UX Design

This follows the structure of Google's UX curriculum. The Google certificate itself is earned and paid for on Coursera; what this course adds is taught instruction, critique and portfolio review — the part a self-paced course cannot give you.

Not making things pretty. Making them work.

• UX, UI and product design
  Three different jobs that Pakistani job adverts routinely confuse. Knowing which one you are applying for.
• The design process end to end
  Empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test — as a loop, not a line.
• Accessibility from the start hands on
  Contrast, tap targets, screen readers. Retrofitting it costs several times more.
• Designing for the real device hands on
  Mid-range Android, small screen, expensive data, one hand.

Finding out instead of assuming.

• Interviewing without leading hands on
  Asking what someone did, not what they would do. The single biggest research skill.
• Surveys that produce usable answers
  Question design, and why most survey data is worthless.
• Personas and journey maps hands on
  Built from evidence, not invented over lunch.
• Competitive audit hands on
  Studying what already exists before proposing something new.

Turning research into a problem worth solving.

• Problem statements and how-might-we
  Framing narrowly enough to solve, broadly enough to matter.
• Information architecture hands on
  Sitemaps and navigation people can predict.
• User flows hands on
  The path through a task, including where it goes wrong.
• Sketching wide before choosing hands on
  Crazy eights, and why the first idea is rarely the best one.

The tool the industry uses.

• Figma fundamentals hands on
  Frames, auto layout, constraints and components.
• Low fidelity first hands on
  Testing structure before anyone argues about colour.
• Design systems hands on
  Styles, components and variants — consistency that survives a second designer.
• Interactive prototypes hands on
  Clickable enough to put in front of a real person.
• Handoff to developers hands on
  Specs, states and the edge cases developers will otherwise invent.

Where designers find out they were wrong.

• Running a usability test hands on
  Five users, tasks not opinions, and staying quiet while they struggle.
• Turning observations into changes hands on
  Prioritising by severity and frequency.
• Iterating and re-testing hands on
  Proving the fix worked rather than assuming it.
• Taking critique
  Separating the work from yourself — the skill that decides whether you improve.

The only thing that gets a UX interview.

• The case study structure
  Problem, research, decisions, outcome. Employers read the reasoning, not the screens.
• Showing the thinking, including the discarded
  What you rejected and why is the strongest evidence you can design.
• Writing about your work clearly hands on
  Most UX portfolios fail on writing, not visuals.
• Presenting it live hands on
  Talking through a case study in ten minutes without reading slides.

Before you start

• No design background required
  Drawing ability is not needed. Curiosity about why people struggle with things is.
• Free: Graphic Design Fundamentals
  Useful for the visual side, not required.

Where it leads

• Full Stack Web Development
  Designers who can build are unusually employable here.
• Digital Marketing
  For the conversion and landing-page side of the same work.

Roles this prepares you for

• Junior UX / Product Designer
  Usually requires a portfolio of two or three real case studies.
• UI Designer
  More visual, often the easier first role locally.
• Freelance Product Designer
  Requires the business skills taught in the Freelancing course as well.

Interested in this programme?

Try the subject free first — there is no reason to pay before you know you like it.