Google’s Professional Certificate programs on the Coursera learning platform are wildly popular. The one I completed in the fall of 2024 –Google UX Design– has over a million learners enrolled. Unfortunately, I am not the student they had in mind when they built that course. So, much of the content was irrelevant to me.
A Course For UX Design Job Seekers
Google’s Professional Certificate in UX Design is tailored to help learners find entry-level jobs in user experience (web/app) design. Throughout the seven courses that comprise the program, there are videos of Google employees sharing how they found jobs in UXD. Copious videos. And the last course focuses acutely on preparing for job interviews.
I didn’t take Google’s UX Design course to find a job in the field. I just wanted to learn a bit more about conducting UX research and designing websites with user experience in mind. I’ll admit that the course does a good job covering those two areas. However, I already had a fair amount of UX research knowledge from conducting user experience studies at my previous job, so some of it was old news.
A Good Way to Learn Figma
What I liked best about Google’s Professional Certificate in UX Design are the modules that teach Figma. Figma is a leading design platform for creating and testing designs for digital products, and it’s fun to learn and use. With Figma, I created an app prototype to connect tutors and students on a local level. Bonus: what I learned about user research in the course enhanced my app design.
Skipping Irrelevant Parts
You can’t exactly skip the job-seeking stuff in the Google UX Design Certificate courses. I let those videos play while I scrolled through Instagram or refilled my water bottle. it’s bothersome because the entire six-month program is focused on helping learners land a job in UX design. If it were focused solely on skill-building, the course could be finished in a lot less time.
However, for the “ideal” students—those hoping to land their first job in UX Design—it is a solid and comprehensive course. Give it a go!