Designlab Omdömen 27

I recently completed the DesignLab UX Bootcamp and overall, it was a great experience. Like many, I had hesitations about committing to a bootcamp due to the price and time investment, but DesignLab proved to be worth it. The lessons were comprehensive and covered everything from the basics to more advanced concepts, making it suitable for beginners and those with some prior knowledge. The career prep was a standout feature, providing practical guidance and resources to help with job applications and interviews. Additionally, the support from the community and the staff was incredibly helpful and encouraging throughout the course.

One area that could use improvement is the mentorship program. While my mentor was initially very supportive and provided valuable feedback, they became unresponsive towards the latter part of the bootcamp, which was disappointing.

Despite this, I feel well-prepared for a career in UX design thanks to the robust curriculum and resources provided by DesignLab. I would recommend this bootcamp to anyone looking to break into the field.

With my UX Academy Foundations course, I enjoyed how it was designed to advance my fledgling skills. Each unit built off of the previous one, and by the time I completed my final project, I felt like I was able to put everything I learned about together! My one gripe was that it was a bit annoying to try to find the specific piece of information you wanted to review, as the material was buried and the way to find them wasn't as intuitive as I would have liked. That was the only complaint I really had since everything else was super straightforward and intuitive, so even as somebody who isn't the best at creating things digitally, there was zero issues in producing my tasks!

Regarding the mentor assigned, I know it can be hit or miss. However, mine was super helpful, and I was able to immediately take what we'd discussed and apply that to my drafts; I always came away feeling incredibly grateful for his guidance, and his criticism was fair but polite. Sometimes he was a bit slow at getting back to me, but I understood that he was doing this on top of his own work. Having said that, the presence of a mentor to guide me was something highly appreciated!

With all that in mind, I'm very happy that I chose to take this course through Designlab! The staff was super responsive to any and all questions I had (which weren't many), and the material, while simple on the surface, provided enough of a challenge that I had plenty of motivation to keep on working. All in all I cannot recommend this course to anybody who's looking to get their feet in the door for UX/UI design!

I was set up with a mentor, who did not give me clear feedback and asked me one question in my assignments. I thought it was normal. Every session she did not have much to say, and I had to be the one bringing the questions. Thinking I was doing good, she approved my 10 hour design challenge with minimal feedback.

The admission team rejected my design and gave me some feedback. They also set me with a mentor for two sessions to redo the design. The new mentor gave me insightful feedback and prided himself on helping students. I did all the changes he advised and did the changes on the feedback. I resubmitted my design and it was rejected again. I reached out to the advisor, and he barely said anything and did not seem to care.

I reviewed the feedback, and new opinions were given, which were not in the original feedback. In addition, there was a lot of "I feel" phrases, which were just feelings and not facts. The admission team also suggested I take another course and pay for it.

On top of that the Foundation course was setting you up to fail. The lessons were short and no videos on the topics. The only videos were about Figma. They went over basic concepts and did not really help you understand these concepts, but they expect your design challenge to look like a professional. The course was a waste of time. I would feel UX design should of been taught first instead of UI.

This place seems to not help students. They just want your money and claim you do not need to be designer to pass.

Super profit driven and materials they provide were very disappointing.

I had a series of mentor problems and changes that I had NO control over or part in over the course of my enrollment at DesignLab. DesignLab let me down and I'm deeply hurt.

I was forced to change mentors 3 times!, 2 of them in the middle of a capstone project.

The first one was badly affected due to the change of styles between mentors. And then I had the same problem again with the second project!

I was not happy at all with my progress or the quality of my work, unfortunately.

I lost a lot of sessions thinking that a 30 mins session would count as a half session plus due to my pause I really needed help to improve and move forward faster to meet my already delayed deadline to graduate which I failed to meet my deadline because I had to change jobs and countries at the same time too!
I wasn't lazy or slacking or dragging things. I was still determined to finish the program, but they canceled my program and took away my remaining mentor's sessions.
they took away my mentor's sessions, and my career service and haven't even offered to partially refund me! I'm still stuck in the last project for almost a year with no guidance and still struggling to pay off a loan I had to take to be able to join that program.

I'm a UX professional and I used to mentor at DesignLab. Sorry, would-be UX designers, don’t believe the marketing hype, UX bootcamps won’t do it for most of you. I wrote an article about this and I encourage you to read it. Search for "The UX bootcamp model is broken" on Medium.

The bottom line for students is, don't get your hopes up. This bootcamp will NOT prepare you for a real-world job, despite the marketing hype. Don't fall for it.

They do an exceptional job of over-promising. However, the proof is in the pudding and the numbers aren’t pretty. They’re massively underdelivering. Fudging track-record numbers, they tend to prey on unsuspecting UX students by wrapping their offerings in honey-dipped, virtue-laden marketing ballyhoo, like “future-proofing your career,” and how their “graduates have been hired by the biggest names in tech.” Don't believe it.

No one should have any delusions about the fact that these bootcamps are in it for the money. Many of these bootcamps are for-profit, ed-tech startups financed by venture capitalists who demand profits before anything else. When we look past the virtue-signaling, noble-sounding slogans, DesignLab doesn’t care much if a graduate actually lands a job or not. It’s all about profit.

Mentor quality has also dropped. In recent years most highly skilled UX mentors with deep industry experience have quit UX bootcamps in large numbers.

UX bootcamps delude students into thinking they’re going to walk into a job shortly after graduation. In reality, anecdotal evidence from UX mentors says only 30–50% of graduates are proficient enough to get an entry-level job. Many struggle for years to find jobs in UX largely because they lack the “job-ready skills employers are looking for.”

Myth, legend, and razzle-dazzle all rolled into one, many of these UX bootcamps splash “build a stellar portfolio curated from hands-on projects with clients” on their pages — yet, no one has actually seen one. Truth be told, most graduate portfolios harm students because they’re teeming with “UX-bootcampy” case studies that don’t demonstrate the ability to solve real-world UX challenges. Hiring managers and design managers are not impressed by UX deliverables piled into a jumble of case studies.

All in all, I do not recommend UX students spend their money on these bootcamps.