What I learned from my Google UX Design Certification Training

The Google UX Design Certificate Course is one of the most highly recommended Certification course by UX Design communities, Professionals, and organization. It was designed and taught by the staff of #google itself and made available by #coursera which makes it one of the most accepted certifications and it is highly affordable which makes it accessible to anyone who wishes to enter the field of UX Design. It is a rigorous, hands-on program that covers the design process from end-to-end.

I took the course in order to broaden my knowledge in the field, Learn for industry experts, carry out real time projects, and also to advance my career with a reputable certificate in the field. I must say that after 3 months, I have learnt more than I could if I hadn't taken the course. Some of the things I learnt from the course include:

• Empathizing with users by creating empathy maps, personas, user stories, and user journey maps

I learnt how to empathize with users. Empathy is the ability to understand someone else's feelings or thoughts in a situation. We empathize with users by asking users open ended questions and allowing them to express what they truly feel about a product without leading them on or putting words in their mouth. After getting feedback from users, we come up with empathy maps - An easy to understand chart that summarizes everything a designer has learned about a particular user. We then create fictional characters called personas whose goals and characteristics represent the needs of a larger audience.

• Defining user pain points

User pain points are UX issues that frustrates the users and block the user from getting what they need. Pain point can be Financial, Product, Process, or Support pain point. As UX Designers, it is our responsibility to identify these pain points and fix them.

• Ideating design solutions using Crazy Eights, How Might We, and competitive audits

Ideating solutions is one of the most interesting part of UX Design where we get to come up with ideas to solve the identified user problems. When coming up with ideas ensure that you document as many ideas as possible before evaluating and scrutinizing them. Some of the methods used to come up with ideas are crazy eights and How might we. After coming up with ideas, identify competitors providing similar solutions and create a competitive audit to analyze their strength and weaknesses.

• Creating wireframes and prototypes on paper and digitally

This is when you start creating your wireframes. It is better to start with a paper which is cost effective and faster. Paper wireframes allows you to iterate easily on the designs. After building on paper, you then build using a wireframing tool like Figma, Adobe XD, or Sketch.

• Developing mockups using visual design elements and principles

Mockups are static high fidelity design that is used as a representation of a final product I.e they look just like the final product. Some visual design elements include Typography, Color, Iconography, Shapes, Line, and images. These various elements can make your piece successful when used right.

• Designing in Figma and Adobe XD

We also carried out different projects using two of the industry most popular design tools Adobe XD, and Figma. Mobile apps, responsive websites were created using Adobe XD and Figma.

• Conducting interviews and usability studies

Conducting User Experience interviews is a process that needs to be well planned and thought out even before the interviews. You need to have come up with a research plan which will contain; The Project Background, Research Goals, Research Questions, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Methodology, Participants, and the Scripts or questions.

A key performance indicator is a critical measure of progress towards an end goal. Some KPIs used are Time on tasks, Use of navigation vs search, User error rates, Drop-off rates, Conversion rates, and System usability scale (SUS).

A usability study is a research that assesses how easy it is for participants to complete core tasks in a design. Usability study can be moderated or Unmoderated.

• Considering accessibility at every point in the design process

Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services or environments for people with disabilities. examples of accessibility is the text to speech feature on phones, Ability to change between light and dark background themes, and being able to control your devices through eye tracking.

With the knowledge i gained from this professional course, I was able to carry out standard projects and UX Case Studies to improve the quality and standard of my portfolio.

In the end it was an exciting journey learning more about UX Design with Google and Coursera. Special thanks to the team that made this happen.

Here's a link to my portfolio

Here's a Link to my Behance portfolio