Designlab

PROS:

• The platform is extremely intuitive to use and the curriculum provides a wide breadth of knowledge for students. For a deeper understanding, links to outside articles are also provided which I appreciated but they definitely were not required to be successful in this course. Going into Foundations, I had zero design experience but the lessons were easily digestible and I loved that this course broke down concepts into simple and precise information chunks. There was also a multitude of projects that you submit online for feedback that really tested the skills we learned in each unit and made me much more confident in my usage of the software Figma.
• Before Foundations started, students take a pre-course survey and get matched to a mentor. In addition to being one of the more affordable choices for UX/UI boot camps, I chose Designlab because of this access to expertise from working professionals in this field. The knowledge from my mentor was invaluable and they really boosted my UI design skills throughout the course.
• Another aspect that I loved about Foundations was access to a server on Discord with multiple channels where you could ask experienced designers or your peers about your work. The ability to try asking for help at any time was a huge plus. Also, there's a whole unit dedicated to learning how to give/receive critiques - Foundations even allows students a chance to attend what's called a "group crit" where the students get experience critiquing each other's designs; no doubt an invaluable skill in this field.

CONS:

• The whole curriculum, while very extensive and provides a lot of knowledge, is reading compiled articles on the Designlab platform and doing projects. One thing that would've been nice would have been dedicated lecturers who could teach lessons on certain topics in real-time and answer questions from students who attended.
• Another issue that arose for me was some incompatibility with my mentor. A good/bad mentor can make or break your experience in this course. My mentor, while knowledgeable and had a good design background, didn't provide sufficiently good feedback by my standards. I wish they would've been more responsive to my submissions (at times, they didn't comment at all on a project and just approved it) and sometimes I felt they were abrasive with their feedback. Also, during our mentor meetings, sometimes they just weren't helpful and refused to answer some of the questions I had. You can reach out to Designlab's director(s) to try changing mentors but I was met with resistance because they always encourage students to try everything they can to make it work. Eventually, I figured I was learning the content just fine and because I was only going to have them as a mentor for the duration of Foundations, I just went with my original mentor. However, I did feel like my experience was diminished a decent amount. 

Overall, the curriculum was very thorough and accommodating toward students with zero design experience. The course provided me with ample chances to test my design skills throughout each lesson. Even though I felt that my mentor wasn't the best, the access to mentoring in general and being able to ask people on Discord for help was a huge plus. I highly recommend this course to anyone looking to get their start in UX/UI! For me, Designlab's Foundations course was an excellent course in teaching me the fundamentals of UI and now I feel very prepared for what comes next in this career path.
EXTRA BONUS: Foundations costs $500 but if you decide to go forward with Designlab's UX Academy course, the $500 is put towards that tuition so you can essentially get your money back!  Read less

I learned a lot and had a great time going through the assignments . Overall it was interesting to use figma in some of the tutorials as it was good balance of technical info and textbook practice. My favorite part was the mentorship and I looked forward to the feedback given. Read less

Pros
Content is relatively well structured, and really helpful for getting started in design.
Mentorship program is great.
Discord server has many channels and features for getting connected with the community.
Tuition for Foundations is credited toward the UX Academy program.

Cons
Video tutorials are outdated and not the best.
Some content could be explained thoroughly or timed better. Read less

I enjoyed UX Foundations and the self-paced track of the program. As someone who didn't have any design experience and going through a career transition to UI/UX, this program was straightforward and easy to follow. The projects were fun and my mentor challenged me while including thorough industry tips and answered all my questions in our sessions. Seeing my progress from the first project to the last project was so satisfying! My only feedback is the suggested time limits can feel stressful, I hope they can include more practice projects or a more detailed tips sheet. My tip for those going into UX Foundations is to focus on your own learning process getting comfortable using Figma/Sketch, but also track your time to see how long you work on your projects. Overall, great program and really proud of my progress throughout each unit and project! Read less

Designlab foundations provided me with an in depth understanding of a field completely new to me. The course teaches so much information and is set up in a way that feels manageable to complete. Overall a great program for anyone new to the field to learn and gain an understanding of UX/UI design. My overall experience was great and my mentor helped me a lot.  Read less

• Overall , great learning experience. Learned so much about ux design in two months. One on one mentorship helped alot , access of community of learners was great. Managed to Learn one new thing atleast in every unit. 
• Cons - figma videos were outdated, mentorship access was limited , if I needed help on one thing I had to Just google it. Good pace but became too fast pace and it felt like they were trying to teach us everything that would have taken people months to learn. Some units felt like too much busy work that didn’t benefit me overall as a student. 

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As someone who does not have a design background, this course is an excellent choice. The curriculum covered all the basics of UI design. The course material was simple and easy to understand. The tone of the lessons is professional and friendly. The course exercises are all super hands-on. Highly recommended! Definitely moving onto the actual bootcamp! Read less

I highly recommend taking UX Foundations if you're unsure if you want to take the leap into bootcamp. It is an affordable intro course that will give you a feel for the full course.

Pros:
-Foundations is a short (4 or 8 week course) and affordable way to introduce you to UI/UX design and get a feel for the full UX Academy course. I looked into General Assembly which has a much higher price point and you aren't able to 'test' out the course in a short 4 or 8 week way to ensure it's something you really want to do before making the big investment
-I work full-time and had other commitments but the course is self-paced so I could spend more time some weeks when I knew I had the time and still stay on track
-The Designlab platform is so easy to use! It tells you which week of the program you're in, it tracks your mentorship sessions (and makes scheduling with your mentor easy).
-The 1:1 mentorship was so helpful for me to get feedback and learn from someone who is working in a UI/UX designer role.
-The support team and admissions is super responsive. I always received a response in 24-48 hours which is helpful since the course is short.

Cons:
-This isn't a con per say but my own struggle/ something you may want to consider based on your needs. The program is self-paced instead of having a dedicated time from 9-5 with an instructor leading the course, I had to manage my own time very well and hold myself accountable to do the lessons!  Read less

Pros: 
-The volume of reading materials and hands-on projects was sufficient. 
-hands-on projects consists of up-to-date content and are well associated with UX.
- The webinars provided by the design lab are informative.

cons
- sometimes there is a time slot limit for scheduling with a mentor. Read less

Enjoyed this course! The course was fully online. Felt the curriculum was what I was looking for in that it taught basic design principles and how they relate to UX design in a general sense. Projects where hands on, robust and aligned well with the curriculum that was being taught. Mentor feedback was helpful, I liked the flexibly of being able to schedule time blocks that worked well with my schedule. It was rewarding getting see how my skills had improved in just a short month after taking this course.  Read less

Pros:
- Great mentorship experience. You get to talk to some of the greatest minds in UX and network with them while picking at their brain for knowledge and expertise.
- Super fun course material that efficiently teaches UX concepts.
- Design briefs and projects were relevant to real world design problems. Great practice for anyone planning to design for corporate or start up.

Cons:
- Difficult to stay motivated. There would be periodic emails sent to keep you motivated but at the end of the day, it took me way longer to complete the course than I was originally planning.  Read less

Foundations is a fantastic way to get started in design. I researched a tonnnn of bootcamps for UX/IU and I'm so glad I landed on this one. The projects are really fun to complete and I felt like they aligned really well with the course objectives. I learned so much in the 4 weeks and I'm really excited to continue with the UX Academy. Having a personal mentor was a huge bonus and really added to the value of the course overall. If you're going to do design I encourage you to choose this program!  Read less

I had a very enjoyable experience at designlab. My assigned mentor was very understanding and encouraging. I loved that I was able to go at my own pace while still receiving timely feedback from my mentor. I learned skills I believe I can use outside of this field. Read less

Design Lab Foundations was the ideal experience while also juggling a full-time job. I could easily schedule meetings with my mentor, and moved through the material at my own pace. All of the Units were set-up in a logical order, so that your redesigns were built on the most current unit's teachings.   Read less

I went for UX Foundations because I wasn't sure which Boot Camp in UX/UI design to choose from and I don't regret it at all! It was a great first step to see if I'm good at designing and most of all if I like it and enjoy it myself. I did a lot and I just enrolled in the UX Academy itself too! Foundations showed me that DL is very professional, well organized, and provides you with a lot of useful exercises, creative briefs, and ongoing support. I had to switch my mentor because of availability issues and they paired me the second time with an amazing one, whom I want to keep meeting during my UX Academy too! Be aware that the suggested time is very much real because I thought as a quite quick learner I can save some time at some points but not really. The exercises are time-demanding but they teach you how to work with Figma and Sketch very efficiently!  Read less

The course was a lightweight approach to getting you familiar with the tools of the trade and how you'll get through them. 
Admittedly, the mentorship program, while it was the most lauded thing, was probably my biggest stress point before starting, but I knew I was the type of person to struggle with reaching out to outside help for assistance. Their mentorship program really helped me and guided me through the course and I am so glad they removed that friction for me. 
Overall I'm glad I took the plunge and I will be pursuing it further. Read less

I think that UXA Foundations is a great intro to UI design. I took the course to prep for UX Academy, which I will be starting soon. I completed the UXA Foundations within 6 weeks. It was my first intro to Figma and I enjoyed learning new things every time I did copywork or created my own landing pages and app screens.  Read less

Designlab UX Academy Foundations is a mandatory prerequisite course for those coming from a non-design/visual background and looking to pursue a career in UI/UX. Foundations mostly teaches UI or visual design. The coursework is split into 8 Units with the final unit being a 10-hour design challenge. My cohort had to design a webpage and three mobile screens for a travel website. This is used to determine if you can apply to DesignLab's UX Academy.

I appreciated how thorough the course was setup. Each unit was devoted to a topic with supplemental articles or videos to present information and then design exercises to be done on the software of your choice. We were also tasked to write reflection statements after these hands on exercises. I liked the rhythmn of this as you got a decent overview of a concept and actually putting this knowledge into practice helped solidify some learning points. The reflection exercises were a good way to journal some questions or feelings that your mentor could respond to. 

While this may be obvious, the work you put into this self-paced course is dependent on you. In my situation I had weeks where I could devote adequate time to studying and doing the exercises and I felt very productive in learning. The opposite was also true where I fell behind (they recommend one unit completed per week) and some concepts didn't really "stick" with me. Overall I think the material is a good overview of UI principles. I went into Foundations having a decent sense of what is good/bad design, and now I am more confident in being specific on the details.

Your mentor is randomly assigned to you and you can change if you desire. The biggest challenge for me was getting used to a new software. While some questions can be easily looked up online, having a mentor also made it easy to answer specific questions that I didn't know how to phrase or search online. My mentor gave me the option to resubmit my work through the online portal or talk about the areas that could be improved in our sessions. There was a time difference between us as we were located in different countries and in one instance my mentor did not inform me that he could not make it to our session. You can use your one hour session to talk about anything, so I tried to have an organized agenda of what I wanted to talk about.  Read less