Designlab

Designlab's UX Academy Foundations course is a wonderful first step for those who have little to no experience in the field and are looking to either learn new skills or initiate a career change. I really love that the entire course is self-paced, but has built in markers (like mentor check-ins, the 8 week max timeline) to ensure students are progressing sufficiently. I also appreciate that Designlab has a thriving community on Discord, which students can access to ask questions, engage in group crits, and learn about what's happening in the UX / UI world at-large. I have no cons that immediately come to mind to be completely honest! I really enjoyed this course and plan to move ahead with the Academy eventually.  Read less

Overall great experience and loved that I get to have one on one meets with my mentor. Would recommend to anyone trying to get into UX. I would definitely make sure you work ahead because it is really easy to fall behind. So far it’s been worth every penny.  Read less

Designlab's UX Academy Foundations is a great intro course that covers what the field is about, how to use commonly-used applications (Figma, Sketch), and what to expect from a career in the field.  Despite being an "intro" course, I found that a lot of the course work goes pretty in-depth, and a lot of suggested materials really supplement the curriculum.  Weekly 1:1 mentor support is invaluable; I received live help on issues I was encountering, and also discussed real-world topics that I might not have learned from reading a blog or forum.  

The curriculum is fairly paced with a specific weekly topics and assignments peppered throughout.  Access to see other students' work is a great feature so one can get inspiration from others who are on the same path.  There is also a great Discord community where students can interact with each other and get live questions answered during virtual office hours.

Overall, I highly recommend the course for those interested in UX but without any prior design experience.  It covers a lot of ground, can give you an inside look into the field, and is a great value for what you get out of it. Read less

The UX Foundations course eith design lab was thorough but also a great option for those new to design like me. I found the information easy to digest and apply to projects. The feedback from my mentor had also helped tremendously in building my skills and making better design choices.  Read less

Before signing up for the Designlab UX Academy Foundations, I was trying to study UI/UX on my own for about three months with learning materials on Udemy. I did make some progress while studying on my own, but I could get lazy and less-motivated along the way and when there's no one to view my design, I wasn't sure whether I was doing the right thing or not. After signing up for Designlab, I felt much more motivated than before. The course content from Designlab is easy-to-understand. The design project for each unit is very well-made. Whenever I finished a project, I could feel that my design skills have been lifted to the next level. I was also fortunate that I've got a great mentor who's always challenging me to think more on my design. I finished the Foundation course in about 6 weeks and I'm proud to say that my design skills and knowledge have substantially improved! Read less

The course was good. I thought it was going to be lecture videos, but no it's self-read and learn UX/UI principles by yourself. There was a mentor that would make comments on our project and be there if you need help. However, I didn't meet my mentor as much because the material is straightforward. My mentor was pretty good and fast at responding back. When I do have a question, my mentor explained pretty good. Read less

I completed the Foundations course in preparation for the UX Academy, and now that I've started in the Academy, I'm so glad that I did.  It's an excellent intro to UI Design, which provides (per the course title) a great Foundation on which to build an entry-level understanding of UX Design.  The course is comprehensive and fluid -- the curriculum is progressive and includes relevant projects that apply new skills immediately after they're introduced.  The final project brings everything together and offers an excellent opportunity to work with a mentor to make it something worthy of a portfolio.  There's a brief intro to some more complex UI topics like Design Systems.  Robust and rigorous but also very approachable.  I highly recommend it. Read less

I liked how I was able to complete this program completely at my own pace. I also enjoyed the different projects that had you apply what you learned from the reading assignments; although these projects did help me learn, I do wish there was some variability (maybe 2-3 options) with what kinds of projects (e.g., clothing company, travel company, etc) we could do. Additionally, with some more techincal aspects like auto layout and components, it wouldn't been really nice to see the figma files they used as part of the tutorials. Additionally, I would've loved to have more smaller (30 min) assignments to practice individual parts leading up to larger projects. Sometimes, it felt like I would just read all the material and then be expected to immediately apply all of it in 3-hour-project. Using 10-20 minute assignments to practice skills would help ease this transition. Read less

My experience with this course was very positive. Having no UX or design background, I learned how to use design software and implement design system concepts to design full screens for projects. Throughout the course work I have been able to put together material for my future portfolio which is an added value. 
Special shoutout to my Mentor Jules Buhain for constantly encouraging and pushing me to be a better creative and designer.     Read less

My friend took classes with Designlab and recommended it to me while I was doing course searching. He said it's rigorous and has the most comprehensive curriculum. I didn't quite follow his advice and subsequently took a few other UI courses, but felt like they just weren't rigorous enough for me. So finally, I took the courage to enroll in Designlab's course and I am really glad I did! I have learned so much during the last 8 weeks - I've never felt this comfortable using Figma and I am more confident than ever before when it comes to following the design process. Kudos to the Designlab's team for creating a wonderful curriculum and being supportive along the way. And last thing I'd mention is that they are continuously improving the curriculum based on student feedback, which is great to see.  Read less

The UX Academy Foundations is a great course for anyone who doesn't have a visual design background and is looking to get into the UX/UI industry. The course provides a good knowledge of visual design principles and their applications. One of the major perk of this course is the mentorship support. I personally found the weekly mentor call to be super helpful and effective to enhance my skills. The course moves pretty fast so it is important to be on top of your projects. However, if you plan properly, it should be manageable to get through in time. Overall, this is one of the best course if you're a looking to get started your UX/UI career journey.  Read less

The mentorship and program was amazing! It was very easy to follow along with the information. Reading the material is a MUST. Each unit perfectly guides you through to the 10 hour challenge. My mentor was very helpful. Gave great input and was very easy to talk to. I definitely will be applying to UX Academy. Read less

The course was very challenging and my mentor was extremely helpful. Some of the course material was a little outdated (e.g. Figma screen recordings were from an old version) so you have to watch more recent tutorials on YouTube to keep up with the new versions. 

My mentor made me question all my design decisions and forced me to base them on research and not intuition, which turned out to be extremely important when I went through job interviews. 

Since UX/UI is quite popular right now, it will not be easy to land your first job in your new career. You definitely have to put in extra work in addition to the projects you do in the bootcamp to stand out from the competition. I did the full-time course with some extra work on the side, and I got extremely tired halfway through the bootcamp. I had to take 1-week breaks between projects to clear my head and avoid burnout, so beware.

The Career Services was OK. My mentor kept me motivated while I was looking for a job but wasn't able to identify the weak points in my portfolio or interview skills.  Read less

I have learn fundamental design knowledge and design tool (Figma) for 2 months at Designlab. It was very nice learning experience with well- structured course content and mentor system. Cornelia Varlam is a very knowledgable mentor with a lot of design experience. We have one meeting section every week. She answered all my questions patiently. I am very satisfied with Designlab, and I am applying for UX academy at Designlab now.






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My experience with Designlab's UX Academy Foundations course was overall very positive! I thoroughly enjoyed the material and thought everything was really well presented. The hands-on learning experience worked very well for me and helped to build confidence for the next steps toward a new career in UX Design. Read less

I had a great time going through the DesignLab UX Foundations course. As someone who has had little to no background experience in the field I learned a lot about what goes in to designing a beautiful and easy to use website or App. The modules were easy to follow and understanding. Some did take a little longer than the allotted time for me to get through (the auto layout lesson took a lot of extra research and practice). The whole team is very helpful.  Read less

Fantastic introduction course for Ux designers! Productive weekly meetings with a mentor and several, albeit tenuous, but effective assignments. Beyond the projects the lessons are structured nicely and very helpful with getting a newbie started with a design program.  Read less

Pros - This is a UX Design Course - and in that context, Designlab has designed their curriculum, site, and online school to be as fluid and user-friendly as possible. The language is direct, friendly, and at times also fun (the use of emoji's in lesson text was cute and amusing). The course is self-paced, and there are many links within the coursework that I saved for future reference and perspective on the subjects being taught (history of design, sketching and wire-framing, iconography, color, UX software, etc). The lessons are also flexible, they don't require you to finish every project proposed, but more focus on time and structured productivity (except for the final project, where it's required to submit a finished design). I was able to easily monitor my progress through different visuals on the course site (both through unit thermometer and percentage visuals), and whenever I had a question, both my mentor and academic advisors were quick to respond with help and links. 
I had also never used Discord until becoming a DL student, and that was really helpful in a. learning how to use and b. connecting with students so you have a sense of community and support through solo learning. I never felt like I was alone even in the moments where understanding a mechanic or lesson was tough, I always had enough resources to figure it out. I also really appreciated that they give you the choice of UX Software to use, because I couldn't use Sketch (I'm too poor for a Mac update and my Mac is too old to support the software) so having the ability to learn on Figma was a huge relief. I am surprised this is just foundations, as a freelance artist I had really learned so so much just from this course that helped me in my own work as I was taking it. My visual design vocabulary and speed with software (ie, pen tool) has exponentially been increased from all the coursework. 

Cons- Since this is self-taught and self paced, as someone with ADHD I found the duty of reading lessons initially challenging. The lessons are not audio (though you can use plug-ins in accessibility for read-aloud on your computer, a new thing I learned). I wanted to retain all the information, and screenshots wasn't really helping me absorb it or pay attention. I really had to find what worked for me - and what I found was taking hand-written notes as I read the lessons line-by line. They do have a lot of software tutorials in small videos, which is good. My only issue with these, though you can slow them down and pause them, the editing is still not direct/slow enough, and without a large desktop screen, all the tools were super tiny in the videos. I found myself getting really filled with anxiety when I felt the teacher was moving too fast. I would wind up expanding a lot of the Figma lessons into Youtube Tutorials, which would then take more time to learn than the lessons were supposed to be. 
Sometimes when we were given copy-work projects with more involved, visually challenging and varied homepages (ie, real estate, travel) it was way too many resources at once to load into Figma. I think DL needs to realize students are not as quick and experienced setting up their resources panel, and this was pretty willy-nilly and time consuming. Sometimes, when a project was supposed to be 2h, I would have taken 40 minutes just gathering things and putting them into my Figma File and getting the frames set up. Besides those personal learning curve adjustments, I feel that having UXF was a very comprehensive, important course as prep for UXA. It really helped me get used to learning online, using the software, re-learning my graphic design process, and functioning as a solo worker with time management. It's jam packed with great info, advice, and resources as an intro to UX. Read less