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UI/UX design course/resources?

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  • Jun 2nd, 2019 3:49 pm
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Deal Addict
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May 23, 2006
1800 posts
374 upvotes

UI/UX design course/resources?

Hi I am interested in pursing something in UI/UX design. Does anyone have experience with a specific course/college and can comment? Or even free online learning portals? Mainly hoping to find a job in the tech sector right out of the program so coop options would be preferred.

Thanks :D
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Deal Guru
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Nov 6, 2010
10018 posts
1967 upvotes
Montreal, QC
There aren't many UX specific courses in Canada yet, most are disguised under other programs such as HCI (Human Computer Interactions), Multimedia design (although a lot of these tend to veer more towards Graphic Design) or Industrial Design. I can't recommend specific school/courses as I didn't take a traditional path myself; I went through Industrial Design and while I didn't end up doing coop during school, I did work at a startup out of school.

While my degree was in Industrial Design, it hasn't negatively affected my ability to get jobs/interviews. The thinking in design is what's more important IMO and many user-centric design programs will share those methodology aspects. In my short career I've already gone through various softwares and most of them you can pick up 80% on the fly if you know one, but what's important is really getting that mindset around customer-centric design, understanding high level userflows and being able to bridge sometimes complex back-end systems to a front end UI (or sometimes not even a UI itself).

So what I would suggest if you read up on programs is try to get a feel whether there's actual methodology involved in the programs/courses. Try to steer away from programs that are very "arts-centric" or focus too much on creative tools like Photoshop; there is a level of creative arts involved in design, but it's more complex than that and any school that only emphasizes this aspect IMO will hinder you in the long run, especially if you want to work in tech.

Udemy and Udacity have some pretty inexpensive set of courses for UX design and I'd also try to brush up on some knowledge via communities such as medium, uxdesign.cc and fastcodesign.

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