What is missing in the educational UI/UX market? 🤔

Question

Hi there.

The question might be vague. I'm a developer who also became a content creator, and I write about UI/UX. Published a few books. Run Twitter and newsletter.

Now, I can see that there are a lot of books and courses out there. Related to any topic.

However, I want to create something that has much higher quality and at least at some degree unique. As an inspiration, I always refer to https://css-for-js.dev/, but I'm not sure.

I know (more or less) how to grow audience. At least I'm confident here.
I know that I can write good articles, use SEO, and all that. The question is: what for?

Would an interactive custom-written platform that has all possible topics related to design (and even code snippets) be a good thing?

People previously advised me to start small, and I did, and I got some results (revenue), but these are general books and there are a lot of other equivalents.

Do you have any ideas in mind that might be "oh, if there was such a course I would definitely use it and share with others".

Something premium, pricy, still WORTH it.

Santiago Alonso · Accepted Answer

I feel like the market is oversaturated with similar products/courses. If I was a student today I'd love to see real projects, real teams, real meetings, real feedback. Almost like a live-stream of a day in a life of a designer, including the good, the bad and the ugly. Ryan Singer (https://feltpresence.com/) has been sharing great stuff for years. I would pay for long-form videos like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rxTyX2utIg&ab_channel=MichalZuber

Aleksey Razbakov · Answer

I launched an internship program at WeDance and every day I get 5-20 applications from junior developers and designers who are looking for experience. All of them are struggling to find an entry-level paid job. Here are 3 ideas for you.

1) **Semantics.** Interesting that 90% of case studies look alike and you can read there "my design process", "design systems", etc. In practice it's not the case. Biggest issue I see is lack of semantics, abstract thinking, skill of grouping and summarizing. How to learn and develop those skills? I haven't found any course that would teach it.

2) **Communication.** I feel that all design bootcamps fake the essential part of work on the project - work in team, communication and talk with real users. And designers learn only how to work on their own and don't get any in-field experience.

3) **Real examples.** I am struggling to organize a work of multiple designers working in Figma. I can't find any real-project examples, I only see videos and screenshots of small apps. I love to learn by copying, re-creating and extending. Works great with code in open source projects, not so well in UI/UX.

Victor Ponamariov · Answer

@madebysan I've been doing such reviews on twitter. For free mostly, some people asked for a detailed paid review. But that's a consulting service, not a course.

So yes, we have problem #1 - we cannot show how we work at companies, even if we do a good job it's like "Hey boss, can I show how we work and make a course out of it, disclosing our processes etc?"

Regarding roasting, paid roast - is a service.

So I tend to do a redesign course of a real project which is not mine, as an alternative.

Victor Ponamariov · Answer

@razbakov I thought about a course that consist of redesigning a very complicated yet old site, e.g. where I live now (in Armenia), all the bank accounts are very old fashioned and has a lot of problems. I don't care about design system and graphic design, I don't even know figma (almost), because I was using sketch for drawing simple UI/UX tips.

I'm more focused on how to make it right, how to place elements and why.

What I lack is:

1. UX experience in real projects, since I don't work as a designer (I'm a developer), and I never worked for big companies (almost), that can afford a UX research department. Although once I worked as a researcher for a small period of time.
2. Graphic design experience. So no courses or whatever about how to create logos, unicorns, and flashy gradients :)

And I don't want to make any courses about instruments, like Figma course. Plenty of free materials.

So now I'm thinking of combining a real project with design topics, but what should it look like? An interactive platform with text + videos + maybe exercises/questions + external references? Custom written platform?

Victor Ponamariov · Answer

@nik_hazell Just subscribed to his Linkedin

多达达 · Answer

Standing on the beach with a garden, you can not only see the bees in the flowers collecting honey, but also see the cargo ships sailing in the distance

Victor Ponamariov · Answer

@madebysan There is a problem: NDA. You cannot usually share the process. Plus, the process might be really bad, it depends where you work at. For example, in my case it would be a disaster. However, how about redesigning existing applications that are old fashioned (bank application that was designed years ago) with all that explanations? Accompanied by theoretical notes.

Livestream is impossible for me, even though I can share my previous experience that will be applied in the redesigning process. And by redesign I mean not a one page, but "Making the whole bank application from scratch, using an existing one". To point out all the problems of existing one?

Victor Ponamariov · Answer

@ogiogi Here is an interesting point: I personally don't like separating these levels, because each company has its own understand of these levels.

However, it's not a problem to name the course "Advanced". I tend to think that a course that redesigns a real product combining it with occasional theory and making it interactive (+ with some videos) is what we can call advanced.

I have a perfect example of an app that I want to redesign, an Armenian bank account. The focus is on "building user interface". I cannot conduct UX research, the only thing I can use as a proof for justifying design decisions is shared info on the internet, but still it sounds appealing for me.

So these things like "proximity rule" or "bad spacing" or "bad contrast" should go as a separate notes, which go along with the process of redesigning a product.

Victor Ponamariov · Answer

@gal_moran18 Wha I can do is compare solutions from two banks, one is a contemporary one that applies best UX practices, another one is old and has very poor UX. Or at least take some part of how the contemporary bank decided things.

But I'm constantly talking about UI/UX course along with redesigning bank, I'm not sure if it's worth is or not

Victor Ponamariov · Answer

@susan_f I agree that just polishing the UI is not worth it, but on the other hand I cannot conduct a UX research since I don't work in the bank I want to redesign. The thing it that I can use common practices, my own opinion, problems that people complained about in local bank chat (btw it might be relevant, since it's basically what users problem are. They are complaining about that in the chat and trying to figure out themselves how to solve this, since the support is silent).

Victor Ponamariov · Answer

@susan_f The question is how to put a person in front of the UI? Should I use my account and somehow find people how are willing to do this? That's the main problem: to get UI and to get people who are ready to test the UI. Few years ago I did this in a big company, but they even run facebook ads to get people for testing.

The only source that I can use IMO is the chat, since there people are already complaining. And combine this problems with re-polishing UI + my opinionated things about best practices (well, partly opinionated, I'll still refer to the common principles)

But I doubt that I'll be able just to came to the bank to a random employee and ask them "hey, what problems do your users or your have?". At least from the psychological point of view + they are reluctant to do so

Nik Hazell · Answer

Have you come across Memorisely - or Zander Whitehurst? He's a friend of mine, who's made a splash in the UI/UX education space - he's doing some awesome work, and well worth checking out for inspiration, or a collaboration!

Let me know how you find his content

Susan F · Answer

@victor_ponamariov I would argue that what you are doing is UX research. It's just not usability testing.

And you could do usability testing too, if you are a customer of the bank. You could put another person in front of the UI and ask them to attempt the top tasks (and the tasks people complain about in the bank chat). Other good tasks to test are the ones that make people call or write to the bank for help. You could ask a bank employee what those are, perhaps, or just count cases that you see in the chat. You can stop your tester before they get to a place that would harm your account and have them explain what they would do there. You can have them explain the UI to you in general.

Wherever people get stuck or have a question is a possible point where redesign could help. Where they get completely confused or can't find a place to start might be an opportunity to redo the flow or navigation.

Susan F · Answer

Interaction design is a gaping hole. Project management for UXR is also an area with very little guidance. Many designers don't know enough about designing for universal access.

Susan F · Answer

One of the pitfalls of redoing a poor UI is that it's easiest and fastest to polish it, rather than to rethink it from first principles. It's necessary to consider that an entire task flow might be a problem, or that a missing task might be a problem. Sometimes fundamental errors are made in choosing the wrong entry points for tasks. UIs need to be deconstructed at a user-task level rather than a widget and layout level, so we don't waste effort redesigning the wrong things. Then new UIs need to be user-tested in prototype, to find the rough places that need further explanation, better signaling, or different labeling.

What is missing in the educational UI/UX market? 🤔

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