Learning UX and Emotional Design with Interaction Design Foundation — a review
One of the many things that the Covid pandemic has taught me, is that learning comes in many forms, and that variety of learning has has helped inspire me. I would traditionally consider learning as something that I left behind when I finished school, and that it would usually involve an exam of some kind. Of course, we learn new things all the time, but often we consider it as part of a hobby or interest, and overlook the ‘learning’ part.
Since the UK lockdown began in March 2020, I’ve been working full time from home, which has given me many opportunities to reflect on how I focus my energy. When all of my usual activities and pastimes are removed, I found myself looking for different ways to occupy my time. Something engaging and rewarding.All of a sudden I had these windows of time where I’d normally be commuting. Things I have since found include watercolour painting, amateur mechanics, basic gardening, decorating, you name it. Suddenly I had an appetite for learning, and I was hungry for ways to get more into my work hours too.
I’m a UI Designer by day, and user experience is baked into the way I work and collaborate with teams, so it seemed natural I find some learning that delves deeper into this. I wanted it to be with a reputable source, have real world applications in my job, and progress my knowledge in a specialism I have a real interest in.
I happened upon Interaction Design Foundation UX courses, and could see straight away how they appealed to my needs. I could duck in and out of the course in my own time, which means I could fit it around work. And the yearly membership gives access to all courses across the site, which means me, and my company get serious bang for buck. I figured I could fit up to three courses into a year, and I could develop my learning by weaving learned principles and knowledge into my job.
What also stood out to me was that the courses are graded by leaders in the industry, and each course is awarded an industry recognised certificate. This really helped to sell Interaction Design Foundation to my business as a worthy use of training budget. Now all that’s left is to pick a course and get myself enrolled.
Interaction Design Foundation offer courses in three tiers, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. The course I chose first was User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide, which uses
a mix between video-based and text-based lesson content. Points are awarded via multi choice questions, and written answers that get marked by course instructors. Earning a certain number of points will mean the difference between a pass, or higher distinctions.
Once I’d enrolled, and the course had started, I found ways to integrate a couple of hours each week to completing the sections by being flexible with my learning time. Some weeks I was able to complete more, but I never felt pressured to do a certain amount, and I really like that each section gives you an estimate of completion time. This was useful when deciding how much I could do in one session.
I personally found the mixture of video content and reading material well judged, it held my attention (I’m a visual person by nature), and the video presenters were engaging. I also like that each section is broken into steps, which makes tracking progress really simple. Learning for me has rarely felt so approachable.
Some topics that really triggered my note-making, post-it doodling tendencies were on Cognitive Psychology and Don Norman’s Three Levels of Design. It struck a chord with how we can design better for people, and shape the experience based on needs and expectations. I was developing ideas about how to implement learning into my real-world projects. And that’s what I love about learning. It can spark creativity in unexpected ways and give a fresh perspective on things. On a human level it’s rewarding, but as a designer it’s a powerful tool for creating better products and services.
I’ve since completed another course titled Emotional Design — How to Make Products People Will Love, and I’ve enrolled on one about User Research — Methods and Best Practices. I look forward to my continued development, and long after lockdown I’ll rethink how I approach learning.
Illustrations used from absurd.design
