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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to User Experience Design by Georgia Institute of Technology

4.5
stars
8,054 ratings

About the Course

The focus of this course is to introduce the learner to User Experience (UX) Design User Experience design is design that is user centered. The goal is to design artifacts that allow the users to meet their needs in the most effective efficient and satisfying manner. The course introduces the novice to a cycle of discovery and evaluation and a set of techniques that meet the user's needs. This course is geared toward the novice. It is for learners that have heard about "user experience" or "user interface" design but don't really know much about these disciplines. The course mantra is that “Design is a systematic and data driven process.” Design is systematic because it is based on a set of techniques and also on a cycle of discovery. In this course the learner is introduced to the four step user interface design cycle. Along the way learners are exposed to a set of techniques to gather information about a) what the user needs b)how to design and model interfaces based on these and then how to evaluate the design to ascertain that the user's goals are met. These techniques are tools that are used in a standardized manner and give us the data we use in our design. This means that anyone (regardless of their current training) that is willing to learn these techniques and follow the proposed cycle can be a UX designer!...

Top reviews

PN

Dec 15, 2022

In the steps of User Experience Design, I got how to go through all four stages; Requirements gathering, Alternative designs, Prototyping, and Evaluation to design and get a good product on the table.

AO

Oct 22, 2017

The best introduction classes, gives an overall idea about UI/UX. Grateful for the efforts taken by the Georgia Tech and Coursera. Looking forward to see more courses related to my career. Thank you.

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1 - 25 of 1,828 Reviews for Introduction to User Experience Design

By Marleen K

Sep 6, 2020

I'm a graphic designer who was looking to brush up my (severely outdated) UI knowledge because of some upcoming projects. I picked this course (as well as a similar one on another platform) as the starting point. Sadly, I didn't find this course very useful even as that. Unfortunately, I also have a background in learning design, so I have a few more in-depth criticisms.

Content:

Overall, the content presented covered some very low level academic fundamentals and definitions, but contained very little practical knowledge or advice. It could have been further condensed down as well and successfully summarized on maybe 2 written pages, which does not reflect well on the value of the certificate.

A big emphasis is put on how important it is to understand the user's problems and define the use cases. However, in reality, this is the product manager's / product owner's job. As a UI designer, I have to decide HOW to present the solutions to the user, not define what these solutions are. In reality, an individual CAN of course inhibit both the role of the UI designer AND the product owner, but that is in no way a given. As a UI designer who is not the product manager, I'm hardly the one who decides to run a focus group.

I asked myself, if the course is not for me, then who is it for? And I think I would have gotten something out of it if this was my very first exposure to anything vaguely design- or technology related - let's say high school, grade 9 or 10. (Example 1: I was just given the definition of "brainstorming". Example 2: I learned that I can cut a sheet of paper into 6 pieces to make my own index cards.) For anybody who has worked in the industry in any capacity before, I would not recommend the course.

Presentation:

The writing style does not fit the medium: The text works well in written form but it completely unsuitable for a video presentation. It was very obvious that the presenter read out "textbook-style" text. It is just as jarring to view/listen to as it would be jarring to read a text that was a transcript of an actual conversation.

If you stick to reading the transcript further down the page instead of watching the video, no part of the text is structured or highlighted to replace the slides.

The slides remain too high-level and don't visualize some of the most important information. (If a piece of information is so important that the presenter repeats it 3+ times, it has every reason to be written out in bullet-point form.)

Graphics (as well as fonts and layout) look outdated, with the typical "I threw this together with PowerPoint shapes as quickly as possible" look. I don't usually harp on about these points and wouldn't have brought this up if this course was about anything OTHER than design. But in a course about user interface design it struck me as really weird how much the material apparently wasn't... at all designed (let alone designed with the user in mind).

Then there were more, smaller issues, such as inconsistent capitalization and copy/paste blunders in the quizzes.

I felt sorry for the professor, as she seemed very uncomfortable on camera.

Seemingly no effort was made the edit out the occasional stumble, stutter or duplicate sentence.

Lastly, I don't understand how a six-minute video and a five-minute quiz equate to 1-2 hours of learning for the week (even taking into consideration a quick sketching exercise). The recommended reading section with its external resources hardly counts towards this course's content.

Sorry for the harsh review, but with the quality, depth and production value of free content on youTube these days, I don't think this course can compete even as a freebie. I wouldn't pay tuition for similar courses.

By Catherine M

Aug 21, 2019

This was really underwhelming. It's very clinical and it's hard to stay engaged watching so many videos of just one person talking. For a course about User Experience taught by a person with a background in psychology, the course design is a joke and very user-unfriendly.

There are no practical elements to this course. Any UX person should know that they should offer opportunities for self-discovery of material via hands-on tasks.

The quizzes pretty much just ask you to regurgitate material via rote learning. I put up with it for a while but I got to Week 3 and got too bored. I have no idea why this course has such high ratings.

By Aya S

Apr 29, 2020

I was incredibly disappointed with both the course materials and the way they were presented. Videos were hard to follow, the presentation was boring, the quiz questions were annoyingly phrased and often centered around random terms which were mentioned in passing. Having completed the course, I don't feel as if I have gained anything besides a list of terms I could have easily searched for elsewhere.

By Laura M

Apr 8, 2018

The course would benefit from more storytelling, using real examples from the industry. It was very dry. Touched upon the important terms of User Experience, but not as engaging as the UVA Design Thinking course.

By Sama K

Apr 3, 2019

The professor introduces the concepts of user experience in a very structured, practical way that I'm able to immediately apply as I conduct user research in my role as a product manager. The course was quick, and I was able to get through most of the content in less than two days, which was perfect for my purposes.

As a note of caution, the value you get out of this course will be highly dependent on your goal. If you are looking for a quick way to learn fundamentals about user experience, this course is perfect. If you're looking for an in-depth course teach you to be a designer and give you hands-on assignments to practice these concepts, this is not the course for you.

By Robin T

Jul 5, 2020

For an introductory course, this is very efficient and effective in learning terminologies and get a good high-level understanding of Process, types and common techniques used in Design process :)

By Mukul C

Sep 26, 2016

This is an insightful introductory course to User Experience Design. While it is just an introduction, the lessons and the examples provided were comprehensive, leaving you with a thirst for more.

By Claudia P

Nov 20, 2016

This course was way too basic. The instructor basically just gave us links to existing web content. Very disappointed in the course. It felt like the instructor was lazy to develop a real curriculum.

By AARON M O

Oct 22, 2017

The best introduction classes, gives an overall idea about UI/UX. Grateful for the efforts taken by the Georgia Tech and Coursera. Looking forward to see more courses related to my career. Thank you.

By Marius R

May 11, 2017

Very shallow course. Information presented in slides - very basic. Links - poor. Seems like they have been picked "last minute". Some of them don't work.

By Daniel L

Mar 8, 2019

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I started the course so I decided to finish it as I hate to leave things half complete, but the course itself was hard work. Not the subject matter, that was fine. It was the way in which it was taught, it was not a pleasure at all. Felt like my brain was melting trying to watch those videos and became a chore just trying to keep my attention. Also found some spelling errors in the transcripts of the videos and the instructor made some mistakes. One that comes to mind is her referring to 'Storyboards' as 'Studyboards' in week 4's first video. These little details are a little distracting.

I appreciate that this course was offered free so I am sorry to return negative feedback but I trust it will be accepted objectively to help you improve in the future. I have to say that this was not a great advertisement for some of your other courses. I think I would prefer more proactive, problem based learning.

By Rami A

Jul 21, 2019

The language is so sophisticated and the teacher of the course don't explain some terms very well and she assume that the student know them. hope to support the text blocks with photos or summaries that help us to learn and get the big picture. Sorry no offence but the teacher made so many mistakes and not prepared well to do it. but I understand at least 60% of the course thanks to google.

By Kleber R J

Oct 5, 2020

It was fair introduction to UI / UX. I moved away from front-end development a long time ago but wanted to know about the new techniques used prior to starting that sort of development these days.

By Saloni Y

Sep 21, 2019

The questionnaires were not very effective or challenging, had ambiguous options and not much scope for a case study project with this much knowledge.

By Tinculescu S

Mar 16, 2020

Only take this course if you're an absolute beginner. There is a lack of practical knowledge and examples. At best, you will take out a list of notions that you will most likely never use. I felt like I was attending the most basic PowerPoint presentation on what User Experience Design is, absolutely no satisfaction. I will definitely avoid Georgia Tech courses in the future, I can't believe you have the audacity to charge 50euros for this course. Shame!

p.s. the only valuable things were the list of resources and recommended sites.

By Bianca G

Jul 5, 2018

Very little information shared through videos, and just a bunch of books/links thrown to the listener. I

By Jean-Francois C

Mar 23, 2017

This course is a useful if superficial introduction. The concepts presented are pretty basic, but foundational. The quizzes are very easy.

The instructor covers the topic in a pleasant and clear way. I would, however, have liked examples of a more visual nature (show don't tell).

Ironically, the course materials show disappointingly little concern for user experience or design. The slides look like they were thrown together in a rush and without much care for design or even spell-checking. The quiz multiple choice answers are laid out in an awful, confusing, anti-UX way. Someone should spend a few minutes fixing all of this.

By Kayley B

Apr 4, 2019

Too many links under "Reading"

By Іващук А В

Oct 17, 2019

This is my first course completed on Coursera and I'm greatly satisfied with the learning material and the course structure. Thanks a lot for the opportunity to study for free. Do do really a great job.

By N A

Feb 1, 2019

The course is very informative, however there are issues with some of the quizzes. Some questions are worded poorly. Others give a list of answers labeled "a", "b", "c", or "d" in the question, but the options are labelled differently in the answer. Lastly, if a question is answered incorrectly, no feedback is given.

By Mihaly V

Nov 11, 2016

Although this course is admittedly an introduction to UX, it is still very underwhelming. Priced at £39, the course materials that are spread to 5 weeks could easily be done in 1 or maximum 2 weeks. It is hard to justify that for example "week" 5 consists of a 7mins long video and a simple quiz... "Week" 4 is 15mins... Overall, I felt let down by the lack of materials and assignments (no hand-on experience can be gained, no peer -graded assignments).

By Pacifique N

Dec 16, 2022

In the steps of User Experience Design, I got how to go through all four stages; Requirements gathering, Alternative designs, Prototyping, and Evaluation to design and get a good product on the table.

By Shikhar

Oct 19, 2018

The teacher speaks beautifully. But, her eye movements are too evident and it gives away that she is reading it all. That reduces some interest. But none the less, this course has helped me a lot. I have gained surely. Thanks Coursera.

By Serina D F

Feb 3, 2021

Overall a good introduction to User Experience Design, if a bit dry. The formatting and wording of some of the quiz questions were very confusing at times, with many spelling and grammatical errors. The pop-ups encouraging me to "Keep Learning to reach your goals!" were very irritating (not to mention redundant) mid-video lesson, but I don't know if that was the fault of the course or Coursera.

By Christina J

Jan 9, 2021

It does have information you can learn but really boring. It's nice that it teaches you the concepts step by step though.