Becoming a UX Designer from scratch: Interaction Design Foundation or CareerFoundry?

Careers & Mentoring
#1

Hi,

I’m shopping for a short-term intensive online UX course for a career change. My background is in marketing, business, web design and E-Commerce. After some research I have narrowed my options to the Interaction Designe Foundation - Design League membership and CareerFoundry 6-month UX course.

CareerFoundry is more like a program with a set curriculum to follow and build an interview ready portfolio by the end of the program with the assistance of an assigned mentor with weekly 1 hour meetings. They hire mentor with 3-5 years of UX professional experience. The program costs $280/month for 6 months.

IDF though is more of a personalized approach where you get to select a personal coach with whom you set career objectives, make an actionable plan, follow the required courses and they get to assist you with weekly 30 minutes skype meetings. I like the fact that you get Ivy league quality courses in UX, and personal coaches have at least 10 years of professional experience in the field and they award certificate of achievements. The program costs $149/month.

I would like to get some feedback from people which have attended any of these two before making my final decision.

Thanks!
Lyes

#2

Hello Lyes,

As you already know based on your research there are a lot of courses out there. I haven’t personally taken either course but I would like to know more about what outcomes you expect from taking one of them. Do you expect that upon completion you’ll apply for UX roles? Do you want to become a freelancer? Since you’re already in web design, I’d use that as my approach to getting into user experience. Can you get on a few projects at your current company? Employers will find on the job training much more valuable than a course.

The reason I ask these questions is because taking courses can be expensive especially if they won’t help you meet your goals.

-Grant

#5

I’ve started had a little experience with both IDF (albeit without a personal coach) and Career Foundry courses.

  • Career Foundry seems more career oriented, as you build a portfolio with the assignments you complete in the course, and they have dedicated people to help you with career advice and job hunting. (I think IDF offers less in these aspects - I could be wrong though)

  • IDF offers only 120 minutes of tutor time per month, whereas Career Foundry offers 240 mins (but they are more expensive)

  • IDF is great for its breadth of course topics, and you can pick and choose what you want to learn, but CF gives you one structured plan that covers all the basics you need to become a UX designer

  • I like the platform that CF has - completing assignments, viewing other students’ work, booking mentor calls etc are all very easy.

  • IDF is slow with assignment marking sometimes (bad for impatient people like me :p)

I’ve put my IDF learning on hold in favour of CF, because I would like to follow a set curriculum and become job-ready as quickly as possible.

#6

What is the time commitment like with Career Foundry? I really am interested in the course, but I work full time and I am not sure if I can keep up with the requirements. How much time is spent on lessons and how much is spent on assignments?

#7

Let’s tag in @dougc – he should be able to answer that for you.

#8

Hi all! Got an email that Hawk sent the Bat signal.

Careerfoundry has changed it’s pricing structure again, I see. Back to lump sum instead of monthly.

See their UX course info at http://careerfoundry.com/courses/how-to-become-a-user-experience-designer

Anyway, this is what they are saying about time commitment on their site (it sounds like more time than when I did it over a year ago, but the course has probably changed):
[LIST]
[]Learn online at your own pace, 3-6 months
[]Study as much as 40 hrs/week for 3 months, as little as 15 hrs/week for 6 months, or anything in between!
[/LIST]

#10

Hi @uxlove

Disclosure: I am founder of the Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) so my I’ll try to keep my reply as unbiased as possible.

Here goes:

Since I would be too biased to review our own courses I googled around for some reviews about the IDF UX Courses. Here are a few:

I hope this helps!

Very best

3 Likes
Graphic designer changing career to become a UI/UX designer! Advice needed!
#12

I will also start a thread at some point or post somewhere on the forums about my experience with IDF as I just signed up yesterday and start my first course today.

Thus far the site looks and feels very professional and the certifications are also a nice touch.

1 Like
#13

FYI, CareerFoundry has mentors with 10+ years experience (I’m one of them) :wink:

4 Likes
#14

I just realised how long this thread has been going! I’m curious if @uxlove actually decided on a course, and how it went, or is still going?

I’m a UX designer inside CareerFoundry and I just wanted to add that CF definitely still has the monthly payment option. And yes @maryshaw is one of our longest running mentors. Hi Mary :wave:.

If you have any other questions about CF I’d be happy to help. And you can also check out some of our student success stories if you like :slight_smile:

1 Like
#15

Hi there, I just wanted to share a great opportunity with you: We have an exciting open innovation challenge in the field of UX – anyone interested?

My name is Johanna and I work at ekipa, an initiator for open innovation challenges. We are currently leading the “SAP’s Mobile Experience” project because SAP is opening its innovation process and is looking for innovative existing or new ideas to rethink and design its intelligent enterprise applications. The aim is to create the most innovative and mobile user experience possible.

SAP is looking for innovative minds with diverse backgrounds: Whether students, startups, coders or UX agencies and designer - anyone interested can register on our platform - alone or as a team. You also have the option to find team members.

Interested? Just message me and I can give you further information!

Best,
Johanna