(Meta) Learning UX on IDF
Taking UX notes from an eLearning platform for UX
Quick background about me: I’ve been working as a web developer/designer/researcher since 2006 and I’m lucky to have experienced it through different industries — insurance, banking, and software. I’ve even worked in the adult industry. I do know my ways around the design, development, and maintenance of websites and apps, more or less (maybe less).
If you’ve come to this page to learn more about UX design be sure to checkout IDF’s introduction on the subject by clicking here.
I formally started working as our company’s UX/UI Product Manager back in August of 2016. Our company, ServiceRocket, helps disruptive technologies amplify their reach through training, services, and support. Basically, we provide solutions to help companies consume the technology and be efficient in using it. One of these solutions is Learndot, our very own eLearning platform, and one of my tasks as the UX guy is to improve the usability of it.
Having the task of improving the usability and design our eLearning product is exciting and challenging. As I’ve said, I have a good grasp of web development and design. However, I’ve never had formal learning of the ideologies, principles, and psychology of why a certain design worked. I jumped right into web development when I was a young pup and made my improvements through the experiences and different websites and apps I developed over the years. The other issue was to be accustomed to as many eLearning platforms out there, and see what worked and what didn’t base on a set of criteria. That’s where Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) fitted like a glove.
For someone looking for a formal, structured and in-depth learning about usability IDF is a treasure trove. With numerous courses, more added/re-opened regularly, one will find a helpful course at IDF. It offers incredibly balanced, in-depth and industry standard knowledge that is authored, curated and managed by a diverse collection of usability experts coming from different parts of the world.
One of my favorite courses is “UI Design Patterns for Successful Software”. The course is a good example of putting structure, words, and principles with the experience I’ve collected over the years. For example, the lesson “Affording Fluid Navigation” goes through 13 lesson items discussing navigation, menus, etc. explaining what the design solves and when should a particular design solution is to be used.
The course “Conducting Usability Testing” is also one of my favorites with a detailed explanation of different types of UX tests, what works on different scenarios and what doesn’t. It’s been my cheat sheet ever since and since then we’ve conducted several (proper) usability tests inside our company, a first for us back then.
Practice what you preach
In the process of this learning, I have also taken notes on how effective my learning is because of IDF’s design and usability and see what works for them as an eLearning platform. What I can highlight is that IDF does follow what they preach in terms of good design, particularly in learning. They have incorporated great usability principles through the general website and course navigation, page structure and hierarchy, and content organization/visual hierarchy. Their implementation of feedback and progress is quite simple yet well thought out for students. I do love the little quotes whenever you get a mistake to inspire learners to move forward.
They have also implemented several social aspects to your learning or engagement to the community. One of the obvious ones is that you can easily share to your LinkedIn community your earned course certificates that are industry recognized.
The other is the forum type discussion between learners of a course at almost every lesson a course has, letting you share an idea on a particular idea and read and comment about others’ shared ideas about the lesson. The IDF community itself is actually big and worldwide having many meet-ups conducted by local members for anyone interested to join. And lastly, there’s a sense of gamification that’s being implemented with the global ranking for the course you and other learners are taking based on the quiz results.
A learner’s wish
There are some features that are missing for some learners looking for a bit more structured learning. One of which is a pathway or specifically a course pathway for a specific role you would like to become. For example, a pathway for Usability Researcher would have a string of inter-dependent courses that can be a prerequisite from one course to another. Another nice-to-have is a progressive ranking wherein you are rated as a beginner, intermediate, etc. based on the courses and results from those courses are used for grading. Note that these “wants” are more of specific eLearning ideas and can be argued to be requirements that wouldn’t necessarily fit IDF’s vision and goals.
IDF continues to be the standard
Overall the goals I’ve set to take advantage of IDF’s platform has been incredibly fruitful and useful for my own personal growth and maturity with regards to learning more about UX. The same goes with my other goal of how a UX company focused on teaching implement what they preach. It’s incredibly educational to learn something and observe the implementation of it in the actual learning medium. IDF right now is the go-to platform to learn UX. They have a wealth of learning materials on usability and have applied them to their own eLearning platform making it effective and valuable to it’s learners.
