 101, Interaction Design and Branding) and I intended to do 2 more courses plus UX Academy. So far, I have two mentors who are a Head of Product and an exceptionally intelligent and brilliant Design Educator. I cannot wait to know who will be my mentor in the next course. They all seem really cool and with sharp eye for design and give me good critique and pointers to the projects in my portfolio. Aside from that they also guide me towards making a career change to UX so I know what exactly I need to know in order to get internship opportunities and get hired.

On my resume posted online, I added links to my UX work around a week ago. 
Today, someone with the title of HR or recruiter contact me for a role that need some knowledge of UX. 
They like my shopping cart taxonomy and they look happy when seeing my wireframes and user flow. 
I may not get a job as a UX Designer instantly --- it takes time to build your portfolio --- but I have a proof that I understand UX and I can do and have done it. They want to hire me for that. 
This is a huge leap in my career. 
 

People at DesignLab are extremely supportive. I missed the enrollment by a bit and they put me in the class. They listen to feedback and keep on improving. They do really care about having fast feedback and closing the loop.I enrolled in two places and I chose Designlab over the other.

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I took the UI design course and have no complaints! I have taken two courses at Designlab and will probably take one more. Why? Because it is affordable, and you get an awesome mentor guiding you through the course. Holding your hand if you want. If you are serious about learning design there is no better way than to invest in yourself with Designlab.

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I have taken 3 of the 5 short courses offered by Design Lab, and I have really enjoyed all of them. I have learned a great deal during the past 3 weeks! I think one of the most important things to keep in mind is that the choices offered by Design Lab are there to fit your lifestyle. I have taken the short classes, because I don't have the time nor the funds to take the more intensive UX Academy. That being said, I also went to school for fine art and took a bunch of design classes while in college. For someone who hasn't had this experience, UX Academy might be better for you. Because I work full time, the smaller courses work much better for my schedule. It takes the principles I've learned previously, gives good practice projects, and allows my mentor to give feedback.

I see some people feel like they don't get enough out of the short courses. But I don't think these classes are meant to produce stunning portfolio pieces. I think they give you a good foundation to expand upon so you can include your project in your portfolio. You just have to be willing to put in extra work. If you really want something, you'll do it. And if you want a portfolio piece, ask your mentor how they would turn the project into a portfolio piece. I was always completing work ahead of time, so my mentor gave me extra work for practice! You just need to ask; the resources are there.

Overall, I think these bite-sized classes are great. Yes, I'm busy all of the time, but to me it's worth it. I can't wait to start looking for jobs out there. Thanks, Design Lab!

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