Jessica Del Grande

Review of HackerYou

Intro and Advanced UX Design

Intro and Advanced UX Design

I m a front-end web developer (thanks to HackerYou bootcamp) and I work for a software company. I ve got a background in design, and I knew I wanted to follow up my bootcamp experience with the HackerYou intro and advanced UX class with a plan to leverage more design opportunities in my current role.

Because I took both the part-time web development class and the bootcamp at HackerYou, they were already my top pick. I knew how the school structured their classes and that I would have access to great resources during the 12 weeks of the course. I checked out other UX programs in the city and online, but none of them offered the kind of learning and support that I knew I would get at HackerYou.

The class schedule was perfect. I work uptown and have a really hard time getting to weeknight classes, so committing to UX every Saturday was ideal. Even though class was only once a week, I had access to Ricardo, the lead instructor, and the two class mentors, Jas and Jen, throughout the week. They were available for extra help and to run through project ideas exactly when I needed them.

Ricardo has an abundance of enthusiasm (an essential quality for teaching a Saturday class) and experience. I found it very easy to learn because he integrated real-world examples with textbook theory and in-class exercises that helped me wrap my head around some tricky material. He taught masters-level UX concepts in a way that felt more like fun than learning, and when I was at home working on assignments I was surprised at how much material stuck in my head.

I was hoping for a class that gave me foundational UX design principles as well as the knowledge and skill to put together comprehensive case studies, and I finished the 12 weeks feeling confident and excited about what I had learned and how I could apply it.

In the time since UX class finished, I ve been able to expand my job description to include extensive collaboration with the design and UX team. I ve got more opportunities in my current role and more appreciation for the work that my colleagues put into designing applications.

If you re looking for someone who will only teach you how to make pretty things, this might not be the best course for you. But if you want to learn how to use qualitative and quantitative research to solve problems with beautiful design, then you ve hit the jackpot with this class.