Overview

Class Central Tips

Design a User Experience for Social Good and Prepare for Jobs is the seventh and final course in a program that will equip you with the skills you need to become an entry-level UX designer. In this course, you will design a dedicated mobile app and a responsive website focused on social good. You will showcase all that you’ve learned during the certificate program to complete the design process from beginning to end: empathizing with users, defining their pain points, coming up with ideas for design solutions, creating wireframes and prototypes, and testing designs to get feedback. By the end of this course, you will have a new cross-platform design project to include in your professional UX portfolio. This course will also prepare you to land your first job as a UX designer. You’ll learn how to interview for entry-level UX design positions. You’ll get tips from Googlers based on their own interview experiences and their unique perspectives as hiring managers. And, you’ll polish the professional UX portfolio you’ve been building throughout the program so that it’s ready for job applications. Current UX designers and researchers at Google will serve as your instructors, and you will complete hands-on activities that simulate real-world UX design scenarios. Learners who complete the seven courses in this certificate program should be equipped to apply for entry-level jobs as UX designers. By the end of this course, you will be able to: - Apply each step of the UX design process (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test) to create designs focused on social good. - Identify the differences between dedicated mobile apps and responsive web apps. - Understand progressive enhancement and graceful degradation approaches for designing across devices. - Build wireframes, mockups, and low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes. - Add a new design project to your professional UX portfolio. - Create your portfolio of design work for job applications. - Join and participate in online UX communities. - Interview for an entry-level UX design job. - Determine if freelance design work is a good career fit for you. This course is suitable for beginner-level UX designers who have completed the previous six courses of the Google UX Design Certificate.

Syllabus

Design for social good and strengthen your portfolio

You've reached the final course of the Google UX Design Certificate — congratulations! You will design a dedicated mobile app and a responsive website focused on social good that showcases everything you've learned in the program. To get started, you'll learn about designing across devices by exploring progressive enhancement and graceful degradation approaches and the 4Cs. With all of this new knowledge, you’ll begin your portfolio project. You’ll start with the empathize phase, where you’ll create personas, user stories, and user journey maps. Then, you’ll move on to the define phase, where you’ll identify the user need your project will focus on and build a problem statement. Finally, you’ll make your way into the ideate phase, where you’ll conduct a competitive audit and come up with ideas for your dedicated mobile app design through sketching.

Build a professional presence

As the digital world continues to expand, companies recognize that designing good user experiences is a necessity, which is why UX design is a high-growth and in-demand job field. The key to landing one of those UX design jobs is a strong portfolio and online presence. In this part of the course, you'll start to create a portfolio to showcase your upcoming work. You'll also learn about the importance of having a personal brand and building an online presence.

Finding a UX job

In the final part of the Google UX Design Certificate, you’ll prepare to find a job as a new UX designer. You’ll start by making final adjustments to your portfolio to ensure it’s ready to share in job applications. Next, you’ll examine the UX design interview process and develop strategies to succeed in various types of interview: pre-interview research, an elevator pitch, a phone screen, a portfolio presentation, a whiteboard exercise, a take home design exercise, and more. Finally, you’ll explore the world of freelancing by creating a business plan and learning how to land your first client.