product design (ui/ux)

Topic 1: Introduction to UX and UI design

In this unit, you’ll explore design fundamentals and gain a foundation for understanding what it takes to thrive in the UI/UX field. You’ll learn the difference between UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) and the various UI/UX design roles available in the field.

Topics Covered:

• What is user experience?
• UI vs UX design
• Understanding and choosing design roles

Topic 2: Introduction to Design Tools

You’ll get a feel for the design tools you’ll be using in the program, including Sketch, Adobe XD, and Figma.

Topics Covered:

• Exploring the landscape of design tools
• Fundamentals of Sketch, Adobe XD, and Figma
• First UI practice: recreating high-quality UI screens

Topic 3: Design Thinking

A hands-on, iterative approach to problem-solving that’s grounded in empathy, design thinking is the mindset designers like you will use to create effective user experiences. This unit introduces you to the core stages of design thinking.

Topics Covered:

• Design thinking as a mindset
• The core stages of design thinking
  › Empathy
  › Define
  › Ideate
  › Prototype
  › Test

4: Introduction to UX Research

At its core, design is about solving problems. When you begin a new design project, you will likely conduct user research to understand why a problem exists and what users want to see resolved. In this unit, you’ll learn different types of user research and when to use them at various stages of the design process.

Topics Covered:

• Types of user research
  › Generative research
  › Primary vs. secondary research
  › Evaluative research
  › Behavioral vs. attitudinal research
  › Competitive research
  › Quantitative and qualitative research
  › User research methods

Topic 5: Conducting Research

In this unit, you’ll dive deeper by developing a research plan and conducting user research for your capstone project. This is a very hands-on unit that will tailor your research to the problem you’re trying to solve.

Topics Covered:

• Research plans
• Recruiting users with screener surveys
• Conducting interviews
• Creating a research plan and screener for your capstone
• User interviews

Topic 6: Synthesizing Your Research

Once you’ve conducted your research, you’ll need to find a way to present it cohesively. Tools like affinity mapping, empathy maps, and personas can help you synthesize your findings before presenting them to stakeholders.

Topics Covered:

• Synthesizing your research
  › Affinity mapping
  › Empathy mapping
  › Jobs to be done framework
  › Creating personas
  › Writing problem statements
  › Journey maps
• Research presentations

Topic 7: Product Types: Typical Problems and Solutions

Designers don’t always invent solutions from scratch. They study what’s already offered and build upon existing solutions. In this unit, you’ll learn the most common types of product within the field of design.

Topics Covered:

• E-commerce & browsing
• Social media & messaging
• Dashboards & data design
• Media
• Business-to-business vs. business-to-consumer products

Topic 8: Design and Ideate

In this unit, you’ll learn how to make design decisions and ideate a variety of solutions to the problem you’ve identified through your synthesized research. You’ll leverage user stories to help you identify the functional needs of your product.

Topics Covered:

• Solution ideation
• Creating user stories

Topic 9: Information Architecture

Once you’ve identified a solution, you’ll use information architecture best practices to organize and structure the information based on how your user will move through and interact with your product.

Topics Covered:

• Information architecture
  › Navigation
  › Content organization through
  card sorting
  › Sitemaps
  › User flows

Topic 10: UI, Interaction, and Mobile Design Principles

In previous units, you’ve been building out your UI design toolbox with the help of UI exercises woven throughout the bootcamp. In this unit, you’ll begin to apply these skills as you dig deeper into the fundamental and advanced UI design techniques every UI designer should know.

Topics Covered:

• UI principles
• Nielsen heuristics
• UI elements and behaviors
• UI patterns
• Material and IOS guidelines
• Mobile interaction behaviors principles
• Designing for the different states

Topic 11: Sketching and Guerilla Usability Testing

Creating low-fidelity design sketches is the first step in the march toward high-fidelity designs. Sketching is an easy, affordable way to get your ideas out of your head and onto paper.

Topics Covered:

• Sketching principles
• Mobile-first responsive design
• Sketching red route screens
• Guerilla usability testing

Topic 12: Wireframing

Once you’ve created sketches of your product, the next step is to create wireframes. Wireframes are often digitized versions of your sketches — they sit between sketching and high-fidelity mockups. Creating a low fidelity digital version of your product will enable you to identify critical design decisions to make, while still offering enough flexibility for innovation.

Topics Covered:

• Creating wireframes
• Designing for edge cases
• Creating wire flows

Topic 13: Designing Systems and Brand Platforms

In this unit you’ll learn the importance of establishing a visual language through design systems, in working toward a high-fidelity screen. You’ll also understand how brand platforms communicate a company’s mission, promise, personality, and attributes.

Topics Covered:

• Introduction to design systems
• Understanding brand platforms
• Creating your product’s brand platform
• Creating logos (optional)

Topic 14: Building a Style Guide

Style guides ensure standards are consistent and uniform across platforms, including websites, mobile apps, and marketing collateral. In this unit, you’ll learn about different parts of a style guide.

Topics Covered:

• Fundamentals of building a style guide
• Color palettes
• Fonts
• Iconography
• Designing UI elements
• Photography and imagery

Topic 15: High-Fidelity Mockups

Once you have your style guide sorted out and a series of wireframes to work with, it’s time to create high-fidelity mockups of your design. However, this doesn’t just mean making your designs look beautiful (which you’ll do — don’t worry!); it also means making your designs accessible and inclusive so that everyone can use your product.

Topics Covered:

• Designing for accessibility
• Defining your grid
• Designing high-fidelity screens
• Designing efficiently with tools
• Critique and feedback

Topic 16: Prototyping and Animations

As any designer will tell you, prototyping can identify problems and validate design decisions. Animations can also help improve design, playing a role on both a high-screen level and a granular level. In this unit, you’ll build a clickable prototype and learn how to use animation and interaction best practices.

Topics Covered:

• Building a prototype
• Designing animations and interactions

Topic 17: Testing

After building a prototype, you’ll learn how to set up and facilitate usability test sessions and synthesize your findings to determine if you need to redesign your prototype.

Topics Covered:

• Conducting usability tests
  › Remote usability testing
  › Moderated and unmoderated usability testing
• Synthesizing test findings
• Prototype iteration
• Other evaluative user research methods
  › Google Analytics for designers
  › A/B testing

Topic 18: Collaborating with Developers

As a UI/UX designer, you’ll be in frequent communication with developers. This unit will teach you how to effectively navigate this special relationship, reduce friction, and learn to speak their coding language.

Topics Covered

• Collaborating and communicating with developers
• How to prepare for handing off designs
• Handoffs tools including Zeplin
• Coding for designers

Topic 19: Presenting Your Work

Learning how to tell a compelling story about your designs can go a long way to ensure alignment across business functions. This unit teaches you how to effectively communicate your ideas to a variety of stakeholders, such as team members and clients.

Topics Covered:

• Types of presentation
• The components of an effective presentation
• Creating a case study

Topic 20: Psychology Principles and Special Topics

What happens when psychology meets design? Understanding human motivations can help persuade users to engage with your product. This unit gives you a window into how psychology and design can go hand in hand while also introducing new innovations emerging in the UX space.

Topics Covered

• The psychology of design
  › Persuasive design
  › Anticipatory design
• Dark patterns
• The future of UX
  › Wearables
  › Designing voice user interface (VUI)

Topic 21: The Business of UX

Knowing the inner workings of a product life cycle and the business requirements that your product will need to be considered successful can help you stand out from the pack of hiring candidates. In this unit, you’ll learn what it takes to gather the proper requirements and understand the key elements of the product life cycle.

Topics Covered:

• The product life cycle
• Gathering requirements
• Understanding success criteria

22. Collaboration and Professionalism

Learning how to tell a compelling story about your designs can go a long way to ensure alignment across business functions. This unit teaches you how to effectively communicate your ideas to a variety of stakeholders, such as team members and clients.

Topics Covered:

• Email, in-person, and remote communication
• Active listening
• Receiving and giving feedback
• Building trust and influence

Topic 22: Portfolio Projects

While working through this bootcamp, you will complete three projects to showcase in your design portfolio. You’ll gain hands-on experience with each stage of the design process, from identifying a problem and building high-fidelity mockups, to testing your prototype and communicating your findings.

Capstone 1: Choose Your Own Idea

◘ A multi-month, end-to-end project where you’ll execute each phase of the design process and sharpen your newly acquired UI and UX Skills.

Capstone 2: UI/UX in a Business Context

◘ Use a real-world business brief and apply all the methods you’ve learned to work within realistic time constraints and meet business goals.

Design Sprint:

◘ A Google Ventures-style design sprint over one week, focused on mastering agile methodology and rapid iteration under tight deadlines.

Topic 23: Building Your Portfolio

Create a job-ready portfolio that incorporates all the projects you will work on as a part of this bootcamp, including your Industry Design Project. You’ll work through the process of assembling a cohesive, in-depth, and engaging collection of work while tailoring your portfolio to show off your unique skills and interests.

You’ll learn how to:

• Refine your case studies
• Write an engaging bio and create a personal logo
• Build your portfolio site
• Critique and review your portfolio