Start the UX design process: Empathize, Define, Ideate is the second course in a certificate program that will equip you with the skills needed to apply to entry-level jobs in user experience (UX) design. In this course, you’ll complete the first phases of the design process for a project that you’ll be able to include in your portfolio. You will learn how to empathize with users and understand their pain points, define user needs using problem statements, and come up with lots of ideas for solutions to those user problems.
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About this Course
What you will learn
Describe common UX research methods.
Empathize with users to understand their needs and pain points.
Develop problem statements to define user needs.
Generate ideas for possible solutions to user problems.
Skills you will gain
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Google Career Certificates are part of Grow with Google, an initiative that draws on Google's 20-year history of building products, platforms, and services that help people and businesses grow. Through programs like these, we aim to help everyone– those who make up the workforce of today and the students who will drive the workforce of tomorrow – access the best of Google’s training and tools to grow their skills, careers, and businesses.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Integrating research into the design process
As a UX designer, it's your job to put the user front-and-center in everything you do. In this part of the course, you'll explore the role of research in the design process to help you better understand and empathize with users. You'll also learn about the benefits and drawbacks of common UX research methods. And, you'll identify and account for biases that can arise when conducting research.
Empathizing with users and defining pain points
Get ready to begin the design process for a new portfolio project: a mobile app! This part of the course will focus on empathizing with users, which is the first phase of the design process. You’ll conduct interviews with real users to build empathy maps and create personas. These hands-on activities will help you understand user perspectives and pain points.
Creating user stories and user journey maps
In this part of the course, you'll continue to empathize with users of the mobile app you'll later design. You'll craft user stories and develop user journey maps. You’ll also learn about the importance of considering accessibility when empathizing with users.
Defining user problems
All of your work to empathize with users will help you define the problem that users are facing. In this part of the course, you'll move from the empathize phase into the define phase of the design process. To define the problem your designs will solve, you’ll build a problem statement, a hypothesis statement, and a value proposition. In addition, you’ll explore how psychology and human factors influence design.
Reviews
TOP REVIEWS FROM START THE UX DESIGN PROCESS: EMPATHIZE, DEFINE, AND IDEATE
A great foundational wealth of knowledge on how to start the UX Design process. This information really helps you build a framework for the coursework within the Google UX Design certification.
Very good course with a really solid project to follow through each week. Going through all the steps helped me think about project design with an eye towards the user experience in new ways.
The research techniques and frameworks in this section were incredible, it is always intimidating to start with a blank canvas but thanks to this I can have a working method.
Thank you providing such material I learned many new things and had challenges to become better. I wasn't aware of many things on steps to understand users.
About the Google UX Design Professional Certificate
Prepare for a career in the high-growth field of UX design, no experience or degree required. With professional training designed by Google, get on the fast-track to a competitively paid job. There are currently 113,700 U.S. job openings in UX design with an average entry-level salary of $58,600.¹

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