Interaction Design Foundation - Your online UX Guru

When I started my career as a Designer after a bachelor degree in commerce, all I had was one 'Graphic and Web Design' course certificate and an average looking portfolio. The first couple of years in my career was very tough and I tried my best to learn a lot of things by practically doing it. I got introduced to UX design when I was assigned to design visuals for my first mobile game on android. That was the point when I decided to learn more about UX design and make a career in it.

Being a non-design student in the industry it was difficult for me to get the right job role and projects in the beginning. So, I started searching for the right place to learn design fundamentals, communication design principles and UX design basics. I started reading UX blogs and books. I attended workshops form IDC IIT, Design Incubator and HFI. But I wanted something which can help me to learn in day to day work, guide me to new UX Design disciplines and at the same time certify me for my skills. There I came across to the Interaction Design Foundation.

Interaction Design Foundation specializes in education and career advancement for designers through self-paced online courses. IDF is one of the most trusted online education platforms to learn UX design.


What it offers

Design Courses
Interaction Design Foundation offers a fantastic catalogue of UX courses. Members can take unlimited courses with a yearly membership. There are around 30 courses available and they are organized as a beginner, intermediate and advanced categories.

Community of designers
IDF help designers to connect and share knowledge with other design communities across the world. Communities are built to encourage conversations on topics ranging from UX design concepts to resources, tools, and jobs. You can also get advice and insights from designers through webinars, boot camps and meetups of groups from your city or country. There are around 487 active groups from 97 countries.

Literature
IDF has the biggest and most authoritative library of open-source UX Design resources. It offers free textbooks written by more than 100 leading designers, bestselling authors and design professors. You can also subscribe to the latest free articles on UX design.

What I liked

Learning paths in the UX Courses section guides you to take all the courses required for the job role you are looking for.

Templates and reference links in course lessons help you learn and execute super fast. Templates in usability testing guide course helped me to conduct usability testing for products I was working on.


If we compare IDF fees with other well known online education platforms then its very minimal. In Indian currency its around 6000 rupees for a year with unlimited access for professional. Plus you and your friend get three months free on every reference.


Gamification of scoring, grading on certificates and distinctions based on overall performance really help you motivate and encourage to learn more. It really helped me to be more competitive and set new goals to achieve.

Some tips

Be hungry
During my 4years of the membership, I tried to learn as many things as possible. Every course offers various UX methods, design templates and resources. As IDF gives unlimited course access you can keep subscribing to courses you are interested in.


Manage your time
Read course lessons whenever you have time and answer the multiple-choice questions first if it is possible. When you answer these multiple-choice questions you get marks immediately, this actually helps you to motivate yourself and create interest in reading/ learning more. Answer all other open-ended questions in your free time.


Keep documenting
Make a separate document on a google doc to write answers for all open-ended questions. By doing this you can pause or resume answering those questions any time and keep a track of the answers from all the lessons.


My experience

I started learning from IDF from 2015 and I have completed various design courses on usability testing, research, UX management and Design Thinking. It helped me get certified for my UX design skills. All these learnings helped me to find innovative solutions on design issues, clear my teammates’ doubts and take initiatives in various design activities like documentation for the design process, managing design system for the team and conducting design researches for the organisation.

I’m grateful to have come across IDF and build my career as a UX designer without having to spend a lot of money and learn as per my pace. I see a huge difference in the quality of the design work I experienced in my career. I will recommend IDF to all new aspiring designers or even non-designers who want to learn about interaction design.

If you are interested, use this link to get three months of membership for free.

Thanks for reading!