Foundations of UI/UX

An introductory course to kickstart your design journey. Learn essential UI/UX principles to build a solid foundation in Product Design

Apply for the ongoing January 6th, 2025 intake

Part-time Remote

Start Date:
January 6th, 2025
Course Duration:
14 Weeks
Mode of Learning:
Monday to Friday from 6pm - 9pm
Tuition Fee:
Ksh 55,000

UI/UX Foundations for Product Design

Are you ready to transform your career and embrace the dynamic world of design? Our foundational part-time UI/UX Course offers you a unique opportunity to acquire essential skills in user interface and user experience design, all while fitting into your busy schedule. Designed for individuals at various stages of their careers, this course equips you with the practical knowledge and hands-on experience needed to excel in the fast-growing field of UI/UX. Whether you’re a high school graduate exploring your future, a university graduate seeking to enhance your employability, or a working professional aiming for a career shift, our course is tailored to help you succeed.

Course Details

UI/UX Foundations for Product Design equips designers with the core skills needed to create user-friendly and visually engaging digital products. It covers key UI elements like design aesthetics and layout, alongside UX essentials such as user research and prototyping. This foundation helps designers develop products that not only look great but also deliver seamless and effective user experiences while aligning with business objectives

  • High School Graduates: Ideal for recent high school graduates looking to explore a career in design and gain early experience in a promising field.
  • University Graduates: Perfect for recent university graduates seeking to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and practical, job-ready skills.
  • Working Professionals: Suitable for professionals looking to get into tech or feeling stagnant in their current roles and wanting to pivot into a more creative and fulfilling career.

  • Have basic computer skills.
  • Must have a computer or laptop ( core i5 – i7, 8GB RAM, 500GB memory).
  • All classes are fully online. You are required to have access to a stable internet.
  • No prior design experience needed. This course is designed for beginners, so no previous UI/UX experience is required.
  • Availability to attend all classes and commitment to learning

Our course offers a unique blend of theoretical understanding and practical application, empowering you to:

  • In-Demand Skills: Acquire UI/UX design skills that are highly sought after in today’s job market, setting you apart from the competition.
  • Flexible Learning: Adapt to your busy life with our part-time schedule, including evening and weekend classes.
  • Hands-On Projects: Gain real-world experience by working on practical projects and building a portfolio that stands out
  • Instructor-Led Instruction: Learn from industry professionals who bring real-world experience and insider knowledge.
  • Career Support Services: Benefit from personalized career guidance and networking to help you launch your new career.

If you are in search of a unique learning experience this is the place for you. We guarantee you will learn market-aligned skills through our practical and comprehensive curriculum.

  • Project-based learning
  • Technical Mentor Support
  • Interactive workshops and group discussions
  • Access to a dedicated online platform for course materials and resources.
  • Access to a global community of learners all over Africa

Get ready to design life-changing user experiences for digital products and websites

Apply Here

Curriculum Overview

Setup

  • Local Environment [Canvas || Course structure]
  • Learning to learn.

Figma Foundations

  • Figma’s interface.
    Components & Variants.
    Distinguishing Product Design from UX Design.
    Digital Product:-Terms, Roles, considerations and contexts of a product lifecycle.

Design Ethics

  • Define plagiarism.
  • Identify Dark patterns & ethical violations.
  • Second-order thinking in consideration of user action.

Inclusive Design

  • Identify limitations of designing based on our abilities & biases.
  • Differentiate between permanent, temporary, and situational disabilities.
  • Explain the importance of diverse design-team perspectives (representation).

Accessibility

  • Identify limitations.
  • Describe the difference in disabilities.
  • Explain the importance of diverse perspectives.
  • List benefits to diversify representation within a digital product.

Problem Space Research

  • Differentiate research approaches: problem space research VS solution space research.
  • Relate contextual inquiry and user empathy.
  • Business Analysis: Basic Concepts.

Market Research

  • Rationalising domain research B4 development.
  • Market SWOT analysis [Metrics analysis: Audience size, enthusiasm, and social sentiment].
  • understand the history and trends of a product marketplace.

Qualitative research

  • Differentiate qualitative and quantitative research methods.
  • Explain user interview roles in problem space determination.
  • Interview and follow-up questions design || Sequencing || prepping and implementation.

Quantitative research

  • Statistical significance in determining meaningful data.
  • Strategies to avoid research biases.
  • Aligning survey questions to stakeholder goals.
  • Digital Well-being
  • Understand how digital products reward addictive behaviour.
  • Distinguish between intentional
  • & unintentional digital screen time.
  • Listing metrics and default settings that account for user wellness & healthy interactions
  • Synthesis
  • Synthesis role in communicating findings to stakeholders.
  • Differentiate thematic and content analysis.
  • Use affinity diagramming to identify patterns within qualitative data.
  • Analyze and reframe research insights to present opportunities for improvement.

Problem Scoping

  • Identifying and challenging assumptions.
  • Problem space exploration & decomposition.
  • Defining solution space success criteria.

Sketching and Rapid Prototyping

  • Using sketches to generate ideas and iterations.
  • Differentiate sketching for idea generation and sketching for feedback.
  • Develop sketches from common interface shapes.
  • Use annotations and notes to clarify sketch functionality.

Analysing (Early ideas)

  • Divergent and convergent thinking.
  • Evaluate idea viability, feasibility, and desirability.
  •  Using low-fidelity prototypes (early testing)

Visual Hierarchy

  • Define visual hierarchy and explain adjusting element focus to create distinct levels of dominance.
  • Define white space and explain its role in enhancing clarity and legibility and focusing user attention in design layouts.
  • Explain the role of proportion in improving visual hierarchy.
  • Apply contrast, white space, and proportion to improve the visual hierarchy of a design layout.

Elements of Composition

  • Differentiating between symmetrical and asymmetrical balance in design compositions.
  • Methods of achieving rhythm in design compositions.
  • Explain the importance of Gestalt principles in the relationship between elements in a layout.

User Reading Patterns.

Layout Grids

  • Defining the aesthetics usability effect and using grids to improve design quality.
  • The role of grids in responsive designs.
  • Adjustments designers make to optimize grids for mobile design.
  • How to apply the box model in web design.

Imagery and iconography

  • Criteria for determining appropriate images based on context and content.
  • Universally recognised icons and reducing ambiguity.
  • Styling Tiles for Ideation and Making an Emotional Connection.
  • Determining appropriate layout illustrations.

Color Models

  • Differentiating between between primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.
  • Differentiating hue, saturation, and luminance.
  • Differentiating between an additive and subtractive color models.
  • Color Psychology models.
  • Understanding international vs western color association.

Applying Color

  • Breaking down the role of the 60-30-10 rule in creating a sense of proportion and balance in a design.
  • Methods for finding color inspiration.
  • Apply methods for reducing cognitive load when applying color to a user interface.

Typography

  • Classifying type identification & terminology.
  • Identify different types of spacing applied to type: tracking, kerning, and leading.
  • Explain the relationship between line length and legibility.
  • Explaining the role of typography in creating hierarchy and messaging.

Applying type

  • Describe strategies for creating responsive typography.
  • Principles for creating accessible typography.
  • Strategies and resources for pairing fonts.

Interaction Principles

  • Understand & explain why interface elements should be kept visible and functionality kept discoverable.
  • Explain the benefits of mapping digital interfaces and real-world counterparts.
  • Methods for enabling prevention, detection, and recovery of user errors.
  • User Interface Patterns
  • Define cognitive load and explain why familiar interaction patterns reduce cognitive load.
  • Explaining the role of interaction patterns in streamlining communication within design and development teams.
  • Breaking down examples of dark patterns & applying interaction patterns to an interface to decrease the cognitive load.
  • Animation principles
  • List types of easing and explain the role of easing in creating realistic animations.
  • Explain why users should have a mechanism to disable animated content.
  • Define change blindness and explain why animations can make changes between states easier to understand.

Microinteractions

  1. Differentiating between a user-initiated trigger and a system-initiated trigger when starting a microinteraction.
  2. Understand use cases for microinteractions, such as providing feedback on user interactions and helping the user identify and prevent errors.

Group Work || SCRUM

Study part-time to master essential UI/UX skills and gain hands-on experience, while establishing a solid foundation in Product Design for future career growth

Apply for the ongoing November 11th, 2024 Part Time Intake