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Learner Reviews & Feedback for User Experience: Research & Prototyping by University of California San Diego

4.6
stars
902 ratings

About the Course

What makes for a great user experience? How can you consistently design experiences that work well, are easy to use and people want to use? This course will teach you the core process of experience design and how to effectively evaluate your work with the people for whom you are designing. You'll learn fundamental methods of design research that will enable you to effectively understand people, the sequences of their actions, and the context in which they work. Through the assignments, you’ll learn practical techniques for making sense of what you see and transform your observations into meaningful actionable insights and unique opportunity areas for design. You’ll also explore how to generate ideas in response to the opportunities identified and learn methods for making your ideas tangible. By answering specific questions and refining your concepts, you’ll move closer to making your ideas real. We’ll use cases from a variety of industries including health, education, transportation, finance, and beyond to illustrate how these methods work across different domains. Good luck and we hope you enjoy the course!...

Top reviews

HH

Feb 26, 2016

Really good course.

Helped me understand the importance of interviews in making a product

Helped me come up with many ideas for a single problem

gave me a 260 degree view of user experience

SS

Jul 15, 2020

Great moments with the professor and really candid, inspiring coursework! I definitely learned what I needed on prototyping but there's extra breadcrumbs everywhere to go the extra mile.

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1 - 25 of 163 Reviews for User Experience: Research & Prototyping

By Hannah B

Dec 14, 2015

Unfortunately I found this course to be the least enjoyable so far in the specialization. I'm not sure if I was just jarred by the change in instructor, but I found her manner of lecture to be almost belittling. I'm not sure if she's a mother or not, but that's the way she comes across--like she's trying to squeeze massive and advanced theory into a pill designed for ten year-olds.

A majority of this class simply glossed over things we already learned in the intro class, and she would often list things she was going to talk about, and then ignore one of those items entirely. In fact, one of the most challenging assignments in this course was building a journey map, something that was mentioned in the lectures, but not gone into in depth at all. I tackled this challenge by sort of haphazardly googling journey maps and praying my submission would come across as somewhat logical.

Ultimately I'm very disappointed with this part of the specialization. I don't feel like it was worth my $39, and would love to see this class completely redesigned for future learners. Research and prototyping is arguably one of the most important things for a burgeoning UX designer to learn, and this class could stand to be a lot more in depth.

By Francisco G H

Aug 2, 2017

The content was too superficial, no detail at all. We saw more and better examples of ideation and prototyping in previous courses. Some weeks only had one 10min video and one link to an outdated article from like 2009..... come on, really? Im sure things have changed slightly in the digital world in the last 8 to 10 years.... aren't you? This whole unit needs some MAJOR updating.

By Ron A

Apr 26, 2018

Good high level intro course. This will give you access to basic jargon and exposure to some of the working methods behind research. If you're interested in this area, this course is a great way to get your feet wet without jumping in the deep end. As for completing the course, it's only 3 assignments, and the heavy course work is front loaded the first week. Examples can be limited within the course, so I'd highly suggest doing additional Google searches for Stakeholder maps etc. With that, you'll be great.

By Lainy D

Mar 12, 2018

I took this course back in 2016 as an introductory course to UX Research. It was good to understand how things work and the steps to go through in research. however, i realise its true benefit after completing my research internship at Google. The program content is very close to what should be done in big organisation. My one regret is not to rewatch it sooner.

By Elizabeth B

Oct 22, 2017

Assignments weren't as straightforward as I would have liked them to be.

By Fernando B G

Nov 13, 2017

Classes are not fluid, did not learn much at all, very different in relation to Scott classes. Assignments were a pain, not well explained and not useful for learning.

By Andrew J

May 9, 2016

A good instructor and interesting assignments, but the information presented was quite shallow. I don't feel that I learned much from this course.

By MG

Jun 26, 2016

Being a woman I love seeing Elizabeth Gerber talking about design. She is so passionate about the topic, it translates into the videos. Also great interview with Michael Chapman from IDEO!, I felt that just like him I want to help other people and I can do it in this field.

I have been inspired to create something, have plenty of ideas. But now I have the tools, thank you!

One thing about the course is perhaps the thing in all coursera's classmates evaluation issues. For example: A value of 2 points including a persona's image - What if the person just made a completely different persona? - This was pretty hard to me 2 of my classmates enter wrong information about their persona and yet I was just evaluating if they have made it or not (0 or 2pts).

By Ramya R

May 27, 2018

The course material and assignments are absolutely fun and boosts our creativity to make all of us design thinkers. Before this course, I didn't understand the fact that experiences are designed not only for the digital media, but also for physical environments. I would have never imagined designing real "experiences" until I took up this course

By Tara T

Oct 3, 2016

During Week 1 I was afraid this course was going to be all about conducting interviews (not my favorite), but the rest of the projects were really fun and required creativity. The lectures were short, so it was easy to fit the course load into my schedule. I really enjoyed this class and have already recommended it :)

By Fermin L

Dec 12, 2016

This course provides a clear and straight-to-the-point approach to UX research and prototyping methodologies. The assignments really put knowledge acquired through lessons into practice. And the way in which peer-review exercises are guided makes the learning experience easy and entertaining.

By Elsa B

Mar 4, 2016

This course is well structured and engaging. I have learned a lot and the assignments were a great opportunity for me to put this new knowledge into practice - although it was a real challenge to complete the assignments beside my job. Now looking forward to the next chapter!

By Tracy M

Jan 29, 2021

While I have experience that overlaps this field, I appreciate the way in which this course efficiently filled in some of the gaps. In addition to being informative, the assignments were entertaining. It has convinced me to pursue other courses in this speciality.

By Zaichenko V

May 17, 2020

Весь курс был доступен и приятен к чтению!) Мне очень понравилась манера изложения информации и креатив заданий! Journey Map и Persona особенно. Куда проще теперь структурировать информацию, полученную в ходе исследования. Спасибо вам за все что вы делаете)

By Vignesh N K

Jun 20, 2018

Though I've done some user research before, this course introduced me to some new approaches to it and a structured way of thinking about it. The teacher is super clear with her explanations, with real-life examples from her own past work.

By Adolfo R

Apr 27, 2017

Excellent course! I reviewed everything we've learned in the Specialisation so far and more in-depth. I really enjoyed it. And the final quiz let me fix everything I've learned in my mind. I liked it, even though I'm scared of quizzes!

By Mellina M Y Y

Mar 21, 2016

Professor Elizabeth is very excited for the subject and it's very contagious! UX: Reseach & Prototyping inspired me and helped me a lot with my own design process and how to do research better.

Thank you very much!

By saiya y

Nov 14, 2016

I really love how the students are required to give feedback to each other. I learned just as much from writing out actionable and constructive feedback to colleagues than I did doing the project work.

By Shinri

Jul 16, 2020

Great moments with the professor and really candid, inspiring coursework! I definitely learned what I needed on prototyping but there's extra breadcrumbs everywhere to go the extra mile.

By harshitha

Feb 27, 2016

Really good course.

Helped me understand the importance of interviews in making a product

Helped me come up with many ideas for a single problem

gave me a 260 degree view of user experience

By Natalia G

May 31, 2020

The assignments learnt me a lot, I enjoyed the simplicity of the material presented and the described in detail instructions to the tasks. Thank you very much.

By Gytis M

Mar 25, 2019

One of the greatest course on the whole specialisation. Very well written assignments and guidelines. The rest of specialisation should be like that!

By SeungHo J

Jul 24, 2017

This course gives a number of practices for a true understanding of lecture.

From my point of view, that part is the greatest thing in here. Love it!

By Ashni L

Oct 16, 2016

The course content was very crisp and easy to understand. The assignments and suggested reading helped me get a better understanding of the topic.

By Jared G

Feb 14, 2019

My favorite so far. Really focused on the heart of what I came for, UX. Covers personas, journey maps, generating ideas, etc. Great professor.