Designlab

As someone with no previous UX/UI design experience, this was a great first step. The coursework was thorough with lots of hands on practice. The reading lessons were very manageable and easy to understand. My favorite part was having access to a mentor that has been in the industry and shared great feedback with me. This really helped my learning. Highly recommend this course, and had no complaints at all.  Read less

I really enjoyed my experience in the DesignLab Foundations course. They were very thorough with their content and provide many opportunities to practice skills. It is very helpful to be able to have tutorials throughout to learn about how to design on Figma (or Sketch) and to get feedback from an experienced mentor. I enjoyed the projects, they really enabled me to practice designing digital products and made me much more confident, skilled, and knowledgable in design. I would recommend this course for sure, DesignLab allows you to learn with lots of support and encouragement.  Read less

I was very unsatisfied with my current job, so I decided to try this class out and see how I would like it. It was definitely a huge learning curve for me. It took me some time to change my mindset on certain things like trying to complete everything instead of submitting incomplete work during the suggested time limit. Overall, I had a good experience with this course. I would recommend this course to a friend.

Pros:
-Beginner friendly course for people with no design background
-Lots of fun projects that include a lot of copy work and your own designs
-Working with softwares like Sketch or Figma
-Awesome student perks for software discounts
-Provides lots of original reading material and short tutorial videos
-Provides additional reading material from other resources outside of Designlab
-Awesome mentorship program - 8 mentor meetings (1hr / session) are provided
-Supportive Slack community from DL staff and DL students
-Lots of informational webinars such as keeping students on track to enrolling in UX Academy bootcamp

Cons:
-No live instructor
-Self-learn and self-paced course
-Very short tutorial videos. Could use some more video content.
-Suggested time limits could be increased for slow learners
-There are some minor typos in the reading materials and some of the text provided for some projects Read less

I enjoyed this bootcamp class as someone with zero experience in UX/UI design. The curriculum was self paced, however in order to advance to UX Academy it does have to be completed in 8 weeks. The mentorship experience is a great resource as well as the slack channel. The only con is that in order to move on through certain assignments you need mentor approval of iterations which can delay progress on the course timeline. Overall, great price for a bootcamp with tons of resources. Read less

I just finished the Designlab foundations program, and I really enjoyed it! I was able to complete the program at my own pace, and finished in only four weeks! I was very impressed with the amount of support that's offered throughout the program between the mentoring sessions, the group-crits and the slack channel. There were only a couple of times I got stuck working on a project, but with all the support I received I was able to sort it out pretty quickly. I also appreciate that this program was exactly what was advertised. There are a lot of programs that don't fulfill the promises they make in their marketing, but Designlab was easy, fun, and I'm really happy with what I was able to learn in only 4 weeks!  Read less

Great and well-structured Curriculum!

Designlab's UX Foundations Academy was a great way to introduce UI Desing. The curriculum is well-structured which is perfect for someone like me who has no background on design. It focused more on UI rather than UX, which was how the program was built to specifically cater to applicants with no design background. The program has a solid foundation on design principles, which is a great foundation if you want to pursue UX Academy. The curriculum was thorough and easily digestible, with lot of additional reading materials to supplement a specific topic being discussed. Clearly, the whole program was designed to be online so everything was well though of and easy to navigate for a 100% online program. 

The only reason why I am not giving this a 5 star rating was my experience with my mentor, which I think is a case-to-case basis. Contrary to the great mentorship that other students experienced, which what sold me to enroll in this program, I experienced the opposite. Instead of having hour-long feedback sessions, our session only lasted about 20-30 mins with 15 mins as my presentation. My feedback would be as vague as 'Good job!' or 'Nice Work!'. Sometimes, my mentor would have a passive-aggressive behavior and answer my questions sarcastically, which really put me off. I suggest reaching out to admissions and request for a change if you're not happy with your mentor. 

Overall, I am satisfied with Designlabs's UX Foundations Program. I think it's fairly-priced with the content that your getting. I cannot wait to start UX Academy. I highly recommend this for anyone thinking of pursuing UX/UI Design! Read less

On the last day of my UX academy, my mentor let me how difficult it would be for me to get a job and that I was very junior. Considering the mentor is supposed to elevate your skillset this lets you know everything you need to know about the course. This program does not prepare you to be industry-ready and land a job after taking the course. If you go into this program with that expectation you will be disappointed.  This program is only the tip of the iceberg needed if you are making a complete career change. I highly recommend spending the money elsewhere and getting a more formal and thorough education.  Read less

An amazing opportunity to step into the field of UI/UX. I feel the Foundations is a great starting point. LEarned a lot and most importantly I was grateful to have a one-on-one mentorship with an experienced UX designer who was very supportive in my learning journey. He consistently encouraged me to keep moving even on the most challenging days. The key learning for me was to practice timeboxing and working in a compartmentalized time frame to study and do design exercises. Having a supportive mentor and an admissions team on the side was nice as it never felt I am on my own working in isolation even though the course was fully online and self-paced. Overall I had a good experience and I learned a lot.  Read less

I really enjoyed UX Academy Foundations. After researching various bootcamps to learn more about UX design, I chose Designlab because I liked that it was self-paced which worked well with my busy schedule. Although it was self-paced, the material and lessons provided were substantial and I felt like I learned a lot. The hands-on projects were invaluable as well - I was able to pick up Figma through these projects as each lesson/project built upon the one before it so that I had a clear understanding by the end of the course. I also really enjoyed the 1:1 sessions with my mentor. He was able to answer my specific questions and really helped me as I went through the course. I highly recommend DesignLab UX Academy Foundations for anyone wanting to learn the basic principles of UX design. Read less

UX Academy Foundations is a great UI Design crash course. You get to learn and complete several activities every unit on UI design principles and basic visual design principles. Not only have I learned a great deal, but I also gained  expertise in a couple standard industry tools. I would highly recommend this course to anyone trying to learn the basics of design and get their feet wet.  Read less

 Overall, the program is very practical and I was excited to work on the projects. My mentor worked hard and gave me detailed feedback. She was also responsive and did a good job of answering my questions. However, I also had some issues.  I was planning to finish the course in 4 weeks to get ready for the UX Academy program, and I answered that in the survey before I started the foundation course. I expected that my mentor would know that I only had 4 weeks as a result and that we would do 2 sessions a week in order for me to finish at the time I wanted to finish. However, it seemed like she did not know this when we started, and she initially expected that we would meet once a week. This leads me to believe that there was a lack of communication on the part of the school with my mentor. Additionally, I contacted the school about this, but they took a week to respond, and they did not really do anything, so I ultimately just had to talk with my mentor and solve the situation.  As a result, I ended up missing out on 2 sessions by the time I finished the course. The sessions also felt rushed as well since I had fewer of them than normal.  I feel like I lost some opportunity to learn as much as I could have otherwise. I thought that I was going to be able to use the last two sessions to review concepts that I learned during the course, but after finishing the final project for the foundation course, I discovered that I couldn’t even make any more appointments with my mentor, despite having 2 sessions left. This despite the fact that I had previously talked with my mentor about using the last 2 sessions for review, and she had said ok.  I contacted my mentor and the school about this issue of missing out on 2 sessions, but I have yet to receive a response.  I think the school needs to better communicate the time expectations of the program. If they do not expect students to complete it in only 4 weeks, they should make that clear, and communicate it to anyone who signs up indicating that they want to apply for a UX Academy cohort that is coming up soon. Or, if it is ok for a student to finish in 4 weeks, then they should more proactively communicate the student’s expectations of scheduling to the mentor so that it is clear to the mentor right from the start what the person they are working with wants.  My overall experience was that the coursework was good, but I felt rushed and like I wasn’t able to enjoy the experience as much as I think I could have with more time. Because all of these issues come from a lack of communication, it does make me a little nervous going into the UX Academy program.  Read less

I highly recommend the foundations course at DesignLab. I felt that the course material and projects were really engaging and helpful for me to solidify design principles prior to enrolling to the UX academy. In my opinion, the mentorship aspect is key to DesignLab's success. I always felt that I had a resource and friend throughout the process. No regrets! Read less

I'd highly recommend the UX Foundations course (don't let the name fool you.) It does teach the basics, but they have great exercises that help you practice what you're learning and unleash a little bit of your own creativity. When I started UX Foundations, I was balancing a full-time job and the course. Although I fell a little behind due to my job's demanding schedule, everyone in the Designlab community was very supportive. The units in UX Foundations course was a good mix of lessons and practice. I spent a bunch of time really practicing what I learned instead of just reading them and that really improved my overall designs a lot. This was such a fun and really well done course and a great way to transition into UX Academy! Read less

I was very hesitant to pay for a bootcamp but I'm glad I did. DesignLab incorporates a lot of interactive learning features that made it worth it for me -- especially the 1:1 mentor sessions and the weekly group crits. I feel like I really lucked out with a great mentor who cared a lot about my development and success (I did have to request a mentor switch because my first mentor and I were not a great match) and there are so many group crit facilitators who have a wealth of knowledge and resources that they'll enthusiastically share with you. However, I will say that your success mostly depends on how much work you put into it, regardless of which course you choose to enroll, so I would stop wasting time reading the reviews and just pick one lol. Read less

I really enjoyed this intro course because it was very project based and allowed me to meet with a mentor once a week to discuss my progress and go over my project revisions as well as asks questions. Coming from no visual design background, I had the time to learn Figma during this course. At times I felt like I would have liked a bit of more text or video to watch in addition to the projects, but I felt like the pace was good overall. The final project was a good way of wrapping up everything learned throughout the course and I feel prepared to move onto the UX Academy bootcamp.  Read less

This program really has got me prepared to continue a career in design, and had made me even more excited. The platform is easy to use and the course material is relevant and was really helpful. They also paired me with an awesome mentor who was always available and gave great feedback. I really had a great experience, and can’t wait for my next course with Designlab.  Read less

This course provided a lot of resources for me and a great mentor which made the learning experience very enjoyable. The mentor session provided an interactive and engaging element to the course. The projects allowed for a creative outlet for me to translate all the materials they've provided. Additionally, the course site was a very user-friendly and incorporated a lot of the things we learned.  Read less