Rosie Pritchard, Author at Experience Haus

Student Success Story: Vez Maxwell

Vez completed our 12-week part-time Product Design course in February 2023 and now works as a Senior UX Designer at WeDo Digital.

We caught up with her recently to see how the course helped her achieve her goals and if she has any pearls of wisdom for any budding product designers.

Tell us a bit more about what you were doing before you decided to pivot into design?

was working as a hybrid ui designer/ui developer but wanted to move into a more design-centric role and get some best practice knowledge.

How was training at Experience Haus different from other providers ?

The project you get to work on during the course isn’t like something you can get with anyone else. 

What was the highlight of your course?

I honestly loved the whole experience!

What was the most challenging part of your learning experience?

Probably that I had been using Figma before but not very well, so needed to relearn some workflows. 

London’s Calling: The Ultimate Guide to Design Courses in the City

What better place to further your design journey than in one of the most exciting and dynamic cities in the world. Whether you’re after exciting design, theatre, art, music or career opportunities, London has it all and more! It’s no wonder so many people choose this city when taking the next step in their careers.

What makes our in-person courses so special is the fact that students are learning inside an inspiring working design agency, as opposed to coming into a sterile school environment. Students who join our in-person courses, especially our full-time UX & UI Career Development Bootcamp, will see first hand how a design agency operates, giving them a glimpse of what could lie in store for them in the next few months!

In this article we will go through our options for in-person learning, and how to pick a course that matches with your own goals.

UX & UI Career Development Bootcamp

Up first, we have our flagship course designed not only to teach you the entire end-to-end design process, but also focuses on portfolio creation, CV writing and interview preparation. During this 12-week course, you will be coming into our studio every day, learning inside a luxury design agency and talking to people who are doing the job day in, day out. Our studio is based in the creative hub of Shoreditch, an area that is renowned for its design community, so you will be surrounded by design inspiration every day.

During this course you will work on three client projects: two two-week projects and a final six-week capstone project where you get the chance to really show off everything you have learned in the past 3 months. These projects are all for different clients, so will show versatility on your portfolio, as well as the ability to work in a design team, as well as owning certain areas of projects.

Product Design (including UX & UI)

Next up we have our longest running, and most popular part-time course: the Product Design (inc UX & UI) course. This course is the perfect blend of product, UX design and UI design giving our students more opportunities to explore different kinds of roles within the design industry, once they’ve graduated from the course.  It is the perfect course for those looking to begin their journey into the design world, as well as those looking to add UX/UI design to their existing skillset.

During the 12 weeks, students will work through the Double Diamond Process whilst applying their learnings on a real client brief. We will start by going through the ux design process, covering user research, conducting user interviews, empathy mapping, creating personas, and more. Around half way through the course we bring Figma into the equation, teaching students how to go from paper prototypes all the way up to high-fidelity prototypes. Students will begin to create their designs for their own projects, doing usability testing and making iterations based on feedback, then finally presenting back to their stakeholder at the end of the course.

UI Design with Figma

This 8-week part-time course is offered both online and in-person. For those students who prefer learning in-person, with the support of an instructor nearby, this is the perfect format for them. Not suited for beginners, this course is designed to take students who have a bit of experience working with Figma to a much more advanced level. 

During this course students will learn visual design theory, user interface design theory, design systems, responsive design, components and more. All of which come together to play an important role in creating successful user interface design outputs. Whilst doing a deep dive into these areas of UI and Figma, students will apply their learnings to a client project that will be worked on as part of a group. This will be presented back to the client at the end of the course, and then students are free to add this as a portfolio piece to talk through in future interviews.

Service Design

Another of our courses that we offer both online and in-person, due to the rising demand within the industry. This is probably the most advanced course we run at Experience Haus and is perfectly suited to those who already have some UX/UI/user research experience. 

We will take students through the service design process from start to finish, discussing everything you need to know when designing a powerful service. Topics covered in this course include design thinking, research preparation, customer experience and service blueprints, which will all be applied to the live client brief students are given at the beginning of the course. This will be a group brief where each student will get the opportunity to act as the service design lead.

Design Leadership

This is the only course we offer that doesn’t have a real client brief to work on as it is solely designed to give students the tools to advance to the next stage of their careers. On this short 6-week part-time course, students are taught the skills needed to become a good leader, how to manage your own team as well as working with others, setting goals and also how to talk about design when sitting in meetings with company executives. 

This is a very workshop-y course designed to give students the confidence to move up the career ladder and into a more senior position.

UX/UI Design One-Week Bootcamps

Finally, for those looking for in-person learning but can’t commit to a 10-12 week course, we regularly run one-week UX/UI Design Bootcamps throughout the year. We have taken all the key areas of our online UX/UI Design course, and condensed it into one-week. Students will still learn the end-to-end design process for designing digital products and get the opportunity to work on a live client brief. The course will just be a more immersive experience, as opposed to a part-time course. 

There are many different course options to explore when it comes to learning design in the City. Whether your goal is to get a new role, upskill or take a one-week course, we have the courses and different formats that can work for you. Get in touch with us today to see which course would work best for you.

 

A Conversation About Design: UX/UI Design within the Media Industry (Part Two)

Experience Haus Creative Director and Founder Amit Patel recently sat down with Kojo Boteng, a multifaceted and award-winning designer and educator currently working as Creative Director at PBS NewsHour on our podcast ‘A Conversation About Design.’

There was so much ground covered in this conversation that we had to split the write-up into two different articles! Here is part two…

Are there any particular experiences or milestones or projects that stand out to you that you look back on and are super proud to have been part of, or feel have shaped you in any way?

When I think about what a successful project looks like, I tend to think about projects where I’ve kind of made a leap or I’ve grown in some way. There have been a few in my time in news that were really great. 

I had been at ITN for a few years and worked with the production arm that would essentially hire themselves out as an agency helping news organisations around the world set up their own rolling news channels. So this is something a lot of people don’t know but I designed the first English speaking 24 hour news network in India! I designed all the graphics and all of the packaging. They were called Headlines Today, and formed part of the Today group. I spent about a month in Delhi working with Indian designers and that was an amazing experience. 

Another notable project was the relaunch of News at 10 on ITV. The opening titles were done by a moving picture company but everything else in terms of  content and branding was solely done by me!

You’ve seen lots of different technologies and approaches in your career. Where do you see certain digital technologies shaping the future of  the space that you’re working in?

Technology is  an interesting one because I’ve seen so much! When I started, we were doing paste up – this involved cutting out dry transfer letters for your headlines and mocking those up ready for a kind of pre press. Since then I’ve used things like Quantel Paintbox when I first started in television, then came Photoshop, After Effects and more! I’m now at the point where I don’t want to learn any more tools! I think the core for me, and I’m still doing it now, the core tool for me actually is a pen and pad, just in terms of getting your ideas down and then finding the right tools for the job. 

The big thing at the moment is the introduction of AI technologies. It’s an interesting moment where things that even on the Paintbox or in Photoshop that I had to do manually, the idea of just having to press a button to remove a background, but then also being able to  extend imagery and do all kinds of stuff is just mind blowing. Nevertheless, what I will say is that I don’t think AI is always going to be a good idea. I’m actually really interested in analog stuff, stuff that can’t come out of machine printmaking and all of those kinds of things, which has a bit more of a texture to it or something that has feeling. I think that’s the problem with the AI stuff, it looks like plastic most of the time – it doesn’t really have much of a soul. 

You’re an adjunct professor at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering teaching UX. What are some of the areas you have found challenging to deliver to students or have enjoyed delivering to students?

My journey in teaching actually started when I moved to Washington.  I met the chair at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. So I taught a couple classes there, but then the pandemic happened and then we kind of shifted to the half the semester online and then commuting to Baltimore once the pandemic was over just wasn’t going to work. Then one of my friends who teaches at NYU asked if I wanted to teach a class. As we were still in the pandemic, what I found really challenging at the time was just teaching remotely! In these types of classes you have sticky notes, you can put things on the wall, you can see what people are doing. The whole point of user experience is about people connecting and to have a technology separate you, it just made everything a little bit more challenging, even in terms of how the students interacted with me! Some people just wouldn’t turn their cameras on so I didn’t even know what all my students looked like! 

What was good, however, was the amount of access students had to me. Whenever I set them homework, I’d let them know if they had questions, they could message me on Slack and I would respond pretty quickly. I’m also having to change my own style in order to make all students feel comfortable. I’m 6 foot 2 and have a deep voice so to young students just starting out, this can feel quite intimidating. You learn to adapt to the students’ needs. This is actually helping me to grow, not just as a creative director, but as a human being as well, connecting with different folks from different places and learning from them. I think that’s one of the more rewarding things about giving back in that way.

How long has Create Community been running? What are you trying to accomplish with it?

Create was an idea I came up with when I first got to DC. In London there were plenty of meetup opportunities where you’d go meet new people, network, have some drinks and it was just a very relaxed atmosphere. In DC these meetups were very transactional. I’d meet someone who told me what he did, asked me what I did, gave me his business card and walked off. There was no further conversation. So coming from London where it’s a lot more diverse and it can be a little bit more hip, I wanted to create an event which was around design and creativity, but then that was a little bit social. The other thing I’ll add is that I also use it as a vehicle to meet more people because I didn’t know a lot of people at that time! 

I had previous experience with event planning so I figured that I could use those skills that I learned to create my own thing. So Create essentially is just an opportunity for people to come together. It’s a speaker series (but soon to be a podcast!) where I’m interacting with like-minded people, and learning about their process and their design work, their history, all of that kind of stuff, and sharing it with people. And it’s not just about design! I know people from all over: DJs, producers, artists, graphic designers, furniture makers, curators. I want to create a space where all of these creatives can connect and talk and we can learn about their work. 

What does 2024 look like for you? Are there any particular challenges that you’re taking on or anything that you’re looking to achieve this year?

I don’t normally make resolutions, but instead have a phrase or mantra that will carry me through the year, and this year the two topics that keep coming up are freedom and connectivity. At the moment most of my year is pretty much mapped out, which is kind of problematic for me because it doesn’t really leave much room for growth. But one of the things I want to be doing is drawing more. So for Christmas, my family bought me an amazing art set with watercolours, pencils and lots of art materials so I could focus a bit more on creating art. 

I also want to launch my own podcast this year which is nearly ready to go. I also realised that although I read a lot of articles, I don’t actually read books, so that is something I’m going to aim to do more of. In conclusion, I’m thinking about ways in which I can switch off from the day-to-day stuff and do other creative endeavours that will hopefully fuel the work that I’m doing day-to-day.

This article forms part of a discussion conducted between Kojo Boteng and Experience Haus Creative Director, Amit Patel on the Experience Haus podcast, ‘A Conversation About Design’. In this podcast, we explore the fascinating world of design featuring insightful conversations with some of the brightest minds and inspiring individuals who are making waves in the industry. 

Listen to the full interview with Kojo here.

Instructor Profile: Parth Loliyania

Tell us a little about yourself and your current work outside of Experience Haus? 

I am a designer and researcher based in London. I believe the secret behind crafting meaningful experiences is a mix of three key ingredients – having the patience to explore the unknown, be ruthlessly action-driven and a team player. On weekends you may find me in a random coffee shop practicing my calligraphy skills. In the past I have worked with clients across various sectors such as finance, aviation, cloud computing, automobile and e-commerce.

Did you have a specific goal you wanted to achieve before you started teaching at Experience Haus? Do you think your time here so far has kept you on the right track?

One of the most important things for me personally is to give back to the community that has given me so much. And I think teaching people is one of the best ways to do it. I am always eager to learn something new and what better place than a classroom. For the second part, I’m not sure if there is a right or wrong track, I’m happy as long as I’m doing what I love!

What is your teaching philosophy?

There are three key qualities that my lectures focus on – having the patience to explore the unknown, be ruthlessly action-driven and be a good team player. Based on my personal experience these qualities are core for any designer.

What do you enjoy most about teaching at Experience Haus?

One of the most important things in design is to work with real people on real problems and Experience Haus embeds this quite well in their courses as we are always working on live client briefs where students can apply what they have learned in real time.

A Conversation About Design: UX/UI Design within the Media Industry (Part One)

Kojo Boteng is a multifaceted and award-winning designer and educator, and currently sits as the Creative Director at PBS NewsHour. 

Originally from South London but now living in Washington, DC, he was formerly creative director at ITN and ITV News in the UK and has also worked with a wide range of media projects for Capital One, Complex Media, NPG Group, BBC, ITV and Universal Music. He’s currently an adjunct professor and mentor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, where he teaches UX design. He is also the founder of Create Community, a series of initiatives that elevate the work of Black and underrepresented designers, artists, and creatives. His work has been featured in the Design Week, Creative Review, The Guardian, The Times, and The Telegraph here in the UK.

In this episode of A Conversation About Design, we go beyond the surface as we explore the mindset, challenges and successes that have defined Kojo’s impressive career. 

Can you tell us a bit more about your work at PBS NewsHour?

“I’ve been at PBS NewsHour for about three and a half years, having joined during the pandemic. For those who don’t know, PBS in the United States is public broadcasting. So kind of similar to the UK, although the funding model is a little bit different, and what I work on is the News Hour, which is a daily news bulletin of the day, but what’s slightly different about the news hour because of the way it’s funded, we can go into a lot more detail on in-depth stories and topics whether that’s social justice, criminal justice, the environment etc. as well as whatever the big news story of the day is, whether it’s the election, the Israel Hamas war, that sort of thing. 

In my role I’m managing a small team of designers who produce graphics for the program. Now, when most people think of television graphics, they always think it’s the little name strap that comes up. That’s part of it, but we’re also essentially helping journalists and correspondence producers to visualise their stories. So, a good example might be when the Alaska Airlines door flew off, we might be asked to produce a map of what time the flight took off, when the incident happened, where it was rooted to, what time it landed and how many people might be injured. This is the kind of story that’s very difficult to tell with just words when there’s no picture. So that’s when a graphics person comes in to work with the journalist to figure out what are the facts and how can we visualise that so people at home can understand what’s happening.”

What do you think your work is going to look like later on this year, especially going into election year?

“Elections are like the bread and butter of what a news organisation does. It’s usually the time when the most money gets spent because you have a lot of data to show. Big organisations tend to want all the bells and whistles:  video walls, touchscreens and all that kind of stuff. So that project is a very big one for us, and always has been since I started my career in the news. 

Another project that we’re working on at the moment is a rebrand of the whole show. We’re working with an outside agency on the design of the logo and thinking about our branding architecture and how that fits with PBS and all that kind of stuff. We need to think about tone of voice, how are we presenting ourselves, how do we continue to engage audiences on platforms like YouTube and TikTok and what role design and storytelling play in that.” 

How does this work compare to what you were doing at ITN, ITV News, and BBC?

“I started at ITN in 1998 and it was my first job outside of college. I graduated with my MA in documentary filmmaking having already got an undergrad in graphic design. I ended up getting the job at ITN and worked my way up the ranks to Creative Director. 

My role and journey in news is very much the foundation of what I have done. The skills that I learned in terms of communication, just how to work with diverse teams, whether it’s with directors, producers, camera people, lighting people, studio managers, set designers, etc.  I should also mention that when you work in news it’s super fast so where most designers get brief and maybe have a couple of weeks or a month to complete it, if it’s a big project we sometimes only have about an hour to turn something around! This way of designing makes you think quickly and iterate quickly, which is good, but when you do have longer to work on a project it can be difficult to shift gears and think ‘oh I have more time to work this’.” 

What prompted the move from London to Washington? How did you come about that? Have you had to adapt to different working styles and ethics?

“What prompted the move was my partner as she’s American! It was a chance to see whether the relationship was going to work, and it has as we’ve been married now for five years. 

I’m very much a no risk, very safe type of person, so for me to up-sticks after so many years of living and working in London was in hindsight, quite a big move…and it wasn’t easy! It’s very, very challenging moving to a different country. I did know a few people but I certainly didn’t have the massive friendship network like I had in London. So that was a challenge, that actually still continues to this day in terms of creating good friendships, as well as good working relationships. 

So far, my experience of working in America has been interesting as the culture is so different. It might just be a DC thing, but people are more uptight here!  It could also be to do with the climate but you definitely couldn’t get away with some of the things you can say and do in the UK. I would say that work is one of the great things about the States because there are so many opportunities, which I think also has to do with the can-do attitude that Americans have. There’s better support, both financial and mentorship and those kinds of things. So I would say that it’s pretty much a country of entrepreneurs, whereas in London I know so many people who are talented that are probably not going to go anywhere, but here given its scale, there’s a lot of opportunities if you find the right path.”

Stay tuned for Part 2…

This article forms part of a discussion conducted between Kojo Boteng and Experience Haus Creative Director, Amit Patel on the Experience Haus podcast, ‘A Conversation About Design’. In this podcast, we explore the fascinating world of design featuring insightful conversations with some of the brightest minds and inspiring individuals who are making waves in the industry. 

Listen to the full interview with Kojo here.

The Pros and Cons: Online vs. In-Person Courses for Advancing Your Career in UX/UI

With the amount of courses now available to learn UX/UI design, it’s hard to know which is the right one for you. Online, pre-recorded, in-person, hybrid….the possibilities are endless! 

There are clear benefits to each option depending on what your goals for the future are. For example, if you are looking to learn the basics simply to gain knowledge, then pre-recorded might be the best option for you. In this article we explore the pros and cons of each type of course format for advancing your career into UX/UI design. 

The flexibility of online learning

One of the biggest positives online learning can offer is the opportunity to study from wherever in the world. With the advancement of collaborative tools like Zoom and Figma, you no longer need to be in the same room in order to learn a new skill or work together on a project. If you are someone who travels a lot for work, online learning could be a great option for you as you can still dial into class, no matter where you are. 

In today’s post-pandemic climate, there has been a large shift towards hybrid and even fully remote working. For those people spending more time working from home, they might not want to venture into a training school, but would rather spend the time learning from their own environment. Nevertheless, this can also be a downside of online learning. When spending the day working from home, you might find extra hours learning on Zoom a chore and so don’t commit yourself to your learning as much as you should. It is easier to become less accountable when you know you don’t have to go into a classroom and are only joining over Zoom. We have seen this happen with some of our students at Experience Haus and can be hard when you see a student’s drive to break into this industry has gone. 

This lack of accountability is something students can also find with pre-recorded learning. When not having to answer to an instructor or don’t have classmates that rely on you, it is easy to become more relaxed with this type of learning. Although the pros of this type of learning include the flexibility it offers, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t have a lot of free time, it isn’t always the best type of learning if you’re looking to start a career in this industry. When pivoting into something new, you are bound to have lots of questions about the different methods and tools you will need to know, but a pre-recorded learning style can’t offer this immediate assistance. You might have someone you can get in touch with, but your questions won’t be answered as quickly as they would be in an in-person or live online class. 

At Experience Haus, one of our most popular courses is our part-time online UX/UI Design course. During the course of 10 weeks you will learn the entire end-to-end design process used for designing digital products, all while working on a live client brief as part of a small design team. We think this course is really the best option for online learning as all the classes are live, but we still record the sessions so you can watch them back even after the course has finished. We strive to find the balance between teaching the theory to students, as well as running workshops that allow students to immediately apply what they have learned, while also being able to ask the instructor questions, if anything is unclear. Students also get the chance to work as part of a team, giving them an insight into how design teams work together in actual companies and agencies. 

We have had students from completely different backgrounds join this course, from graphic designers, to marketing executives, to chefs! Whether a student is refreshing their skills or learning from the beginning, this course has benefits for everyone.  

Immerse Yourself In the Industry with In-Person Learning

In-person learning is something we are very passionate about at Experience Haus. Despite offering a number of online courses that allow anyone to join, we cannot stress enough the importance of in-person learning when it comes to pivoting into a new career or industry. 

As mentioned above, some students find they are less accountable when it comes to online learning, whereas in an in-person course, they feel the need to show up and be present in the classroom. Speaking to students who have then joined our in-person Product Design course, this need for accountability is the one factor that has led them to choose an in-person course over an online one. 

Another benefit of in-person teaching is that typically the class sizes are smaller for physical classes. This means students have more opportunities to ask questions and have discussions with their classmates, as well as their instructor. We only take a maximum of 8 students on our in-person part-time course, and 10 students on our full-time bootcamp to give students the best possible learning experience and more opportunities to really advance their learning.  

We have two in-person UX/UI design courses that students can choose from to help advance their careers. For those who are still working full-time, we have our part-time Product Design (inc UX & UI) course, and for those who are looking to fully immerse themselves in the industry and want to get a new role within a few months, we have our full-time UX & UI Career Development Bootcamp. Both courses are great options and proof that students can join from any background, and still land a role within the UX/UI industry. Students who have the time to join our full-time bootcamp get the opportunity to work on 3 real client projects, and have further sessions on writing case studies, interview preparation and other career development sessions. This means that at the end of the 3 months, they have a portfolio of case studies that they can immediately start sending out to recruiters and hiring managers. This is the best course for students looking to jump into the industry right away. Students on our part-time Product Design course will still learn the theory and get the opportunity to work on a live client project, they will only miss out on the career development techniques. 

There are benefits to any type of learning. Choosing the right option for you depends on what you want to get out of the course and what your goals are for the future. At Experience Haus we have course options to suit everyone’s learning wants and needs.

Student Success Story: Eve Wu

Eve completed our UX & UI Career Development Bootcamp in February 2023 and has recently landed a role as UX Designer at Sage.

We caught up with her recently to see how the course helped her achieve her goals and if she has any pearls of wisdom for any budding product designers.

Tell us a bit more about what you were doing before you decided to pivot into design?

I was working doing a lot of research at UCL.

How was training at Experience Haus different from other providers ?

I loved the fact it was in-person teaching so that you get exposure to all the brilliant minds at Experience Haus and the real client briefs get you prepared for job hunting.

What was the highlight of your course?

My instructor Joe, my course mates and everyone at Experience Haus. 

What was the most challenging part of your learning experience?

Time pressure but pace over perfection might be the way to go!

Why Learning Product Design is Key to Unlocking Your Creative Potential and Career Growth

Product design is a dynamic and multifaceted field that combines creativity, problem-solving, and user-centric thinking to shape the digital products and services we use every day. With many opportunities to advance your career quickly, it is an exciting field to be part of, regardless of your previous experience. 

What is Product Design?

Product design is the process of ideating, creating and refining digital products that meet user needs and business objectives. It covers the entire lifecycle of a product, from initial concept, to ideation, prototyping and product launch. Effective product design focuses on creating products with seamless interactions and visually appealing experiences that capture users and drives engagement. 

Product designers will collaborate with stakeholders to understand more about the desired product and conduct research with users to understand pain points, frustrations and desires. Based on their research findings, product designers will then create a number of wireframes and sketches based on their initial ideas, taking usability, feasibility and business goals into account. 

These concepts are brought to life in the prototyping stage where designers create interactive prototypes for users to test. This allows the designers to gain feedback on what works well, as well as what needs to be refined further. Once this stage has been completed, it’s time to focus on the visual design of the product, looking at things such as colour, typography, iconography and the overall visual style to create a visually pleasing interface. The final stage is testing the entire prototype with users to measure its effectiveness. 

Throughout this process, product designers will collaborate closely with other designers, developers, UX researchers and stakeholders. They ensure effective communication and collaboration to ensure the product is implemented as intended and meets the desired user’s needs. 

Unlocking Your Creative Potential

You might be currently sitting in a job that is working for you financially, but not creatively. It’s helping you pay the bills, but you don’t wake up every day inspired to be the best you can be. You might have also got to the point where you can’t progress any further. So what’s next?

Working in product design can give you the creative freedom you’ve been seeking. It isn’t only a role that can help you pay the bills, but is also one that offers variety at work every day, opportunities to work remotely and is a job that makes you genuinely happy. The other appealing factor about this role is the opportunities for career growth and the chance to progress faster than you might do in another industry. 

Well, this new career isn’t as far away as you think! Signing up to a product design course could be the catalyst to this new career opportunity. By doing this, you open the doors to potential careers in UX design, UI design, product management, product design, and more! 

At Experience Haus, we have had students complete our Product Design (inc UX & UI) course and are now working as UX/UI Designers, Senior Product Designers and User Researchers. This is our most popular course as it strikes the right balance of giving students enough theoretical knowledge, but combines this with the practical element of working on a real client project that can then be added to their portfolio. Students gain experience in design thinking, user research, UI design and even stakeholder management, giving them a real insight into what the job would be like in the real world. This real world application has been invaluable to many of our students finding jobs after completing the course. 

Product design is an exciting and rewarding field that requires a combination of creativity, problem-solving, and user empathy. By enrolling in a product design course, you can expand your skill set, gain valuable knowledge and hands-on experience, and unlock your potential as a successful product designer.

Continuous Learning Being the Path to Success

One of the most common questions we get when talking to prospective students who are pivoting into design after having a previous career is “can I get a job without going back to the beginning?” It is hard for us to give a definitive answer to this question as it can depend on various factors, but what we do know to be true is that the more learning a student can do with us, the quicker they will advance in their careers. 

In this article we explore the benefits of doing multiple courses, and the offers we have available to those who want to do extra learning with us. 

Joining At The Middle

For beginners or career pivoters moving into the UX/UI design industry, it is very common that the first role you would go into after completing your first course is a more junior position, whether that’s as a Junior Designer or even as an Intern. For someone who is fresh out of university, this is completely normal. Nevertheless, if you have been in a job for 5 years and have progressed to a certain level, you won’t want to go right back to the beginning. To those people, we suggest looking at working on their professional development and doing multiple courses as this is the easiest way to build on your skillset, build up your confidence and can ultimately lead to going into a role at a mid-weight level. 

Bringing in the Higher Salaries

As a Junior UX/UI Designer in your first job, you’re looking at earning an average of £25k (depending on company and location). Again, if you’re a previously experienced person who is used to being on a certain salary and have other costs to take into account like family expenditure, commuting costs etc., you probably won’t even give these kinds of roles a second glance! Nonetheless, if you are in a position that you can dedicate extra time to your learning, with your advanced skills, you’ll be able to look at mid-weight designer roles, that can start at an average of £45k

One of the most attractive things about the design industry is that you can progress up the career ladder at a much quicker pace than with other industries. The more senior you can get, the higher salaries you can earn. If you start at a mid- level, it will be less of a journey into a more senior position. By adopting this mindset of continuous learning, you can advance your career much faster than others. 

Multiple Courses to Advance Your Career

There are many different combinations of courses you can do to open yourself to more job opportunities. 

If you look at doing just a UX/UI Design course, you’re probably looking at going into Junior UX/UI Designer roles or Junior UX Researcher roles. 

If you combine our online UX/UI Design course or in-person Product Design course with our UI Design with Figma, here is a whole list of job you can go into:

  • UI Designer
  • UX/UI Designer
  • User Researcher
  • Visual Designer
  • Information Architect
  • Interaction Designer
  • Product Designer

If you combine our online UX/UI Design course or in-person Product Design course with our Product Strategy & Management course, you can apply for roles as:

  • UX/UI Designer
  • User Researcher
  • Product Designer
  • Product Manager
  • Product Launch Manager
  • Product Marketing Manager
  • Product Lead

If you combine our online UX/UI Design course or in-person Product Design course with our Mastering User Research course, you can apply for roles as:

  • Mid-weight UX Researcher
  • Mid-Weight UX/UI Designer
  • UX Designer
  • Web Designer
  • Digital Product Owner
  • UX Analyst 

This is just a snapshot of the career possibilities out there for someone who has multiple courses under their belt – there’s even more out there to explore! 

At Experience Haus we want to give everyone the opportunity to create their dream design career with us. For that reason we have launched BUNDLE OFFERS in 2024, giving students 50% off the second course they do with us, as a way to expand their knowledge. If you are interested in hearing more about this, get in touch today.

Addressing Young People’s Perception of the Police – The Next Event

In September 2022, Experience Haus co-hosted a first-of-its-kind Design Day from our studio. Alongside 50 of our Experience Haus designers, we invited 50 young people (aged 15-19) to come to our studio to help create a series of digital concepts that could improve the historically strained relationship between young people and the police. In February 2024, nearly 18 months after the original event, the next stage of this exciting project took place.

Once again, Experience Haus designers, students from various schools and colleges across London, and officers from the City of London Police and Metropolitan Police gathered together to come up with further solutions to tackle the lack of trust and low confidence young people have in the police.

We split the attendees into 5 groups that included designers, students, police officers and other representatives from government and businesses. They spent the day coming up with solutions to address some of the issues young people face in relation to Stop & Search. The morning involved a lot of conversations between the young people and police where they discussed opinions from both sides, and what could be done to improve the situation. Once a solution had been agreed on, the designers stepped in to create digital versions of these ideas that would be presented back to the police at the end of the day. It was the student’s job to stand up and present their design prototypes back to the whole room, explaining how the solution could improve the relationship between young people and the police. These designs have now been passed onto the police, with the idea that they will choose one to be developed and built.

The workshop gave these young people a fantastic opportunity to make their voices heard and play a pivotal role in the future of this relationship. In addition to meeting members of both police forces, they met with mentors, employers, business and government leaders, and other students from different colleges, helping them develop teamwork and networking skills that they can take into their future careers.

Like all these events, it takes an army to put something like this together. The idea was devised by Digital Skills Consulting, who have closely worked with Experience Haus for some years now,  and included students (aged 15-19) from schools and colleges across London, including Barking & Dagenham College, Sir George Monoux College, City of London Academy Islington, Activate Learning, City Academy Southwark, Vallance Community Sports Association Ltd. and the City Academy, Hackney.

According to Julia von Klonowski of Digital Skills Consulting“This was another fantastic day, and the young people were amazing. They were engaged, curious and resourceful and, working alongside the designers and the police officers. They came up with some `gold nuggets’ in terms of ideas to incorporate into a digital solution, website, or App, that will hopefully be developed and start to improve some of the negative perceptions of police by young people, but also improve perceptions of the young people by the police!”

Amit Patel, Creative Director of Experience Haus said: “Giving the young people of today a voice in societal changes is so important to helping us change the way our lives will be lived moving forward. Giving them that voice through design, and providing them inspiration from designers who work everyday on creative problem solving, helps make this happen. I firmly believe that everyone involved in this day has left understanding the power of co-creation.”

Chief Superintendent Bill Duffy from the City of London Police said: “This event has been brilliant. It has meant we can engage with the youth of London and improve our service to them. All the partners want to see change and we want to understand what we can do to make this happen.

Young people have great minds and are happy to challenge the way we think and our processes. This is what we need. Having people of all different ages, from all different backgrounds is a really interesting prospect in terms of what we could deliver.”

Superintendent Lucky Singh of the Metropolitan Police Service said:  “We know that consultation and communication with our communities is really important, particularly engaging with young people and listening to them.

We are committed to community policing and getting back into the heart of it. We need to build trust and confidence with the public to effectively support our communities.”

 

Student Success Story: Elrica Degirmen

Elrica completed our 12-week part-time Service Design course in April 2023 and is currently working as a Senior Service Design Consultant at Human Engine.

We caught up with her recently to see how the course helped her achieve her goals and if she has any pearls of wisdom for any budding service designers.

Tell us a bit more about what you were doing before you decided to pivot into design?

I was starting in the industry working as a service designer for the adult social care department of a local authority.

How was training at Experience Haus different from other providers ?

I liked how at Experience Haus I got to work on a live client brief. During my course it was within the University of Essex’s start-up service. This meant I was able to put the skills I learnt into immediate practice.

What was the highlight of your course?

The amazing help and support from my instructor Jack. I learnt so much from him.

What was the most challenging part of your learning experience?

Nothing for me! I really enjoyed the whole experience and would 100% recommend it.

Bridge the Digital Skills Gap: Expert Training for Creatives Falling Behind

UI UX Training

Since 2020, the emphasis on digital design and demand for digital designers has skyrocketed. As businesses could no longer solely rely on a physical presence, the need to have a strong digital presence was paramount. Whilst it was an exciting space for many to move into, those who had already been in the design world for many years, started to feel left behind.

With the emergence of new design tools and softwares, this left Sketch designers and physical product designers in the dark. How could they manage to stay in demand and (more importantly!) in a job?

At Experience Haus, we have designed our courses to not only benefit designers breaking into the industry, but also for experienced designers looking to add to their skill sets and to keep their skills as up-to-date as possible. In this article we explore why some creatives might feel like they’re on the back foot, and how a course can help.

Outdated Teachings at University

We have had many students join one of our design courses shortly after finishing university and it’s clear that it’s not just a large student debt they’ve graduated with, but a large skill knowledge gap as well. The learnings they’re being given are outdated and not what employers are looking for. Even after the introduction of Figma and the monopoly it’s had on the world of design, some students have mentioned their lecturers were still teaching them to use Sketch, a software hardly any companies still use!

In our courses, we continuously made changes based on the industry needs to ensure what we’re teaching our students is as relevant as possible and can ensure they have a good foundation that could help them land that all-important first role. Students will graduate from our part-time and full-time courses confident they now have the skill set employers are looking for.

Moving From Physical to Digital

One of the biggest transformations we’ve seen in the last few years is the move from only physical design, to the emphasis on digital design. With terms like ‘user experience design’ and ‘user interface design’ coming to the forefront, physical Product Designers have felt left behind with this new generation of digital designers leading the way in app and web designs.

It is also now uncommon for any design job to not include the need for UX or UI design. Even graphic designers are struggling to find new roles where UX/UI design is listed as a key requirement, even though it’s a graphic design role. Looking at the backgrounds of students who have joined an Experience Haus course, around 75% of them have come from a graphic design background and are doing a course to add UX/UI to their skill set. In this way it will open more career opportunities for them in the future, and avoids pigeonholing themselves into one area.

UI UX Training

Learning on the Job

In some roles, people will find they can start a role with no prior training and essentially learn on the job. Design is not something you can do this with, and it will become very clear very quickly that you don’t have the right skills. This can impede your professional growth and will mean your career progression will be very slow. This is where joining one of our courses comes in.

Whether your company is paying for your training or you’re doing it yourself, you will find that in just 8-10 weeks, you will not only have gained the skills needed for your job, but the confidence to know you are doing it well. Adding to your skill set opens the doors to more career options, quicker career progression and the potential for higher salaries. 

With the promise of flexible working opportunities, quick career progression  and an exciting industry to be in, more and more people are now transitioning into the design world. As more people join this industry, it is essential to ensure you stand out from the crowd. By doing a design course that expands your knowledge and keeps your skills up-to-date, you will remain very competitive and keep one step ahead of the competition.