Designlab

I loved my experience in UX Foundations. I felt like I learned so much but the load was very manageable every week and I felt very supported all throughout. The content all scaffolds and allows you to use your new skills often. I would recommend to anyone. 

Designlab provided a tremendous learning experience for someone transitioning into the UX design world. Through mentorship and a fantastic curriculum, students receive the guidance and education to instill confidence. 

This class was amazing and I would definitely recommend to anyone looking to learn UI/UX design.

Online, self paced. Very helpful. 

Design Lab is a self pace bootcamp, however it is very informative and you walk away with so much information. I started with the UX Academy foundation, and I was brand new to UX (product) but I walked away learning and knowing so much more. I enjoyed my sessions with my mentor, since we had assignment  each unit he was able to give me great feedback and help with other questions I had

Great intro to UI and design principles and fundamentals.  The course was well paced and covered a wide variety of material and skill development. The mentor program associated was a fantastic benefit to the course, as well. It was great to have someone to give advice and process with throughout the course. 

I truly enjoyed my DesignLab UX Foundations experience! I went in with very minimal background knowledge of UX concepts and am leaving with a great amount knowledge that will be very useful to me in UX academy as well as in my future career as a designer. They provide so many great resources for you and different ways to learn the information so you aren’t just sitting and reading material for hours which can become very boring especially if you’re a hands on learner. I loved having a mentor and meeting with her weekly. She gave me great feedback and really helped build my confidence as a new designer. I also loved how my admissions representative checked in on me when she saw that I was behind, that showed me that they really want you to succeed in the program.  I am really shocked at how much I learned and how many skills I acquired in just 8 weeks. I truly look forward to UX Academy. 

UX Academy Foundations was super fun! I met a lot of friends and everyone in the community is nice and happy to help. I had a lot of fun doing projects and learning how to use Figma. Figma was so fun to use! My mentor was very knowledgeable. He gave me feedback on my projects and taught me a lot of design techniques. This course was $500, but it let me dip my toes into design a bit before I decide if I want to attend a full bootcamp. 

The DesignLab Foundations course was much more thorough than I had anticipated.  I entered the course with no previous design experience and through projects, one on one mentorship and the online coursework, I completed with a solid working knowledge of Figma, the beginnings of a portfolio and enough knowledge to actually secure employment in the field should I want to.
The online program coupled with the mentorship is the perfect match and the cohorts on Slack are another resource/community that is available as well.
I spent more time each week than the program suggested.  I felt some weeks took about 15-20 hours versus the projected 10.  But I think that depends on each individuals learning curve.
Amazing value, highly recommend.

Pros
- solid introduction to using design tools such as Figma / Sketch (I used Figma)
- forces you to learn foundations of UI design very quickly
- weekly 1:1 mentorship with experts in the field (this is key and where I learned most of my Figma skills)
- well structured course, each section has an allotted time commitment which makes it easy to plan out when you're going to complete coursework
Cons
- barely any focus on UX (however this makes sense given that it is a foundational course)
- I heard from other students that their mentors were not as helpful learning how to use design tools such as Figma...I didn't experience this but makes me think experience can be greatly impacted based on the mentor you get

Overall it was a great experience! A great foundation course to let even beginners start their journey in UI design - there was a good mix and ratio of readings to exercises. 

DesignLab was a great choice for me as a beginner learning about UX & UI. It was an easy to follow curriculum with guided videos and clear directions. I chose DesignLab because it came recommended and because I have actual portfolio pieces that I can place in my portfolio.  

I found UX Academy Foundations when I was searching around for UX/UI bootcamps. I decided to go with it before signing up for a longer (and pricier!) option to get a feel for the work. My background is in tech and I worked full time while completing the course. Overall, it was a positive experience.

Pros:
- Mentorship - I got an awesome mentor and they really helped me succeed
- Lessons are easy to follow and the coursework is fun
- You will see yourself improve over time
- Affordable, not a huge time commitment
- Free Adobe XD subscription comes with the course! 

Cons:
- Coursework almost exclusively deals with UI, very little UX 
- Can be difficult to juggle with full time work

At first I was hesistant on taking this course, but I signed up because I wanted to learn about the foundational skills to UX/UI and see what it is like working alongside a community of peers and a mentor. I am so glad I took this course because my experience was so rewarding and I left feeling more prepared for UX Academy and the field in general. 

I really enjoyed Designlab's foundation course. As someone considering a career pivot, I really appreciated the option to learn more about UX design without fully investing into a full bootcamp. The course was really clear and the content easy to follow. I'm excited to do the Academy.

As someone with no previous UX/UI design experience, this was a great first step. The coursework was thorough with lots of hands on practice. The reading lessons were very manageable and easy to understand. My favorite part was having access to a mentor that has been in the industry and shared great feedback with me. This really helped my learning. Highly recommend this course, and had no complaints at all. 

I really enjoyed my experience in the DesignLab Foundations course. They were very thorough with their content and provide many opportunities to practice skills. It is very helpful to be able to have tutorials throughout to learn about how to design on Figma (or Sketch) and to get feedback from an experienced mentor. I enjoyed the projects, they really enabled me to practice designing digital products and made me much more confident, skilled, and knowledgable in design. I would recommend this course for sure, DesignLab allows you to learn with lots of support and encouragement. 

I really enjoyed Designlab, having a mentor and a supportive community to learn with was great! It really prepped me to develop a solid resume/portfolio.

I was very unsatisfied with my current job, so I decided to try this class out and see how I would like it. It was definitely a huge learning curve for me. It took me some time to change my mindset on certain things like trying to complete everything instead of submitting incomplete work during the suggested time limit. Overall, I had a good experience with this course. I would recommend this course to a friend.

Pros:
-Beginner friendly course for people with no design background
-Lots of fun projects that include a lot of copy work and your own designs
-Working with softwares like Sketch or Figma
-Awesome student perks for software discounts
-Provides lots of original reading material and short tutorial videos
-Provides additional reading material from other resources outside of Designlab
-Awesome mentorship program - 8 mentor meetings (1hr / session) are provided
-Supportive Slack community from DL staff and DL students
-Lots of informational webinars such as keeping students on track to enrolling in UX Academy bootcamp

Cons:
-No live instructor
-Self-learn and self-paced course
-Very short tutorial videos. Could use some more video content.
-Suggested time limits could be increased for slow learners
-There are some minor typos in the reading materials and some of the text provided for some projects

I enjoyed this bootcamp class as someone with zero experience in UX/UI design. The curriculum was self paced, however in order to advance to UX Academy it does have to be completed in 8 weeks. The mentorship experience is a great resource as well as the slack channel. The only con is that in order to move on through certain assignments you need mentor approval of iterations which can delay progress on the course timeline. Overall, great price for a bootcamp with tons of resources.