UX Enthusiast? Here’s my review of the Interaction Design Foundation(IxDF)
After spending more than a decade as a UX designer and leading a team of design professionals, I thoughts it’s time to brush up my skills, enhance my knowledge with latest trends & practices in UX design space.
In 2021 during work-from-home phase, I started searching online courses, which can fulfill my learning need. I quickly jumped on to Google to explore user experience (UX) design and it wasn’t long before I came across the Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF) and their UX courses. A whole new world opened to me as I explored the IxDF’s extensive, free library of design thinking and UX articles.
IxDF is a non-profit educational design institution based in Denmark. It was founded in 2002 by Mads Soegaard and Rikke Friis Dam, with its executive board made up of great names in the design industry. One of the main goals of IxDF is to embed UX education with open-source hands-on courses taught by very experienced practitioners and university professors.
IxDF offers around 40 courses with industry recognized certificates to registered members at no extra cost. Once the reasonably priced registration/membership fee is paid, I was qualified to take all the professional courses and get the course certificates at the end of each of them.
https://www.interaction-design.org/courses
One of the best things to note that the list of faculties offering UX courses, starting with none other than Dan Norman, the father of modern design.
Once I registered myself, I got certificate of membership; a nice way of engaging and encouraging learners.
My journey began with Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF) in June 2021 and I started with the course “Accessibility: How to Design for All”. It was truly great experience and it continued, by the span of next 11 months, I completed further 12 courses in different aspects of UI & UX design.
During this phase I also earned different badges; a sort of gamified learning experience — good job IxDF !!
Things I really like about the IxDF courses
· It’s an exhaustive & authoritative source, especially on Human Computer Interaction, UX design, UI and usability
· Community-led learning, local & global groups to share your experience, exchange ideas and learn from each other
· A well curated learning & career path, starting from the beginners to executives, if you are new to this space, you can follow a structured approach to go through your learning process
· IxDF course instructors are top notch and the best-in-class experts in their different fields, as I mentioned earlier also.
· Courses in IxDF are self-paced. The contents are structured in a very orderly and progressive manner with sections and subsections.
· IxDF courses are not just theoretical. Almost all the courses are provided with practical templates, that you can use in your live projects, that’s a great value add for any design professional.
· Value for money — IxDF membership is worth its price considering the value delivered through courses, masterclasses, boot camps & free literatures.
My suggestions to the new learners
· Identify your core area of interest and decide your career path
· Follow the learning path
· If you are already into full time job, plan everyday schedule separately for learning
· When going through a course, remember certification is not the ultimate goal, enjoy the learning process
· Be active…..read through literatures, participate in community discussions, use different templates for your project
· Create your design/project portfolio along with the learning
· If you have any feedback or doubt, go ahead and write a mail, IxDF is prompt in responding, thanks to Rikke!!
Finally, after spending a year of active learning, skill enhancement with IxDF, I can confidently recommend that IxDF is a great place to start, an impressive knowledge hub for those who are already in the design space in some capacity or experience, Interaction Design Foundation is worth your investment !!
If you want to read more, here is the 8 reasons to join IxDF
