I wrote this review after completing seven Google UX Design Certificate Courses on Coursera, doing all the practice and reading all the materials. I spent over 400 hours on this course. Although most of my time was spent on user interface (UI) design, something I am not very familiar with. This post is a bit long because it contains lots of my observations, but I guess it will help readers who are still thinking about taking this course. : )
I will skip all the basic introductions such as the course syllabus and costs as you can easily find that information on the official page. If you’re interested in my reflection on these projects, please go to this blog post. Today, I will focus only on the course itself.
Ok, let’s get started! I have listed some pros and cons about this course here, and I will dig into each one below.
Pros +
- Economically affordable and time flexible
- Strong course structure and rich materials
- Developed by Google -endorsed by a worldwide company
- Extraordinary instructors and a positive atmosphere
Cons -
- A confusing scoring system
- Methods that are sometimes ‘too Google’
- Tasks that are not ‘localised’ enough
Let’s start with the good ones:
The structure and depth of the course
The course is designed for complete beginners. At the start, the instructors define what “user experience design” means and give learners a big picture of the wide world of UX.
My background is in business and marketing. I had a course in design thinking as part of my Master’s course, and I developed my start-up based on this framework. This resulted in my quick pace at the beginning of the course. However, when it comes to user research and UI design, I needed to spend extra time reading and practising.
The complete certificate consists of seven courses. I spent most of my time on Chapter 3 (Learning Figma) and Chapter 5 (Creating mock-ups). Some courses include tests of intermediate difficulty. As long as you read the material and take notes, they are not a problem.
When we completed the whole course, we had created three works (APP, Responsive website, APP+ Responsive website). In the first five chapters, we learnt step by step and completed the first project. Chapters 6 and 7 each asked us to create a comprehensive project, so these last two chapters take much more time than the previous ones.
Rich course materials and templates
Frankly speaking, facing difficulties is quite common when learning something by self-teaching. For instance, sometimes materials might be too simple, so the learner always stays a beginner. On the other hand, some materials can be too specific to understand. This is why I find the Google UX certificate course great.
The course materials are divided into must-read and additional resources. The must-read material contains things a UX designer has to know and that will be tested on the quizzes. The additional resources are things that would not affect the quiz scores but would enhance the quality of the learning.
For instance, when we are learning to create a prototype on Figma, the must-read material will let us create a usable prototype, while the additional material will help us understand colour usage and font size, which polishes the project a lot.
Another amazing thing is that this course is very beginner-friendly! Lots of practical templates are provided, such as user journey maps, personas, storyboards, research study plans, even case studies. The templates are easy to use and the instructions are always clear. Even someone who has no idea about UX can easily start the first project. At the end of each chapter, the glossary lists all the terms that have just been learnt. This helps a lot in reviewing and summarising the knowledge.
Online community and interaction
I have taken many online courses in my life, and I find “community” is something Google UX course does well. We are asked to share our observations and opinions, for example, ‘Have you ever used something with great user flow? Why was it good?’ or ‘How does storyboard help you understand your users? Please share your experience.’
As an enthusiastic learner, I always want to know what others think and to learn from people from all over the world. Sometimes I can even get to know an app that I have never heard of before. I personally really like this pattern.
Plenty of learning hours
The official site says that if a learner spends ten hours a week, then the whole course will take around six months. However, the total of 33 weeks’ worth of material equals seven to eight months.
The course materials already occupy 200 hours. Of course, if a learner is more familiar with a specific genre, they can move quickly through that chapter and on to the next one. Nevertheless, I spent more than 400 hours on this course, just because it was a ‘learning is earning’ experience for me.
I put lots of effort into Chapter 5 (Creating mock-ups), which includes some design and layout principles. This is a theme I was not familiar with, but a very interesting one, so I read some other resources and asked some friends to help me with UI design.
Flexibility, but always with the need for self-discipline
Although I spent much time on them, most of the videos and readings can be completed with just one click. Hence, whether someone has learnt something or not depends on their motivation.
Self-discipline plays an important role. When I enrolled on the course, 1,800 learners were studying Chapter 1. However, when we reached Chapter 7, only 1,000 learners were left: see the table below. Based on data from November 2021, the total number of people enrolled went on decreasing.
Chapters 6 and 7 take quite a lot more time than expected. It is not an easy thing to complete the whole course if you have a full-time job. Fortunately, each chapter can be started separately, which gives the course a bit more flexibility.
Outstanding instructors
Another of my favourite parts of the course! I love the instructors involved in this course. They are all Googlers in different positions. Most of them use plain English and speak slowly, with clear subtitles and transcriptions so that non-English native speakers can easily understand the contents. Learners can even highlight the important parts in their notes. As long as the learner’s English level is intermediate or above, except for some new nouns, they will be able to understand the contents without difficulty.
In addition, the instructors share lots of their own experiences. They talk about how they got into the UX industry; some of them faced difficulties because of their gender, limited skills or background. Seeing how the instructors conquered those situations encouraged me a lot. Every instructor is professional and delightful. I even started to miss their courses while writing this reflection.
Peers review and scoring
We have talked about the positive parts. Let’s move on to some parts that could be improved. The thing that confused me the most was ‘peers review’. Despite liking the interaction with the online community, scoring by peers does not necessarily have reference value. The keys to completing a chapter are passing the quiz and uploading assignments, and the assignment will be rated by the peers who are taking the course at the same time.
The ideal scenario is: when we rate the others’ works properly, they do the same too, which contributes to the ‘learning from one another’ result. Nevertheless, the reality is not always as expected.
Firstly, in the first few courses, the platform only allows us to see a single part of the project. For instance, a piece of persona, or a paper prototype. Imagine, if I don’t know the goal of the project and primary research, how can I rate someone’s work based on such unilateral information?
Secondly, a few of my peers did not rate the work fairly. If someone has not fully understood the material, it might result in unfair scoring. I once uploaded an assignment that fit the requirements but still scored zero points without getting any comments from my peer. At least I leave comments when I give a lower score; that is the learning process, isn’t it? The platform didn’t allow rescoring, either. As a result, the only thing I could do was upload again and wait for a new peer’s review.
This scoring system reduces the cost of the course. Of course, this is reflected in the fees and I appreciate the affordable price. However, as a ‘learning by doing’ type learner, I am willing to pay more for professional feedback, because getting feedback plays an essential role in my learning journey, especially while doing a UX project.
The scoring standard is more like a checklist that lets everyone check if the others have reached the minimum standard. However, reaching a standard and polishing a work are two totally different things. Hence, except for the course itself, I always asked my friends working as UX designers for feedback, so I would not get stuck in a blind spot.
Sometimes ‘too Google’?
Google is a leading company for sure. A course designed by Google will naturally be accompanied by the ‘Google style’. But how would I say,‘too Google’?
The course structure is more for educating a UX designer to fit the standards of a big company such as Google rather than educating a UX designer who fits in different industries. Some design methods (e.g. Design Sprint, Crazy 8) are interesting and practical tools, yet they might not be perfect tools in other practices. I would love to know more methods and tools than just the ones that fit our circumstances and develop the skills the most.
The tasks are ‘localised’ while not being localised
At the beginning of the course, we were asked to choose a project topic from about 40 or 50 prompts, such as ‘design a pizza ordering app for a pizza shop in New York’ or ‘Design a check-in app for a tour company’. The topic I chose was to design a wedding venue preview app in Japan. The reason was quite simple: I have Japanese background, I love the culture, and have friends working in a similar industry in Japan, so I thought it would be an easy start.
Nevertheless, when I started my project, I faced two difficulties that I had never thought of:
1. Restriction of culture and language barrier
First of all, my content was to be in English. If I presented my content in English, then I had to make more effort to be sure that the translations are good, as some traditional nouns are not understood in English.
For instance, there are at least three main types of wedding styles: Western, Buddhist, and traditional Shinto. When I tried to ensure that the content was properly presented, I spent more time on that instead of things relating to UX.
2. ‘Tending to be localised’ being a restriction
Following the point above, some topics have an ‘area’ requirement. This is a great way to practice designing something for a certain geographical area because it’s close to reality, isn’t it?
However, it was a restriction for me. If I had no experience of living in that country and didn’tt know anyone living there, it was basically impossible to design something that fit the reality. From persona and usability study through competitor analytics, every section required a deep understanding of the particular region.
Moreover, those areas are mostly bigger cities or countries with ‘cultural superiority’, such as Paris, London, Beijing, and three or four cities in the US.
In my first project, I was struggling between designing something that would ‘fit the topic’ and be ‘workable in the real world’, and I decided to opt for the latter.
This consideration should not be too free and should help learners to think about where to start. However, with some flexibility, like ‘design a delivery app for a restaurant in your town’ instead of ‘design a pizza ordering app for a pizza shop in New York’, I believe learners would be more comfortable completing the process.
Finally, would I recommend this course?
Overall, I like this course, especially the resources and the instructors.
If you are someone who wants to know the whole UX framework or someone with work experience who wants to gain more knowledge about it, this is the right course for you! Despite the room for improvement I described above, the course is outstanding — affordable, well-structured, and providing plenty of materials.
Of course, passing a course neither means being an expert nor having the same ability as people who are already working in this industry. Learning is a process, and the certificate is proof that we have tried and acquired some knowledge. The most important thing is always to keep learning afterwards. ‘Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself’, said John Dewey. I love it when I know I’m improving myself. I appreciate that this whole process made me a more knowledgeable person who can think like a UX designer. That probably means the most to me.
Finally, here is some advice for those who are considering taking this course:
- Choose your first project topic carefully, because you will be with it for months.
- It’s best to choose topics that you are already familiar with; this will make everything easier.
- The actual time spent on the course will be far more than the time shown in the course description.
- If you want to improve your design skills, it is always good to get feedback from experts. It helps!!!
I hope my long reflection blog helps you get an idea of what the course is like. If you want to share your experience or just say hi, please feel free to contact me via the links on my profile : )