User Experience Design has become increasingly recognised by employers and businesses as an important, strategic role in the delivery of successful digital products.
In our one-week focused course, UXD:Accelerate, your learning experience will be intensive and focused. Take a deep dive into User Experience Design and learn the important skills and techniques required to create meaningful digital experiences.
Guided by highly experienced and well regarded industry experts, you’ll bring a problem you want to solve and we’ll guide you through the process to help you breathe life into it.
Our approach is intense and applied; each day you will walk away with a new technique to practice and implement. Take your career up a notch and start implementing User Experience Design in your workplace.
There are no pre-requisites for this accelerated version of our part time or full time UX courses. This program is for anyone interested in breaking into the ever-growing field of User Experience Design and is popular with professionals working in design, tech and adjacent disciplines:
In this accelerated Design Thinking workshop, you’ll experience how to plan, run and facilitate a team or stakeholder workshop. This is high energy and high participation; use this technique with your clients to see how your vision grows infinitely better.
We will guide you with some common and industry expected research tools and techniques used to understand who you’re designing for and why you’re designing for them.
With hypotheses, insights and facts, you’re going to confidently answer the question “what problem am I solving?”
Lear rapid exercises in piecing together your insights and findings to create the centrepiece of who you’re designing for: your Personas. Taking these further, we’ll teach you how to generate feature ideas really quickly. You’ll then turn these features, no matter how outlandish, into a rudimentary project plan.
Know yourself and know your audience. These are fundamental to creating successful products that solve problems in a meaningful way. We guide you through a visioning and success process and have you apply that to making your users successful in the process.
We look at what’s happening in the rapidly changing world of digital. From desktop to mobile, you will learn the fundamental best practices for navigation, search, imagery, content as well get some insights as to what’s on trend.
Enter design springs. Waterfall delivery is over. Although still widely used, this mode of delivery is fast being replaced with design sprints in modern product development.
Enter Agile (or Design Sprints).
Understanding the bigger picture and the project objectives, our goal is to get your correct product out to the market as quickly as possible. The concept of Kaizen ensures that we create excellence and dismiss the neurotic pursuit of perfection, creating a product that is right for right now.
Using widely used testing techniques, you will learn how to plan for a testing session, create scenarios and tasks, note-take and observe. You’ll then translate your learnings into a refined UX Design and prototype.
Implement what you’ve learned. “I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.” This great quote by Clarissa Harlowe Barton sums up your responsibility as a UX Designer. Every design problem is solved better with the help of the people who’ll be using your product.
You pitch.
We wrap up your User Experience Design training and all revel in the beauty of your thinking: your final project. This is your chance to pitch your ideas for final feedback.
By the end of this one week course, you will have learned the following important skills:
Academy Xi gave me the training I wanted; the discomfort zone I needed, and a family I never expected! I wouldn’t be where I am without the Academy Xi tribe putting me in the firing line of opportunities I may not have dared for myself.
Be prepared to work very very hard. Accept and push through the moments of uncertainty, doubt and overwhelm. Give yourself plenty of room to do things once, twice, three times over. Surrender to and trust the process. Ditch perfectionism, it will only hold you back. And at the end of 10 weeks, you may just surprise yourself 🙂
Throughout the course, we covered a lot of content that was both intriguing and challenging to my preconceived ideas about UX design. The instructor made me think outside the box, and also taught us that as UX designers, we are an advocate for the everyday user.
Academy Xi has provided me with a great learning experience and valuable knowledge that can be applied to many aspects of life. I also made some great friends to help me along in my UX design journey.
Academy Xi is a new and evolving space. The User Experience Design course was very inspiring, it was a meeting of my interest in understanding people and design.
There’s a lot of design roles out there that demand hybrid skills now, UX is an avenue that can help designers up skill. In class i learnt principles that are explored even within the biggest companies.
Xi makes for a very good learning environment.
I would definitely recommend Academy Xi! It’s the best way to immerse yourselves in the world of User Experience regardless of what your current role is. You’ll get to learn with a group of cool folks from all walks of life and learn from some of the smartest and most inspiring mentors you’ll ever have. The small number of the class makes an intimate and rewarding experience. The curriculum highly focuses on UX and doesn’t try to be anything more than that – which I found refreshing.
Having your assumptions and gut feelings confirmed with hard facts was a complete game changer for me. Also, understanding that I’m not always right and that even though user testing may seem like we’re testing humans – we’re testing our systems. No egos just pure empathy. I love this about Xi’s approach, not just towards UX but to teaching in general.
I feel I’ve made long lasting friendships in a short amount of time. I learnt that no matter how old I am I can still surprise myself and achieve work I can be proud of. Also, that passion will drive you to greatness.
The UX course was a great insight into the different processes and tools. There was alot of content covered in the course in a short amount of time, but applying it to a project was helpful in understanding it. MC and Charbel are great instructors who were generous with their time and able to pull from their experiences to explain specific processes. The other students who did the course were super cool and that made a huge difference.
The velocity course is a great way to get the user-centered design process in one practical, condensed workshop. It is current information that can be used immediately in projects. The opportunity to practice during the class is extremely helpful to solidify some of the principles and techniques and be able to use them again. I’m leaving the class feeling fully equipped to bring great processes to projects and teams, and ultimately deliver usable, desirable, and exceptional user experiences.
Learning User Experience Design at Academy Xi has been a real pleasure. The instructors approach to teaching UX is informative and enjoyable. I really liked their step-by-step approach to UX.
Each week you take away a skill learnt and practise it at home – starting from early research and problem solving all the way to wireframes. Apart from improving my understanding of UX, I had excellent opportunities to improve my presentation skills that I can use later when presenting work to fellow colleagues and clients. Never did I feel I was falling behind in the course and the instructors were available to talk throughout the week, even outside class time.
I would highly recommend Academy Xi to anyone wishing to extend their design thinking or pursue a different career.
I think what made me decide so instantly was because I like the small class approach, I feel connected to Academy Xi’s vision, and most importantly, I strongly feel this is the right time and right place to learn. As an institution that is teaching User Experience, Academy Xi has shown proven themselves as a school that always thinks from their student’s perspectives and understand their needs.
It’s a good opportunity to train your brain both logically and creatively. If you like problem solving and making a difference to your users and to the world, this is a good direction for you to take.
The instructors did an excellent job of explaining the vast array of content and information in the course.
Their casual and friendly teaching style paired with their dedication and support was amazing and helped to make this the most enjoyable course I have ever taken.
Well done guys and thank you!
Academy Xi,
48 Druitt Street,
Sydney 2000
