Using the Interaction Design Foundation to learn about user experience design
By: Katja Alcock
Tags: UX, Visual Perception, Interaction Design

My personal journey into user experience design

I’ve been working as a user experience designer for three years at Pearson Education Ltd, a leading learning company that puts learners at the heart of everything it does. I’d previously worked in the company in a digital project management role overseeing the building of new products and functionality and before this, I’d completed an MA in Publishing and worked in editorial and management roles in educational publishing. I’d also spent time teaching English abroad.

During my publishing career, I’d often found my interest was being pulled towards making sure the product was intuitive and worked for the user but I was usually only involved towards the end of the process where only minor changes could be made. When I came across the field of user experience design and read about the practice of user-centered design, it really appealed to me and I decided to try and reorient my career to become a user experience designer.

I was lucky to have supportive managers and Pearson agreed to sponsor me to complete the BCS (The Chartered Institute for IT) Foundation Certificate in User Experience. I spent a year reading book after book to prepare for the exam. I successfully passed the exam and was then fortunate to be offered a role as a user experience designer within the same department. While the books I’d read were really useful as background knowledge on the numerous possible parts of a user experience designer’s role, I found that many of the books were theoretical and didn’t always prepare me for the realities of working on an established platform. Although I love books, it’s also hard to give good digital examples in books, and they tend to go out of date fairly quickly. Also, at the time, ours was very small team and so it wasn’t always possible to collaborate with and learn from other user experience designers on a daily basis.

Fast forward a couple of years and there are now five user experience designers in our team. To help with our learning and development, we were given a year’s access to the Interaction Design Foundation. Each of us chose courses that either aligned with projects we were working on or where we had gaps in knowledge. I’ve now completed two courses and plan to continue to do more.

UI Design Patterns for Successful Software

Having already read a lot of background books on human computer interaction, I was keen to focus on filling gaps in my knowledge, one of which was to learn more about how to confidently choose appropriate interaction design patterns for my designs so I started with the ‘UI Design Patterns for Successful Software’. I found the course very useful in helping me to understand how different design patterns work together and how you cannot design one element of a website without really understanding how it works alongside other patterns you have chosen — for example how to choose navigation options that help users fulfil their goals across the site.

One of the most valuable elements of the course was that it required me to hunt around the internet for examples of good (and bad) practice, which was brilliant to broaden my exposure to the many ways in which interaction design is implemented. Some of the assignments asked for sketches of design solutions and it was great to have to practise applying design skills to tasks that I wouldn’t normally cover in my day job. I also found it inspiring to look through the examples other participants on the course has posted in the Discussion Forums.

(My certificate)

Gestalt Psychology and Web Design: The Ultimate Guide

After successfully completing the UI design patterns course, which was quite practical, I wanted to do a more theoretical course and as I don’t come from a visual design background, I’m always interested in learning more in this area. The first half of the course focused on the theories of human visual perception, which I found fascinating. The second half of the course focused on how these theories can be used to good or ill effect in web design. I’m planning to run through what I’ve learned with the rest of our team as I’m sure they’ll also find it relevant to their work, as I have done to mine.

(My certificate)

Summary

As a first-time user of the Interaction Design Foundation, what I most enjoyed about the courses was that I’ve been able to take part in affordable, high-quality learning alongside my work. I have been able to sit down and complete each lesson quickly — I have often spent just 20 minutes or so on a lesson and managed to keep progressing with the course. I also love the fact that there are different types of courses — some practical, others theoretical, some introductory and some that focus on specialist areas. I’m looking forward to completing more of the Interaction Design Foundation courses in 2020.