An Affordable and Fun UX/UI Design Bootcamp

As someone who has always been fascinated by how things work and the usability of digital product design, I found myself constantly returning to the idea of pursuing UX/UI Design as a career path. In case you're wondering what the heck UX/UI Design is, according to MastersinDataScience.org, "While [User Interface Design] generally deals with the interaction between users and computer systems, software, and applications, [User Experience Design] deals more generally with a user’s overall experience with a brand, product, or service."

Helping people to more easily or intuitively use a product, website, or app sounds pretty exciting to me, but I wasn't sure how I could even go about gaining the skills and experience needed to move into that kind of field - until I stumbled across Avocademy and interviewed the founder, Maca Baigorria, for the Career Switch Podcast. (You can listen to Maca's interview here.)

I learned that Avocademy is an educational platform which helps people change careers into the UX/UI design field through an affordable 8 week curriculum. The thing that stood out to me the most about this program was that it was designed to be completed by folks who are also working or are full time parents.

After comparing Avocademy to other UX/UI programs, I decided this was the program for me, signed up, and I am excited to say that I am almost finished with the program! Now I'm happy to share what my experience in the Foundations Course has been like so that you can decide if this is the right UX/UI Course for you.

First, a few reasons that I selected Avocademy over other UX/UI programs were the low cost of the program and the ability to complete it at a pace that worked best for my schedule. Hosting a podcast, working part-time for a traditional employer, and running my own career coaching business is time-consuming! I needed a UX/UI Course that would allow me to keep up with all that.

With Avocademy, I was able to complete the readings, video training, and projects in the evening or in between other projects during the day. I won't lie, as someone who does not come from the graphic design industry, I worried there would be a steep learning curve and wanted to give myself time to read and review the lessons as much as possible.

Some other other things that I really want to highlight from the Foundations Course are the hands-on activities, the ongoing mentorship, and the opportunity to actually receive constructive feedback and gain experience in creating a product within an iterative design process.

Let's break those down.

Hands-On Activities

A major positive point of Avocademy is that students work on a single project (or case study) throughout the course and are continually building on that project with each module. Basically, after each reading and/or video training section, you implement the concepts from those readings with a hands-on activity for your individual project. For me, those hands on activities were key in helping me retain the information and gain a much more thorough understanding of each concept.

More importantly, completing the project provides students with a full-cycle experience of user-centered product design from initially defining the problem you're trying to solve, to conducting and analyzing qualitative user research, all the way through to prototyping, conducting usability testing, and then synthesizing and redesigning as needed.

Going through the full cycle design process means that students gain a better understanding of which parts of the design process they may want to specialize in or they may find that they prefer to find a role that allows them to conduct all parts of the design process rather than specializing in one area.

Ongoing Mentorship

After completing each hands-on activity, students submit the activity to be reviewed by a UX/UI mentor. Mentors then provide feedback and either approve the student's activity, thereby allowing that student to proceed to the next lesson, or the Mentor requests specific modifications or corrections to the activity before the student can proceed. (While waiting for feedback, students can usually continue on to the readings for the next module.)

Mentors are also available for one-on-one's where students can ask general questions or questions specific to a module. There are also regular speaker sessions (which are optional) during which a Mentor will speak about their particular experience breaking into UX or the Mentor will facilitate an informational session on a specific aspect of UX/UI Design.

Continual Feedback

I really appreciate receiving constructive feedback from Mentors for each activity that I submit. The neat thing is that every Mentor is a little different, so, while students are learning industry best practices from the modules, we also gain insight into current design trends and what practices are currently being implemented from Mentors who are actively working in the industry.

This, to me, is a really big deal as, during my undergrad and graduate studies in psychology and then counseling, I sometimes felt like my professors were more dedicated to theory than real world implementation and practice. In Avocademy's Bootcamp, foundation theories are underscored and/or balanced with real-world UX/UI practices from Mentors who are working in the field.

...but it can't all be sunshine, rainbows, and puppy dogs, right? There are always some drawbacks or negatives to any program.

The only real negative thing I've run into during the course has been that it sometimes takes a little time for Mentors to review and provide constructive feedback for an activity. In the latter half of the course when submitting activities like wireframes or high fidelity prototypes, students might also need to resubmit an activity more than once after making updates based on Mentor feedback.

For me, this was initially frustrating because I felt that I was falling behind in the course while either waiting for feedback or when having to make changes and resubmit the updated activity. However, two things came from this that only reinforced that this was the right UX/UI Course for me.

The first thing was that when I expressed concern to the Student Success Mentor (who is there to make sure students are doing okay and not running into any issues in the course), they explained that I could simply extend the 8 week course to 10 weeks with NO additional cost. This was exactly the extension I needed to calm my stress about not finishing on time.

The second thing was that I reminded myself that the point of getting Mentor feedback was not just to make my project better but rather to provide me with experience in receiving and implementing constructive feedback as well as gaining hands-on experience in user-center design within an iterative process. Real world design isn't about a lone wolf designer cranking out a product as quickly as possible. Instead, it's about working with a cross-functional team to develop an intuitive, enjoyable, and functional experience for users. A process like that takes time and more than one iteration to get right, and that's what Avocademy's Foundation course prepares its students for by having Mentors provide constructive feedback.

These two things were not only a reminder that this course was designed for working folks and/or busy parents, but also that it's more than a check-the-box kind of bootcamp. Instead, Avocademy was truly designed to be an affordable, inclusive bootcamp that prepares its students for real world UX/UI design careers.

Personally, I have three weeks left of the bootcamp, and I can't wait to connect with a great UX/UI Design position where I can implement what I've learned from Avocademy and continue learning about this exciting field!

Interested in learning more about Avocademy? Visit their website here and schedule a free one-on-one consultation to see if Avocademy is the right UX/UI program for you!