Start the UX Design Process: Empathize, Define, and Ideate

A portfolio project in progress

This is the second course in a certificate sequence, so it picks up partway through the work. Its output is meant for your portfolio, which makes it more useful as practice you can show than as lectures to watch.

The three phases

The course covers the opening stages of the design process: empathising with users, defining their needs in problem statements, and generating a wide set of ideas. Each stage builds on the one before, so skipping ahead tends to leave weak problem statements behind.

Who benefits most

• Learners aiming at entry-level UX roles who want a worked project to show.
• Anyone who has used personas or user stories but never built them from research.

Competitive analysis and human factors also appear on the skills list, which suggests the course looks at rival products as well as the people you are designing for.