Designlab

UX Academy is a 3 month UX boot camp that personally helped me with my career change to becoming a UX Designer. I had a great mentor who helped encourage and build my skills. By the end of the program, I was able to complete over 480 hours of UX design coursework and projects. I ended up completing over 100 hands-on exercises, and built a portfolio with 4 projects. After the academy ended, I was connected with my career coach who helped me prepare for my career search and interviews, and ultimately, I was able to land a full time job within just 2 months. I'm still super thankful I was able to get this kind of networking and knowledge for the amount of cost and time I spent at UX Academy.

This was my first Designlab experience, and it was a great! I work in product development and was looking to learn more about the design process, which I definitely did. Pros: The lessons were easy to digest, topics were interesting and well-presented. I was very motivated to learn the subject matters, work on the assignments, and excited to get feedback. Cons: For me, someone relatively new to design world, the course definitely consumed more than 10 hours a week. In addition, I really think each student's experience will vary depending on the mentor they're assigned to - how quickly they provide feedback, their level of engagement, and area of expertise in design. Overall, I really loved the units, content, & assignments - I thought they were perfect for a 101 course. I would have, however, preferred a mentor better matched with my learning style.

Design 101 is an excellent course to learn the fundamentals of design. It is also a great way for those who are already working in design to brush up their skills. The course material was very thorough and insightful. There were additional resources in each section which I found super helpful and I really appreciated. The best part of the course was having a mentor who works as a professional in the design field. It was excellent to receive feedback about my work but also just to chat about working in the design world. I definitely recommend this course.

I just completed my first course with Design Lab, UX Research & Strategy. This was my first UX Design class and I really enjoyed it. I liked how I could move at my own pace throughout the week and I continue to have access to the course materials. My mentor was super helpful as well. I enjoyed the class so much I signed up for the next one! The materials were clear and easy to understand. I like they provide the option to view other students work and make revisions to each exercise. 

I was dropped me from the course 2 weeks into it. The next morning the payment was straighten out, but since they never encountered that before their DevOps didn't know how to add me back to the class, which took them 2 weeks to figure out! Then, on the app version, you can't toggel between multiple classes. The mentors are good & the new mentor i was assigned was 9 hours ahead, and wasn't able to schedule our sessions through the website. Which means I didn't get mentorship for 3 weeks, in the new, following cohort i was placed in. I have 1 week left and was offered a refund & to be dropped from the class since i encountered so many problems. But i want to just finish since this Has taken over 2 months already & so close to finishing.

I registered for this school and had a very bad experience. The mentor allocated to me was not interested in teaching and was talking about cultural fit and communication skills in getting the design job rather than focusing on encouraging me and help me with my design skills. I requested a change of mentor and I guess because of some bureaucracy inside the school the new mentor did not gave me any written feedback. I hope this helps. If you are ready to kiss the butt of your mentors, then go ahead and join this school. Honesty, straightforwardness and skills have no place in this school. This school is going down the road and I feel they are only interested in minting money.

Do not get fooled by the job guarantee program. Read the clauses carefully...you could never keep up to them... run away as fast as you can ... find some good state school to do UX course.

I really enjoyed the freedom they give you in the course, allowing you to explore your own ideas if you wanted to whilst keeping you within restricted guidelines so you kept learning.  The only thing that was potentially lacking was the content itself, although this isn't a complaint, as this helped to ensure that I didn't get overloaded with information and helped me to keep motivated and continue learning.

Overall a great experience where I learnt practical and transferrable skills. 

The curriculum for all courses is all curated. You get a paragraph or 2 about a topic, then you go read a blog article that might have been published recently or 7 years ago.

The project prompts are half-baked. Not that interesting at all.

My mentor was great and helpful, but not too experienced in the field. I felt I knew more about certain topics since I had read a couple books.

Sign up for a course that actually makes their own curriculum. It probably took these guys a week or 2 to find the right articles to read. An actual expert in UI/UX could build it from scratch.

 

I took the UX Academy from Jan 2017 through April 2017 and thoroughly enjoyed it!  I had done a lot of research when deciding which online bootcamp to take for UX and finally decided on DesignLab and it was the best thing ever for the following reasons:

1. The curriculum is great - they cover all the major aspects of UX/UI and really provide a solid foundation. The materials and method of delivering the training were engaging and fun. They are constantly updating it so it's always relevant.

2. The Mentors - I loved working with a mentor 2x a week and also have group-critiques with my class. It was great interacting and receiving real-time feedback from others in the field.  

3. Projects - the projects were the heart of the program. Being able to apply what we learned from 'textbook/lectures' into real hands-on projects was so much fun. 

4. Cost - Definitely comparable to other UX bootcamps, but at the time I took it - I thought it was competitvely priced.

5. Job Offers - After completing my coursework, I spent time refining my portoflio/resume and working with my career coach.  They provided really good feedback and advice. I received 3 offers within 4-6 weeks of completing everything. 

Overall, I really good experience for me. I came from a consulting background (business) and making a transition/career change - was scary...but I felt confident in what DesignLab taught me.  I liked that the company is based in the US, they are very responsive to emails, flexible with your schedule and adjusting dates if needed, constantly updating materials to improve it and make it more relevant (this field is constantly changing, so ensuring the materials are always relevant is key).  Love them!

I am now a Product Designer (UX/UI) at a large global company and I love it!

 

I joined UX Academy after doing a lot of research into UX Design. Networking, reading, looking into formal university programs, to name just a few. I had actually come across blog piece written by Karen Cheng who enlightened me about bootcamp programs; she specifically mentioned Designlab also. That's when I started investigating further and knew this type of a program was perfect for me. The flexibility, the community, and guidance I would get as a student was incomparable. Not to mention learning things in a fast-paced environment to get myself out into the market to get real-world experience. 

I would not trade in my experiences with UX Academy for anything. I met so many different people all around the world and was able to pick up concepts so quickly and easily. I would not have been able to do this on my own and get a great job as well! Having a mentor and other students to communicate with was so helpful and encouraging. And being able to do everything from my home was great; that flexibility is something I needed. Not to mention, having an organized course to teach me all the skills I needed to enter this field. I couldn't have done it on my own.