I believe it?s safe to say that most of the people who *know UX* agrees this is an organization focused and committed to produce top-grade open-source educational materials by the world?s design elite.
To back that statement, these are the people behind the executive board of Interaction Design Foundation:
The Executive Board oversees and guides the overall direction of the Foundation. The composition of the board reflects the mission of serving both industry and academia.
If you know a bit about design, chances are you already know who?s Don Norman. If you click in the ?view profile link? you?ll read more about them, who they are and what they do. Or, if in doubt, just Google.
What?s actually important about these people being in the executive board is the fact that they don?t put money in or get money out of it. They are there because they believe in the IDF mission.
Considering the costs and benefits the IDF is by far the best place to learn or get up to date about User Experience, Interaction Design and design principles.
When I started my membership I had little previous formal knowledge and I needed to build a solid foundation if I wanted to move further in the UX design world.
The courses
The IDF helped me achieve this and even more. The range of courses from beginner to advanced is crucial because it makes it suitable for the needs of either beginners or professionals.
I wanted to improve my product design skills as I was in a manager position, and it served the purpose just perfect.
I consider these UX design courses the best resource for anyone trying to either change careers or improve their skills.
I consider this the best place for beginners to start, as you?ll find courses like:
- Become a UX Designer from Scratch
- User Experience: The Beginner?s Guide
- Design Thinking: The Beginner?s Guide
For advanced users, there are courses on specific topics like: Affordances: Designing Intuitive User Interfaces or Psychology of Interaction Design: The Ultimate Guide.
You can also read short members reviews and in-depth reviews on the site, as well as Medium reviews and even a few reviews of the IDF on Quora.
You?ll also find the courses to be the perfect mix of text and video.
Captioned video lessons
The evaluation is done in multiple choice questions graded instantly and open-ended questions which are answered in full sentences or short paragraphs, graded by an instructor within 2 weeks.
There are mandatory and optional lessons you can do to practice more or even to build your portfolio.
The community and content
I can say the IDF has helped me a lot. The investment is worth because not only you get access to the structured courses, but also to a huge community of designers willing to help each other out.
There are discussion forums:
Community?s conversations on topics ranging from UX design concepts to resources, tools, and even jobs
And local groups who organize physical-real-world meet ups, which is great for networking. There are 455 IDF Local Groups in 92 countries all over the world.
There?s also a huge content library free to access for anybody aiming to learn about design The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction
Free textbooks written by more than 100 leading designers, bestselling authors, and Ivy League professors.
The price
The price you are going to pay is by far the best one compared to other online courses in the field:
As the IDF is a nonprofit design education movement, our whole mission is to lower the price of top-quality design education.
The membership is paid yearly, after enrolling you?ll be able to take any or all of the courses you want (you don?t have to pay anything else), you?ll receive a membership certificate and a completion certificate for any course you finish.
Your completion certificates can be downloaded and added to LinkedIn or anywhere you want.
Final thoughts
I?ve been a member for 1 year and during this time I?ve seen new courses being released and great improvements to the overall experience, like changes to the video player, new articles published daily and updates to the course content.
Another thing worth noting is how the IDF always listen to members in order to make things even better. On top of this, they provide incredible member support, with great response time, personally provided by Rikke Friis Dam, who happens to be one of the founders!
If you want to read more, check out 7 reasons to join the IDF.
*This is my review as a member of the IDF. After I started the courses I applied for a position in the team and got accepted (Yay!) If you want to know more about my experience as part of the team, our remote culture and the amazing team trips, let me know!
