Designer Doer
Updated: Mar 22, 2022
This chart is based on my experiences mentoring and teaching, as well as talking to others who have been through these programs, plus reviewing portfolios. Last updated December 3rd, 2020.
Note, number of projects does not necessarily mean portfolio projects.
So, you're looking to transition into the field of UX Design. It's a big step. You decide a bootcamp is the way to go. Sure, you can go...
Springboard has a free course you can go through the content yourself, https://www.springboard.com/workshops/ux-design/learn#/curriculum/...
Also, are you familiar with Tradecraft at all? I know it's in person, but, an interesting option.
Hi Julia. Thank you so much for creating such great resources! They've been incredibly helpful for me as I evaluate potential online UX bootcamps. One question I had was in relation to mentoring. Quality of mentoring is probably my biggest concern, as the online learning platform is challenging for me. Any thoughts on mentor quality between Flatiron, CF DesignLab? Reviews are pretty all over the place... I also noticed some programs offer "client projects". How heavily do you think I should weight that? I would think having a client project would be great experience, and be more unique than a brief. Thoughts?
There is no right time. See how your current job goes and then when you're comfortable, start studying UX on the side. A lot of online programs have part time options.
Thank you so much for your response! I am very much dedicated to UX design and want to pursue it in my career. I did an internship with the HCI group at Stanford two years ago, but didn’t get a chance to learn more about UX and really immerse myself in it while I was doing my notoriously time consuming double major in college. I decided to go into this other consulting/software engineering role, for now, mostly to start making money and to see if I can pivot into it without doing a costly full time program. But I have the same concern of - if not now, when? especially because I already know how much I want to purs…
I answer a lot of these questions over at the UX Mastery forum. https://community.uxmastery.com/t/ux-boot-camps-bloc-vs-designlab-vs-springboard-vs-careerfoundry/6434/225
Hearing your story, I would be concerned that you are unfocused in your career.
Flatiron is great (I work there), but you need to really commit. You might want to try CareerFoundry's part-time online course to see if you like it first.