IxDF - Interaction Design FoundationReviews 83

I recently signed up using their Black Friday offer, saving me 25% on an annual membership:-) At this point, I have started taking the Information Visualization and User Research courses. Even though I only have time after I get back from work and during commute, I have still progressed in my learning. I had hoped that there would be more video content and not as much written content, but I was told by their supporters that additional video is being added to courses as we speak. With any luck, I will be getting my certificates within a couple of months. Looking forward to showing these to my boss and colleagues once I have completed the courses.

I joined for the full year membership thinking I would be taking courses specifically in UX Design. That was not the case. I have a bachelors degree in digital design. The courses offered covered material that every designer learns, not anything specifically to UX design. In fact, all it took was one trip to Barnes and Noble to find numerous books, from numerous authors, and numerous publishers, on UX design that contained information very different from what the courses at IDF offer. The site is great if you want to become a designer in general, (graphic designer, production designer, visual designer, etc.) but does nothing to prepare you to delve into UX design itself. It also is not self-paced has advertised. You have to wait week after week to progress through the courses just like you would in a college classroom, each one taking 4 to 6 weeks. Inside the courses themselves, I found myself routinely answering the same essay questions over and over again. In other words, they would ask the same question a different way several times. Which is fine if you are doing multiple choice, but these were essay questions. So it was infuriating to have to write the same essay question answer over and over again. And the "certification" is through LinkedIn... NOT an academic institution. Its in the fine print after you sign up. LinkedIn.com is a website... NOT a school, college, or institution. The only place this certification is accredited for is LinkedIn's website. That is clearly not what people are lead to believe when signing up. In other words, this is NOT accredited by any means.