Welcome to UX Design: From Concept to Prototype

This course covers the main steps of the design process as it is practiced in UX design. I am delighted that you have decided to take the course, and I hope you will find it interesting and instructive.

In this course you will:

Learn how designers approach complex problems Understand the iterative nature of the design process and its main components Learn about the central role of ideation and gain experience in sketching Learn how to create personas, scenarios, and storyboards Learn how to systematically evaluate tradeoffs of alternative ways you can design a component of a system Analyze factors that influence the design of user input and feedback in an interactive system Describe different types of prototype, and what kinds of questions each type of prototype is intended to answer Create and evaluate low-fidelity prototypes Recognize the importance of good choice of defaults Reason critically about the broader impacts of the systems that they are designing The course moves from conceptual topics in week 1—the nature of design and the design process, methods of formative research—to more practical topics like ideation and creation of early design representations in weeks 2 and 3. As such, the workload will pick up somewhat as you move through the course and begin to do practical design assignments. You should expect to spend 2 to 3 hours in week 1, and about 3 to 4 hours in weeks 2 and 3.

We will start from understanding conceptual underpinnings of user interactions in week 4, to the overview of prototyping in week 5, to the issues that designers need to think about when prototyping, such as defaults and mental models, in week 6. In addition to lectures, quizzes and discussions, the bulk of the work in these weeks involves your actually doing design—planning out what kind of information your system needs, wireframing the main screens of your application, and finally, in week, 6, creating a functional low-fidelity prototype of your design. As such, the workload will pick up somewhat as you move through the course and you get deeper into the design assignments. You should expect to spend 2 to 3 hours in week 4, and about 3 to 4 hours in weeks 5 and 6.

Each week, in addition to video materials and assignments, you will be assigned a discussion prompt. The discussion prompts are aimed at helping you reflect on the material that we are covering that week and engage with other learners around the course topics. I also encourage you to use the Discussion section to post about other experiences with design that you have during the course—things you tried that worked or didn’t work for you, particularly good or poor designs you came across, and so on. Immersing yourself in design is the best way to rapidly learn and gain experience.

Getting Started

This course is self-paced, so you can go through the content at your own convenience. You may navigate the material chronologically using the arrows at the top and bottom of the page. Use the “Discussions” tab to start a conversation with your fellow learners and to ask questions about the course content. If you have problems with the FutureLearn platform, please check out the Learner Support Forums. Predrag “Pedja” Klasnja

Assistant Professor

School of Information

University of Michigan

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