Designlab

Designlab's foundations course was very helpful for me to get an idea of what UX UI was going to be. It was a great introductory course that taught a lot about UI design and as a UX Academy student right now, it helped me with learning a lot of the basics of design. Read less

Having no prior experience in UX design and with an abundance of bootcamps out there, I decided to go with DesignLab and can safely say that it was the best decision made! The curriculum was well organised and made studying enjoyable. I have learnt alot during foundations and looking forward to take on UX academy! Read less

Overall I really enjoyed doing this foundation course, I did this in order to qualify for UX Academy. I am very happy with my completed coursework and will start to build up my portfolio using these.
I did not find this course hard, but it is very time consuming.

Pros
- Really flexible, the only 'set' thing are your mentor meetings, but you schedule this based on yours and your mentor's availability.
- I enjoyed the course content
- Extremely happy with my mentor, he is super helpful and supportive
- Relatively low cost

Cons
- The website is a little hard to use on mobile. There isn't an app, so I use it on the browser, it's hard to see everything clearly
- It can be hard to find what you need from the discord servers since there are so many channels and new messages popping up all the time

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Pros: 

-Everything is well structured. The Foundations course is broken up into 8 units, with 1-7 being learning based. In those units everything is broken down by time and it's really nice that they encouraged you to upload work even though it's not finished. 
-You get a mentor and there's a dedicated discord community you have to join when you start Design Lab. It's full of love and support. 
-On top of reading for knowledge, you get to do tutorials, and most of the unit is project based

Cons:
-Very few (probably just one) of the video tutorials is not up to date (I'm looking at you auto layout tutorial) which made it really difficult to learn. 
- I feel like I spent way more time to finish a few of the final projects in each unit. I definitely spent long hours/ days on some of the copy work projects but this is where "it's okay not to finish comes in" 

*I am not going to put a rating for "Job Support/ Assistance" because it's not applicable for the foundations course. Foundations give you a snapshot for design work. You definitely need to take the Academy Bootcamp to get access to their Job Support services. Would highly recommend! Read less

When I discovered the world of UX Design I remember I was flooded with feelings of intrigue, curiosity, and excitement. You mean I get to work in tech making creative impacts based on logic and best practice? Wow! It didn’t take very long for me to understand: I want to be a UX Designer. The Foundations course at Design Lab has tripled my excitement about transitioning into a career in UX Design. Having just graduated, I feel empowered to not only design and collaborate, but also to keep learning as I take the next steps towards my career goal. My time in Foundations has been priceless. I’ve been heard, supported, and also challenged…consistently, all in an effort to ensure I have the best possible experience. My favorite parts of Foundations has been chatting with my peers in the robust Discord community, as well as my time with my amazing mentor, Amandreo! To be honest, I really don’t think I could have asked for a more perfect mentor match. Amandreo was present, straight-forward, and immeasurably insightful. Foundations has been the perfect first chapter in my story as a UX Designer, and DesingLab as a whole has watered my intrigue, curiosity, and excitement more than I expected.  Read less

I found the course adequate. Not great but alright. I do fear the experience will be similar with UXA but I know what to do going forward (to take other classes simultaneously  since the level of instruction is poor). My first mentor didn’t work out so I was flailing about  for a bit until placed with someone new. It worked out in the end because I had extra time to perfect with final product with my mentor. The DL support team is top notch. Rudi is the best! Read less

More than anything, I feel that while you are learning many UX/UI Fundamental at the same time I felt that the material could be easily learned elsewhere. hat is not to say that the material is useless or bad. Mentoring took the material to another level and especially receiving feedback from your work. My mentor was great and I enjoyed the community of people along with that/ Read less

Pros: work on your own time, get feedback from a professional, have a structure 
Cons: Limited meeting times with mentor.                                                                                                                                            Read less

I was impressed with the platform they use cos it made everything so easy and smooth to locate and find. You do your lessons there, checkout other students submissions and see how they're doing and also schedule your mentor sessions there. 

The course is broken up onto 7 units, each with subunits and the content is broken up into bite size which is easy to digest, they also provide a cheatsheet at the end of the unit for you to refer to. After the lessons, you get to do some copy work followed by designing a page based on what you have learnt. Do note that this course focus mostly on UI than UX and the content shared is concise in terms of what you need to know but if you really want to learn more you need to do some exploring and reading up on your own. 

You'll also have a weekly session with your mentor, or however often you decide it to be. I did it weekly and finished the course in 8 weeks. The mentor sessions were really helpful for me to gain insights about the industry and clarify any information I'm unsure about. He's really patient, knowledge and is happy to share everything he knows. 

Overall, I would really recommend this course to anyone who has no experience and is interested in learning UI design.  Read less

UX academy foundations was, in my experience, a very fun and useful introduction to UI design.  It's meant to serve as a way to get people with no experience comfortable with creating responsive design layouts for mobile and desktop web and it does that up in a very effective way.

The best part, in my opinion, is that the structure of each unit is thorough and represents a learning arc that takes you from reading to doing; by the end of each week, you're given an opportunity to essentially do a peer-reviewed project associated with a particular skill set that is part of the design process, and this happens once a week for the length of the course.  I think it's an effective structure, and it has been fun (there are several boring bits when you're essentially rote memorizing through repetition, but if you have to learn a software tool inside out to be effective, like figma or adobe xd, you have to be tolerant of a certain degree of boredom). 

The mentorship experience was unequivocally what made the course excellent.  Working alongside or getting regular feedback from a peer with experience is pretty much invaluable for reinforcing skill acquisition, and it worked for me.  My mentor was fun to talk to and easy to work with, and that was great too. 

Overall, I'm quite positive about the experience, and it rates quite well compared to the many other uni courses I've taken. Read less

I am very happy with my decision to take Designlab's Foundations course. As someone with no design background or experience, this was a great prerequisite course for learning basic design principles. Taking the Foundations course also helped me to decide if UX design was a track I wanted to take.  What I love most about the Foundations course were the projects and mentor sessions. The projects really helped me to apply my learning and get a feel for UX design, while the mentor sessions were great for refining my work and answering my questions. I also love that the course is spread out into units with projects and a reflection/quiz at the end of each unit. If you are considering a career change into UX Design and have no previous background, I highly recommend taking the Foundations course. Read less

Laura was a fantastic mentor, i worked well with her grading style and she was very quick with uploading feedback as well as being very thorough with feedback as well. the course was easy to navigate. the workload was as expected. i wish rubrics for each deliverable had examples of what good and bad work looks like rather than a few sentences. i also wish there was more info on auto-layout as i had to learn that on my own with the help of youtube videos. maybe make it an optional but highly encouraged section of a unit. Read less

I initially picked Designlab's Foundations course as my first UX bootcamp to solidify that this was the career change for me. Designlab has been AMAZING - they matched me with an experienced mentor who met with me weekly and gave great feedback as well as helped me learn more difficult concepts. Designlab's foundations is exactly what it sounds like - a foundational course for those who have zero experience in the UX design industry. You have access to their whole community and collaborate often with peers. It is a great introductory course that gives learners foundations in UI design so that they can successfully navigate into studying UX design. The curriculum is detailed and you get out of this course what you put in. You can coast through this course but the more you collaborate with peers, seek feedback, and work with your mentor the more you will get out of this course. There is a lot of peer and mentor support, as well as encouragement from Designlab.  Read less

When seeking out a UX course, I did A LOT of research. Designlab stood out to me for a couple of reasons: 1. They offer an introductory course called UX Foundations that would allow me to confirm that I was for sure interested before committing to a full bootcamp 2. They host Group Critique sessions that you're required to attend to share work and provide feedback which I knew would create the community I needed in order to be successful. 

Overall, my experience was really great. I loved that the curriculum was self-guided as I am pretty good with time management and keeping myself on track. I also needed something flexible (I was still working full-time and raising two young children) that allowed me the ability to complete the work on my own time. In addition, there are tons of offered Group Critique session times so I never had trouble attending. The mentors that I had were truly wonderful outside of a bump in the road early on. I had a mentor step down but I received a new mentor pretty quickly and Designlab was supportive in the process. 

I felt like the curriculum laid a really strong foundation and pointed me in the right direction when I needed additional resources or materials. The online community has been better than I realized it'd be and I've found myself staying connected with peers which has been another positive to come out of all of this. 

Following my graduation, it took me between 2-3 months to land a job as a Product Designer. I really leaned on the community during this and my career services mentor. I highly recommend Designlab's UX Academy if you are serious about a career as a UX Designer.




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I really enjoyed the UX Academy bootcamp program offered by DesignLab, and it helped me land my dream role. The course is well structured, and you are paired with an experienced mentor who helps guide you through the coursework and offers advice on career switches, design, and any other relevant topics. I took the part time track and even though I found it difficult to complete course work at times, the pauses were helpful in taking mental health breaks and having time to recharge. Overall, I definitely recommend this program to anyone interested in UX Design.  Read less