My career has been mostly self-started until now, but I feel like I’ve reached a stage where I wanted some fundamental training in UX design. My role on the product team is starting to involve more leadership and the products I am designing are increasing in complexity. I wanted to improve my communication skills and my ability to articulate design decisions to the product team, other designers on the project and the design team as a whole. I also wanted to get a better understanding of the design process so that I can improve my skills at estimating, delegating design responsibilities and identifying research opportunities. 

 

Since 2012 BrainStation has worked with some of the largest organizations in the world, including Amazon, Google and Facebook, with the goal of empowering teams with digital transformation skills. One of the things that sets Brainstation apart from the other schools I was looking at is their sense of community and building a culture around a digital skills education. I saw that they provide a ton of opportunities to grow your network and career.  

 

As a designer it’s very important to have strong instincts that will help guide you through the design process. “Next steps” could sometimes mean researching, sketching, gathering feedback, iterating or handing off designs to be implemented, knowing how to navigate and where to invest your time is so valuable. It is crucial for a designer to be able to see projects through by knowing when to move into certain phases of the design cycle. 

 

Brainstations curriculum shows the learner how to move a project from ideation to implementation. The course is focused on the design thinking process and how that relates to User Experience design. Empathizing with the user as the first step in the UX design process helps the designer define what the problem looks like. Then using UX design principles like information architecture, sketching, wireframing, and prototyping to build on those insights. Finally testing, presenting and gathering feedback are all used to help the designer communicate their ideas in a way that allows them to iterate and push the designs further.