I’m taking Google’s UX Certificate course.
I’ve always been a generalist designer. There’s a couple of reasons for this: first of all, I became a parent as a teenager so making ends meet when I was young involved taking any and all freelance jobs that came my way. Second, I just have a wide range of interests, which drives me to try new things and learn new skills.
I’ve done everything - graphic design, front end web design, tattoo design, illustration, animations, presentations, social media, copywriting, bespoke sewing, pattern making, packaging design, textile design, responsive web ads… the list goes on. And I’ve always loved the variety.
However, I’ve been thinking a lot about UX design lately. A few years ago at Burning Man, I remember sitting on the rooftop deck of our Kitchen Bus, on one of those long, hot afternoons mid-week. I was between positions and mulling over my future plans. I was going back and forth between two ideas - get some formal training in UX design and dive in, or give Textile Design a real try. I’d experienced some success doing freelance jobs in both fields, and I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to do more.
Ultimately I chose Textile Design and spent a couple of years working in the baby goods industry. While I’m proud of the work I did, (you can find products with my art on them in Target, Nordstrom, TJ Maxx, Amazon, and boutiques around the country) I’ve been missing the learning and problem solving aspects of UX design. While creating charming illustrations all day for money is lovely, there isn’t a lot of innovation in baby goods. If a trend is selling well, you recreate variations of that over and over. But there are only so many unicorns and rainbows a girl can design!
After about a year of growing more uninspired, I decided it was time to get serious about UX. I craved the focused time absorbed in designing functional solutions, the excitement of collaborating with a team that’s working towards a common goal, and the feeling of success when you finish a complex project.
It was when I saw an article on my Apple News feed about Google adding the Google UX Design Professional Certificate to it’s Career Certificates that I made my move. I enrolled about 2 weeks ago.
The program assignment is to create an app using the principals of user-centered design, from ideation and research through wireframing and prototyping.
The program is structured into 7 individual courses, each building on the last. I’ve already finished Course 1: Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design. The courses are meant to last about a month each. In my case, my flexible schedule and previous experience meant that I could complete the foundations course pretty quickly.
I’ve moved onto Course 2: Start the UX Design Process: Empathize, Define, and Ideate.
Today I was writing up some comprehensive notes in my Google Docs about the process of creating user interview questions. I realized that I could post them on Medium as blog posts, instead of keeping them hidden in my drive.
Not only will it help me to solidify my knowledge, but it might be useful or interesting to someone else along the way.
Going forward, I’ll post regularly about my thoughts, my process, and the challenges I come across as I work through Google’s UX Certification course.
I hope you join me!
Cheers, Rachel
