Published in · 7 min read · Oct 3, 2022
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Trying to figure out which is the best UX design course online that will help you land a job as a UX designer?
With hundreds (or thousands) of tutorials, classes, and intensive courses available online — it can be tough to figure out which one is the best fit for you. Are you looking for an introductory course that will quickly help you with the fundamentals? Or, if your goal is to fully shift into the field of UX design, you might be looking for a more intensive UX bootcamp experience that comes fully stocked with mentorship, career support, and more.
Whatever your career goals are, we’ve put together a list of the top UX design courses available, based on a few qualifying criteria:
- Updated curriculum, so you know you’ll be learning information that’s fully relevant in a fast-growing field.
- Projects for your UX design portfolio, since your job search will rely heavily on your portfolio.
- Mentorship, because feedback is key.
- Career Support as you search for a job.
Learning UX vs UI Design
UX and UI design are two sides of the same coin. Products with poor user experience lead to frustration, errors, and customer churn. A poorly designed UI can impact usability and the overall perception of the product. And UX designers benefit when they can create wireframes and layouts that will support UI best practices.
Because of this intrinsic connection, many of the courses on this list include both UX and UI elements, to ensure that you are hireable as a UX designer.
Learn more: The Difference Between UX and UI Design
- Duration: 4 weeks (full-time) or 8 weeks (part-time)
- Price: $499
- Best for: Those without any prior design experience who are looking for an introduction into the world of UX/UI design to see if it’s right for them.
UX Academy Foundations is a focused 4-week course that’s intended to give you a crash course in UI design. As a student, you’ll be paired up with an experienced design mentor, to help you throughout the program and give you feedback on your work.
From ideation to handoff, this curriculum takes you through a design workflow similar to what you’d find in an actual studio or company. You’ll bring your ideas to life as either a fully fledged web page or app design by the end of the course.
- Duration: 15 weeks (full-time) or 30 weeks (part-time)
- Price: $7,249 (payment plans and scholarships are available). UX Academy Foundations graduates receive an automatic $500 discount off tuition.
- Best for: Those who are looking to make a career shift into UX/UI design and walk away with in-depth knowledge on design thinking, UX processes, and a standout portfolio.
UX Academy combines asynchronous learning with 1:1 mentoring to create an educational experience that prepares you with in-demand knowledge and skills in UX/UI design. In addition to personalized 1:1 mentorship throughout the program, you’ll also receive a completed portfolio with 4 unique capstone projects; lifetime access to a network of mentors and UX designers; and actionable insights, feedback, and career support throughout the program.
With both part-time and full-time tracks available, UX Academy offers a flexible, asynchronous learning environment … designed to work with your schedule.
- Duration: Self-paced, monthly membership
- Price: Membership starts at $16/month for the Professional level. Upgrade to the $200/month “Design League” tier for personalized coaching to help you pair your coursework with career goals.
- Best for: If you want to dip your toes into the world of UX, or are simply looking for a way to gain in-depth knowledge on a specific topic, you might enjoy a membership with Interaction Design Foundation.
Interaction Design Foundation offers a suite of self-paced UX design courses, ranging from beginner to advanced, and even a few masterclasses. Rather than sell the courses individually, Interaction Design Foundation operates on a membership model (similar to Skillshare), where you can opt to become a member and then take as many classes as you want, as long as your membership is active.
- Duration: ~6 months (10 hours/week)
- Pricing: $39/month for a Coursera subscription
- Best for: Beginners who are looking for a focused, relatively inexpensive way to gain understanding of the UX design process and earn a certificate.
The Google UX Design Professional Certificate covers the foundations of UX design, including user empathy, building wireframes and prototypes, and conducting research to test your designs. Simply sign up for a Coursera membership and you’ll be able to work your way through this course, learning design thinking basics, an overview of the UX design process, and practice with design projects that are reviewed by course peers. While this isn’t a comprehensive course, it comes with a certificate and a glimpse into Google’s innovative perspective on UX design.
- Duration: 10 hours
- Pricing: $94.99, or $29.99/month with a personal subscription.
- Best for: Someone with a basic understanding of design who’s interested in making more user-friendly, effective websites.
Joe Natoli’s User Experience Design Fundamentals is a perennial recommendation for anyone who wants to learn more about how UX design works, and how it can be used to create more user-friendly, effective websites. Throughout the 10 hours of on-demand video in this design course, you’ll be introduced to concepts like the user research process and the basics of visual design, as well as project-specific work like creating content requirements, identifying business goals, and more. At the end, you’ll receive a certificate of completion.
- Duration: 1 month (~15–20 hours/week)
- Pricing: $690
- Best for: Someone with no previous design experience who wants to learn the essentials of UX.
CareerFoundry’s Intro to UX Design teaches the fundamental principles of UX design including design thinking, user-centered design, and information architecture. Throughout the month-long course, you’ll learn and practice core UX skills — such as user research and iterative design — as you create your very first app design.
- Duration: 15 weeks (full-time)
- Pricing: $16,900
- Best for: Someone with no previous design experience who wants to learn the essentials of UX.
In addition to courses on cybersecurity and data science, Flatiron School also offers a 15 week long product design bootcamp program, with both online and location-specific options. In this program, you’ll gain hands-on UX/UI design experience using tools like Figma and Webflow, and you’ll use your course projects to create a design portfolio.
- Duration: 8 hours, 16 minutes
- Pricing: Free with a 1-month trial. LinkedIn Learning membership starts at $19.99/month (paid annually).
- Best for: A designer who is looking to sharpen and expand their UX design skillset.
The Advance Your UX Design Skills on LinkedIn Learning is a short, varied collection of UX design courses that allow you to explore UX design facets like prototyping, mobile design considerations, validation techniques, and more. You’ll work your way through 8 mini-courses that teach you how to use Figma for UX design, as well as interaction design basics, UX web analytics, and remote research.
Take some time to reflect on what, exactly, you hope to achieve by the end of the course. Do you want to learn UX design basics? Create a professional portfolio that you can use in job searches? Master one of the industry recognized design tools?
Reflect and write down your goals, so that you can use them to compare your various options.
There are many courses on this list that are meant for absolute beginners. Others might require some design familiarity as a prerequisite, since there will be certain skills you need to hit the ground running and complete the course on time.
Short courses are like sprints: they’re easy to fit into any kind of a schedule. More intensive, multi-week programs are more like marathons, and require careful, consistent scheduling if you want to get the most out of your investment.
If you are serious about developing design skills through hands-on projects, personal feedback is essential. If this is important to you, you might gravitate towards courses that include elements like mentorship, peer feedback, and an active online community that you can reach out to with questions.
- Learn more about how to become a UX designer without a 4-year design degree.
- Start practicing your design skills with this free Figma 101 email course.
- Research how to best prepare yourself for an online UX bootcamp-type course.
- Ready to go all-in? The next cohort of UX Academy Foundations is currently open for enrollment. Sign up here.
