Are you a UX designer or an aspiring UX designer who feels like it's time to get serious?
You want your skill to be certified by a big tech company none other than Google?
You might have heard of Google's UX Design professional course that has been circulating around nowadays and thought, "Hmm should I enroll?"
This course is super popular and lots of people took it (at least in my circle). And it piqued my interest so I took it as well.
I am not really sure what other people's motivation of taking this course (cause I haven't ask them) but here's my motivation in taking this course:
I want to experience it and write a review about this course
I want to learn about user research because I have done it in the past but I wasn't sure if my method was right.
I feel like I lack focus in UX design at my work right now. So I want to get pointers and knowledge on it.
The certificate might be good for my career, maybe?
If you are reading this, comment down below why you are interested in this course!
OK, let's not waste time and get to the review!
Overview
1. This professional course is divided into 7 courses (let's call this subcourse).
2. Each subcourse will last for 4-7 weeks and you will get a certificate of completion.
3. Each subcourse requires either one or multiple quiz(es) or a peer assignment(s) to be completed.
4. After you completed all 7 subcourses, you will get a badge of completion. This badge is the most important out of all the subcourse certificates you got.
Now let's move on to the pros and cons of this course!
Pros
+ There are both video and reading material as well as templates. This is really great because when I enrolled in another course from other platforms, they just have videos after videos. Sometimes their explanation is unclear to me. By providing both reading and video material, it gives me better clarity of the lessons.
+ The explanation is super clear. Their explanation made in a way that they answer most questions that students might have after explaining it. For beginners, they will show you step by step in operating the software (Figma and XD), so I don't think you will be lost.
+ It helps you to get projects to work on. If you are a beginner or a UX designer who lacks experience, this course actually encourages you to work on a project so you can apply your knowledge to it, and ultimately, you can use it to showcase in your portfolio. This will improve your chance of getting a good UX design job.
Cons
- Some lessons are repetitive. I notice some lessons are repeated in the later subcourse. Let's say competitive analysis is taught on subcourse 3 but later in subcourse 6 and 7, it is taught again. I don't think there is any difference when they repeat it in subcourse 6 and 7 (other than spoken by different instructors).
- The peer-reviewed assignment kinda sucks, in my personal opinion.
It sucks because the scoring rubric usually just checks if the contents are available or not. For example, "At least 3 high fidelity screens should be made" and then you get 3 points if you do have all 3 high fidelity screens. It doesn't check the quality of the screens. And I am not just talking about the UI lessons, but as well as the UX questions, say when creating a persona, the user research plan, etc. As long as your content is there, you get full marks. This is bad because people can just put rubbish content and still get full marks. The peer-review also sucks because some people don't know how to mark other people's work so some students get graded unfairly. This didn't happen to me but I saw some people get it in the discussion forum. But then again, it's an online course and I guess peer review assignment is the easiest way for Google to make sure you are graded for your assignment (compared to the Google people themselves grade you)
- If you have any questions, you can't really ask them. Probably the best way is you ask it in the discussion forum and hopefully, someone can answer you. For example, I am confused about the difference between Think and Feel when creating an empathy map. I guess experience will answer that question, eventually? (If you know the answer, comment down below!)
Overall: It is actually a really great course overall. I can see that this course is designed to be interactive and make sure you understand the lessons taught. If you really want to be a great UX Designer, enrolling this course is a very good choice!
And here are my other thoughts about this course!
Take Your Time
This course was designed to be completed in about 6 months. If you're wondering, I completed it in less than a month. It really depends on how experienced and knowledgeable you are. Don't worry if you don't know anything about UX Design and if you need to take 6 months to fully absorb all the knowledge, then so be it.
It Gave Me Confidence
UX design is something that I feel I am lacking because I learn it myself and I was not sure if my methods are right. Although I work as UI/UX designer now, my line of work didn't really do much user research. We also not really doing usability testing before development. So I was not confident to say I know UX design. After learning this course, it was made clear to me how UX research and UX design actually is. And now, when I said I know UX, I can say it in full confidence!
Have Your Own Website Ready Before Starting This Course
This is just a piece of advice since it is pretty easy to have your own website these days, please make one before starting this course. One of the factors why I can complete this course in less than a month is because I already have my own website so I just have to change the content to meet their standard. I'd imagine if I have not gotten my own website, I probably need about 2 months to complete this course because (spoiler!) at the end of the course (week 5 on the subcourse 7, if I am not mistaken), the peer-reviewed assignment is to submit your website URL and I don't think Behance or Dribbble is allowed because one of the scoring metrics is the navigation of your site. So you really have to have a website! It doesn't have to have a premium domain, you can use free domains too such as .wixsite.com or .wordpress.com
Take note!
Many of their contents are very useful for your future work. As you are learning, remember to take note. You can write it down in your notebook or you can type your note in a Google Doc. Just remember to take them notes because if I am not mistaken, once your Coursera subscription ended, you won't be able to access the course anymore.
Actually, I created a video review version of this writing. But in that video, the content has to be minimized a lot because it's a video and I'm not supposed to talk too long and too much or else people will get bored 😅 So the content below is the special extended content that is not included in that video!
I will now answer some of the concerns and question you had (I saw it on Reddit)!
Their Question/Concern:
Their self-assessment activity is such a loophole!
My Answer: Well yeah, it maybe is. But then again the whole online course is very easy to rig. It doesn't take a genius to rig it. If you see other UX Courses from another platform it is probably even easier to rig. For example, in LinkedIn, it is just video after videos. If you just want the certificate you can play the video in the background and mute your device, right? The whole online course is very easy to rig. The online course's ultimate function is to actually enrich yourself with the knowledge, not the certificate. Even with the Nielsen Norman certificate, I am pretty sure there are some 'geniuses' out there who can rig it.
Now I have bad news for employers out there. If you only judge your candidate from their certificate, you're probably going to be easier to fool by malicious people. Always check their acclaimed skill and knowledge. Make them able to prove that they have this certificate and actually means they have the knowledge brought by this certificate.
Their Question/Concern:
Their instructor is so robotic and boring!
My Answer: Some of them are. But that is because they read from a script that has been reviewed and designed to make this lesson clear for everyone who is watching. Some people can't fathom things as fast as you are so it is perfectly understandable if they speak in a boring or robotic manner. If you are expecting fun Youtuber type of speech, maybe you should learn from YouTube tutorial instead?
Tips on how to complete this course faster
I am emphasizing it again: this tip is written not because you should complete this course fast. I think you should complete this at your own pace and not rushing it. But if you are wondering how to make it faster because of some unforeseen circumstances (such as financial because this course costs ~$39/month), then I am here to tell you how!
Learn before you enroll in this course. If you want to complete this faster, you have to know the basics of User Experience, visual design, and you should already know how to use Figma or XD so that you can at least skip the basics and just watch/read the contents that are advanced to you.
Be prepared for your energy to be drained. If you want it to be done fast, you gotta sacrifice something. In this case, you have to sacrifice your energy and time. I can finish it pretty fast because on my workday, I learn it until ~10 PM while on the weekend I start learning at ~9 AM and stopped learning at ~11 PM. I only stopped for meals, toilet break, and that's it. I didn't have leisure time throughout this course. No playing games, no watching YouTube. Fully focus on the course and the course only. By 11 PM when I finished learning for the day, I was exhausted and went straight to sleep! If you are a full-time working adult like me, then say goodbye to your weekend leisure! 😅
Make sure you understand the lesson before moving on to the next subcourse. Because if you are too motivated to finish it fast and so you don't care if you don't understand some courses, then, later on, you will encounter problems that will slow you down. In the later subcourses, they will test your knowledge from the earlier subcourse. So for example, in subcourse 6 you will be asked questions about subcourse 2. Not only that but you are also required to do assignments with the knowledge you learned from earlier subcourses. So if you fail quizzes/ assignments, you need to take more time to resubmit them.
Read the requirements in the assignment. Learn what must be included in your assignment and make sure you incorporate all of them. It will be a huge time waster if you did not read the requirements, straight do your assignment, and then failed because you then have to resubmit the assignment. The peer-review typically takes 2-3 days to complete. So don't waste these 2-3 days, read the requirements.
So there you go, the full review of Google's UX Course!
I hope this review is useful for you and really gives you a better insight into whether or not you want to enroll in this course.
If you have any questions about this course, comment down below.
See you in my next blog post!
-Leni
Comments