Coursera – User Experience Research and Design Specialization by University of Michigan

Introduction to User Experience Principles and Processes
This UX course provides an introduction to the fields of UX research and design. Learners will gain an understanding of what is involved in UX research, including conducting interviews, evaluating systems, and analyzing systems using principles of good design. Learners will also learn about the work involved in UX Design, including the generation of promising design solutions and the creation of prototypes at multiple levels of fidelity. By interleaving successive phases of UX Research and Design, learners will see how to learn from inevitable mistakes and improve towards a product with a great UX.

What you’ll learn: – The skills needed for UX research and design
 – How UX researchers discover and assess user needs and assess possible designs
 – How to conduct a micro-usability test
 – How UX designers use sketching and prototyping to develop design concepts – How to incorporate a user-centered focus into the design process
 – Key features of human behavior and describe their impact on the design of interactive systems
 – Techniques for critiquing and designing interactive systems based on human capabilities and behavior

Understanding User Needs
Designing effective interactive systems requires understanding the needs and capabilities of the people who will be using them. In this UX course we will focus on how to interact with users (or potential users) to understand what they need, what they currently do, what they love and hate, and examine human capabilities and behavior as they relate to UX design.

Learners will be introduced to numerous techniques to gather data from and about users. This course is part of the User Experience (UX) Research and Design specialization offered on Coursera. What you’ll learn: Find out what user needs assessments are, what qualitative research is, and how the two are related. Learn an end-to-end methodology for qualitative research that is suited for understanding user needs. The methodology includes knowledge of semi-structured interviews, in-situ observation, and affinity walls. Be exposed to good practices for conducting semi-structured interviews, in-situ observation, and affinity walls. Gain some experience with semi-structured interviews, in-situ observations, and affinity walls.

Evaluating Designs with Users
When designing systems that work for users, there is no substitute for watching them try to use the system to see what works and what doesn’t.

In this UX course, you will learn how to design and conduct tests with users that will tell you how effective your design is for helping users do what they need to do, and how they feel about using your system. This course is part of the User Experience (UX) Research and Design specialization offered on Coursera. What you’ll learn: Identify different approaches to user testing and their appropriate use Understand how to design an effective user test Understand how to run an effective user test to get the most information possible out of each encounter Analyze and report on user testing

UX Design: From Concept to Prototype
Great design doesn’t come out of nowhere; it is born, nurtured, and grown-all through a systematic, learnable process. In this UX course, you will explore the process of taking a basic concept, grounded in user needs, and developing it into a design that will address those needs. In the course, you will gain hands-on experience with techniques such as sketching, scenario development, storyboarding, and wireframing that will help you transform your understanding of what your users need into a compelling user experience. You will then learn how to turn wireframes and interaction architecture into interactive prototypes that can be tested with prospective users and iteratively refined into a high quality design that that is ready for a hand-off to the development team for implementation.

What You’ll Learn: Define and scope the design problem you will try to address Create user stories and storyboards to transform information about user needs into design concepts Produce sketches and conduct brainstorming sessions to generate many design ideas from which you can construct a high-quality design solution Develop interface wireframes to concretize the design and enable early user testing Conduct user tests with paper prototypes to get preliminary user feedback on the design concept and interactions Develop high-fidelity mockups that specify visual design elements Create Wizard of Oz prototypes to efficiently test complex interactions and interactive systems that are not screen-based (e.g., smart assistants)

UX Research at Scale: Surveys, Analytics, Online Testing
This UX course will provide an overview of survey methodology from the perspective of UX research. UX surveys typically focus on uncovering user needs, connecting needs to user characteristics, and gaining insight into user attitudes towards systems they use. In this course, learners will learn the basics of UX survey research and conduct a survey of their own design!

Learners will be introduced to techniques for gaining UX insights from large numbers of users, including web analytics, A/B testing, and remote unmoderated studies. We will discuss how these techniques work, when they can be applied, and what can be learned by using them. What You’ll Learn: -Learn how web analytics works and how to analyze analytics data -Understand how to develop A-B tests, before/after, and multivariate experiments -Learn how to set up and analyze remote unmoderated testing studies -Analyze and report on large scale user experience studies Learn about the different types and uses of surveys in UX research -Understand the survey population: when to sample, when to recruit -Develop a survey instrument that meets your requirements -Analyze and report on surveys -Learn to critique user surveys

UX (User Experience) Capstone
In this UX capstone course, you’ll conduct a multi-stage user experience project to design a product from scratch. You will employ interviews, inspection methods, and user testing, along with ideation, design, and prototyping methods to gain and communicate valuable insight that can be used to deliver a compelling product.

You will: Learn how to design and carry out an integrated multi-phase user experience research and design project Gain experience conducting user experience research in a real-world setting Gain hands-on experience with a realistic UX design project Improve ability to communicate design concepts and actionable research findings.