Review of the Interaction Design Foundation

What is the Interaction Design Foundation?

The Interaction Design Foundation (IxdF) is a non-profit organisation, focused on improving user-centered design through free online resources and education. It does this by offering expert-led and industry-recognised online courses, free online resources and literature on a variety of topics, and hosts a large and active community where members can ask questions, collaborate, and share knowledge.

To give a little more detail on each of these features…

1) Online Courses

The online courses cover a wide variety of topics across User Experience and Human-centered Design.

The courses I have personally completed are:

* Become A UX Designer From Scratch
* Design Thinking: The Beginner’s Guide
* Agile Methods for UX Design
* UI Design Patterns for Successful Software
* UX Management: Strategy and Tactics

A more comprehensive list of courses can be found on the IxDF website:

https://www.interaction-design.org/courses

The courses are expert-led and include some of my personal favourite Product people, such as Laura Klein and Teresa Torres. They are well designed (which you would expect from a design website), and you receive an industry recognised certification on completion:

2) Resources and Literature

The literature, which is freely and publicly available, covers about every UX Design topic imaginable:

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics

Again, the content is created not only by the leading experts in each area, but by some of the all-time icons and leaders in their field, including Don Norman (Human Centered Design) and Clayton Christensen (Innovation).

3) Community and Master Classes

The Master Classes are also expert-led and cover a variety of topics. I mention them in the community section as they are also serve as a community forum. You can ask questions, see what colleagues in your field are thinking, and whether they are facing the same issues as you.

I would say that in general Community part of IxDF works like this. You can add questions and comments while taking a course, see what ideas other people are having, and get feedback on your own.

As well as the Community and comment areas of the IxDF site itself, it serves as a meeting point for setting up and joining UX Design groups in your area:

https://www.interaction-design.org/community

This takes things a step beyond the usual online course community, where a lot of relationships can be virtual and temporary. The IxDF community is an attempt to take things beyond the comment section, and to create a network of similar-minded contacts in the real world.

Users can also share their real world details on their IxDF profile page. If you want to hit me up, I’m here: www.interaction-design.org/members/daniel-linehan

Why did I sign up?

When I first signed up, I had recently completed a Diploma in UX and previous to that taken a couple of one-day Foundation level UX courses.

I wanted something that would fall somewhere between the two — substantial but not consuming my entire life.

Ideally, I was looking for something that was:
* Self-paced, so that I could fit it into my free time, rather it taking all of my free time
* Moderately priced
* Covering a broad variety of topics
* Allowing me to choose courses more advanced than Beginner level, but below Expert level

IxDF checked off all of the points above, and here I am still using it 2 years later.

My Review

The Basics

I’ve covered a lot of how the site works above, and I’m sure there is plenty of information at the links provide and around the web if you want more specific detail. Without getting into the specifics myself, I will say that you would know that this is a website designed by designers. And not just because of the look and feel, but because they use the human-centered design practices that they teach to make it easy to use, engaging and a satisfying experience.

One aspect I will mention that I like is that you can learn at a level above beginner but below full time designer. And that you can pick the skill level that you which to learn per topic. I also like the variety of learning topics, as courses I’ve seen elsewhere have tended to have a more narrow focus.

Will it help you get a job in design?

Well, I would hire you if I knew you were an active user on IxDF. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to hire you right now, but if you’re fortunate enough that the person looking to hire you is an IxDF user, it will definitely be a point in your favour.

IxDF certifications are industry recognised, and the courses are created some of the best people in the world in their fields, so outside of getting a full degree or diploma in design, this is the best you will get.

The courses will not magically turn you into a designer, but no course will. Instead, it will give you the resources you need to grow the skills you may already have, introduce you to new people and ideas, and allow you to pursue learning paths that you will not find elsewhere.

It will also not magically turn the company you work for into one that follows all of the UX and Design best practices that you learn on IxDF. While the mission of the IxDF is to improve the standards of human-centered design used in industry, the degree to which any organisation you work will adhere to their principles will vary greatly.

Which brings to me to my final appraisal of IxDF…

Why I like it

The reason I like IxDF is that it is the happy place for anyone with an interest in human-centered design. Other than the obvious financial incentive of having a job in design, the reason a lot of people aspire to such a job, is to be allowed to do a lot of the things you can do at IxDF.

You can be learn about cognition, psychology and habit forming to understand human needs and behaviour. You can learn design thinking an innovation techniques to solve user’s problems. You can study layout patterns, micro-interactions and colour to design the solution to problems and how agile development methods can be used to delivered them.

Other than being a learning resource, IxDF is the design hub that you can keep going back to. If there’s a design problem you need to solve or a resource you need. You can learn from your favourite design people and interact with similarly minded peers.

By actively using and contributing to IxDF, you are constantly reminded of the principles of good interaction design, and why you enjoy attempting to implement them. I would recommend to anyone of a similar mindset to sign up and take a look for themselves.