Product design is slowly becoming a popular field of study for people interested in design and development. Unlike other fields of study, product design and development is a fairly new space, which is why not as many people are getting a formal education in it.
If you are interested in product design and don’t know where to start or want to see if you want a career in this field, here is a list of 5 online product design courses to try out now.
1. Google UX Design Professional Certificate - Coursera
This seven-part product design course teaches beginners about product design and development, focusing on UI/UX. It allows you to earn credit towards your degree based on certain requirements. The professional certificate is available on Coursera and has a 4.8 rating.
Some employers see credible certifications as add-ons and appreciate an individual’s ability to upskill. After completing the course, you can also add the certificate to LinkedIn.
Duration: 6 months if you spend 10 hours per week on the course
Skills gained: User experience, Understanding of UX jobs, User research, User experience design, Prototyping, Creating Wireframes, Mockups, Figma, Usability Testing and User experience Design. Coursera provides financial aid for individuals which can be requested by filling out a form on their financial aid section.
2. Master Digital Product Design: UX Research and UI Design - Udemy
Udemy has a lot of different courses in the product design field. This course was created by Robert Sutcliffe and offers a start-to-finish understanding of product design.
168 lectures vary from topics on design, critical thinking, and competitive analysis to creative exercise. This is one of the few extensive and well-researched courses out there.
Duration: 15 hours 30 min
Skills gained: Critical thinking, User interface design, User experience research, Design History, History of product design, Design processes, Understanding of human perception, Channeling inner creativity, Usability testing, and Applied psychology in design. The certificate is given on completion of the course
3. Product Ideation, Design and Management Specialisation by the University of Maryland - Coursera
This is a five-course certification program on product design by the University of Maryland in the United States. The course is conducted by professors who teach product design at the university and aims to give students a foundation of key design and development concepts.
Learners can also test their skills by creating prototypes and wireframes. This course is available on Coursera with a rating of 4.5.
Duration: 1 month if you spend 10 hours a week on this course
Skills gained: Product management, product design, product development, innovation and ideation
4. Udacity Product Manager Course - Udacity
Udacity’s course on product design course is more action-oriented. This course is taught by experts working in the product design space. The course aims to train individuals in current industry practices and how to execute tasks and processes as if they were working at an organization.
This can be very helpful for certain intermediate learners who have a basic understanding of product design and want to dive deeper and get real-world experience in the field. This course currently has a rating of 4.5.
Skills gained: User Interface, user design, design sprint, ideation, validation, identify key metrics
5. Product Design Classes - Skillshare
Suppose you are interested in learning specific skills within the product design field. In that case, Skillshare has various classes, from product animation to Figma user interface design, so you can deep dive into one subject and learn to master that skill.
The duration and skill level may differ based on the topic you plan to learn about. Each class will indicate the rating, desired skill level, and the topics you can expect to learn while taking the course.
To get started, here's a course on UI/UX on Figma
Figma UI UX design essentials by Daniel Scott a certified Adobe expert
It is a beginner-level course with 111 lessons on how to use Figma to learn UI UX design. These videos are created so you can learn as you go. By the end of the course, designers can be expected to create wireframes, use color and visual content, use interactive elements like buttons and widgets, and many more such topics.
