An intensive mentoring program designed for people wanting to sidestep or switch into a UX career.

  • Learn the UX foundations including methods and principles widely used

  • 10 courses totalling 10 hours of video lessons. Learn the UX fundamentals including methods, principles and tools widely used within the industry. Access our library of 30+ downloadable UX templates that every UX designer needs.
  • Gain experience working on up to 3 real client projects for your portfolio
  • We’ll give you everything you need including UX tools, templates and methods so you can complete an end-to-end real client project to build your portfolio and get a UX job.

    You have the option to complete up to 2 more client projects (3 in total) over 12 months at no extra cost.

  • One-on-one mentoring with your very own personal UX coach
  • Over 10 one-on-one sessions at a time that suits you, you will meet with your senior UX coach with 15+ years’ UX experience. They will review all your project work and provide important feedback to ensure you are on the right track.
  • Learn how to create a UX portfolio and CV to land the UX job you want
  • Access video lessons focusing specifically on portfolio building to help you understand tools and important content to include. We will review your portfolio and CV to make sure you stand out from the crowd when applying for UX jobs.
  • Career advice, internships & job guarantee
  • We will tell you how to access the hidden job market and connect you with the industry. Limited internships with PeakXD are also available for our top graduates. We guarantee you will get a UX job within 6 months (T&Cs apply). 

  • Online UX community
  • Access support, network with others and share ideas, challenges, and successes in a safe online environment and learn from our UX coaches, students and alumni.

  • UX Accelerator Program $4,637 USD or $6,470 AUD

Course outline

Each week you will watch the video lessons, then complete the associated activity to apply your learning.

View the detailed syllabus in our course guide.

  • Video lessons:
    1. What UX & user centred design is and is not
    2. Benefits of human centred design & introduction to ISO 9241
    3. ISO 9241 and Usability vs User Experience (UX)
    4. Kicking off a project - Get in early!
    5. Understanding business needs - It's not all about the user
    6. Discovery - Defining your users and the problem space
  • Activity 1 - Project kickoff
    • Part A - Kick-off the real client project
    • Part B - Evaluate the current state of the site and identify suspected problem areas
    • Part C - Identify likely target user groups
  • Video lessons:
    1. Discount (low cost) user research methods
    2. Behavioural research methods (contextual interviews, contextual enquiries and task analysis)
    3. Opinion-based research methods (focus groups and surveys)
    4. Comparing research methods (opinion vs behavioural / quantitative vs qualitative)
    5. How to be a better researcher - Tips and traps to ensure you get accurate insights
  • Activity 2 - Research plan & user interviews
    • Part A - Craft a research plan with research objectives and methods for each user group.
    • Part B - Conduct a user interview and collate your findings
  • Video lessons:
    1. Interpreting research data and sharing insights
    2. Creating personas to build empathy
    3. Writing user stories to effectively communicate user needs
    4. Customer journey mapping to understand the whole customer experience
  • Activity 3 - Create user research artifacts
    • Part A - Create a persona for your client project
    • Part B - Write 5 user stories
    • Part C - Create a Customer Journey Map
  • Video lessons:
    1. Running a co-design workshop to engage stakeholders
    2. Home page design principles
    3. Dashboard design principles
    4. Sketching, prototyping and validated learning
    5. Engaging and convincing stakeholders
  • Activity 4 - Sketching & low fidelity wireframing
    • Part A - Sketch a new version of a high-profile page on your clients website. Make sure you consider both the business objectives, and the insights from the user interviews
    • Part B - Create a digital low fidelity wireframe
  • Video lessons:
    1. Menu navigation design for different interfaces
    2. Classifying and organising information and schemas
    3. The psychology of navigation
    4. Conducting card sorting to understand users’ mental models
    5. Analysing card sort results and facilitating an IA design workshop
    6. Testing your IA
  • Activity 5 - Card sorting & IA design
    • Part A - Write some cards for a card sorting activity
    • Part B - Analyse the card sort results
    • Part C - Design a new site information architecture considering user-centered design
  • Video lessons:
    1. Interaction design patterns
    2. Forms design and choosing controls
    3. Simplifying data and reducing choice overload
    4. Models in design - Implementation models, mental models and conceptual models
    5. User flows and wireflows
  • Activity 6 - Form review and redesign
    • Part A - Review a form and identify usability issues based on interaction design principles
    • Part B - Redesign the form - sketching first, then create a digital wireframe
  • Video lessons:
    1. Gestalt theory – Principles of human perception
    2. Design principles – hierarchy, alignment, repetition, balance & contrast
    3. Visual elements – colour, typography & iconography
    4. Human cognition & UI design
    5. Information design
    6. Visual design process: From wireframe to visual design
    7. Bonus: Tour of Figma for UX Designers
  • Activity 7 - High fidelity wireframes
    • Create a higher fidelity version of your sketch or wireframe
  • Video lessons:
    1. Standards and guidelines that UX practitioners follow
    2. 10 usability heuristics
    3. Accessibility testing and audits
    4. Different kinds of usability evaluation
  • Activity 8 - Expert review
    • Conduct an expert review based on the usability heuristics and identify at least 10 issues and write recommendations
  • Video lessons:
    1. Key steps for usability testing
    2. Writing a usability test plan
    3. Writing tasks for testing, recruiting participants and running a pilot
    4. Moderating test sessions
    5. Analysing and communicating results
    6. The what, when and how of usability testing
    7. Usability testing technologies
  • Activity 9 - Usability testing
    • Part A - Write a test plan
    • Part B - Recruit a participant via the Askable Platform (negotiated for free as part of the course)
    • Part C - Moderate usability and IA testing
    • Part D - Identify issues with your designs and consider solutions
  • Video lessons:
    1. Going live & managing change
    2. Continuous improvement & evolution
    3. Integrating UX into your organisation
    4. Agile UX
    5. Lean UX
    6. Design Sprints
  • Activity 10 - Iterate, Present & UX Portfolio
    • Part A - Update your wireframe after testing
    • Part B - Collate your findings for your client and present
    • Part C - Create your UX portfolio
  • Portfolio client projects

    You will work on one end-to-end real client project and get feedback on your work to include in your UX portfolio.

    Once you have been taught the ropes, you have the option to complete up to 2 more client projects (3 in total) over a 12-month period to boost your UX Portfolio at no additional cost.

    We have teamed up with Greenpeace so you can apply what you learn to a real project. Greenpeace is a charity that exposes global environmental problems and promotes solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.

    As part of this project you will:

    • Plan, conduct, analyse & synthesise robust user research.
    • Create personas, user stories and customer journey maps based on research data.
    • Design a new information architecture (IA).
    • Design high-fidelity wireframes for high profile pages
    • Interaction design - redesign an existing form
    • Conduct usability testing & iterate your designs

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    Your Training Team

    Mentors with 15+ years experience

    UX Job Advice & Guarantee

    Review your CV and UX Portfolio

    At the completion of the UX Accelerator program, we will review your portfolio and CV and provide feedback. Access the 'Job ready' course with video lessons, examples and guildes for creating a UX portfolio that will make you stand out and showcase your skills.

    Job finding help & guarantee

    We work with you and guide you through the process of landing an internship or UX job within 6 months. We will help you connect with industry and access the hidden job market. Talk to us to find out more about the job guarantee.

    Internships to build experience

    As well as trainers, we are also a UX consulting agency. We have limited short-term internships available to our top-performing graduates, regardless of where they are located. Talk to your coach if you're interested in being involved.

    609

    Finished client projects

    3,259

    Students trained

    19

    Years of running UX courses

    216,541

    Post-it notes (and counting)

    Requirements

    Entry requirements

    • The attributes of a good UX designer (take our UX Career quiz).
    • A willingness to collaboratively learn and accept feedback to improve.
    • To commit to the program and your success.
    • Useful (but not essential): experience or training in digital, IT, design, research, marketing, psychology or a related field.

    Once you start you need

    • Computer (Mac or Windows)
    • Decide on your pace (Fast: 3 months ~10 hours per week, or Standard: 6 months ~ 5 hours per week)
    • Reasonable internet bandwidth (to attend coaching calls and watch videos)
    • Access to a microphone and camera for your coaching calls

    You do not need

    • The ability to code.
    • Visual design skills.
    • To buy any specialist software.
    • To give up your current job - you can maintain your current job and income.
    • To leave home. We will teach you remote UX tools and methods.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    While it is definitely advantageous to have experience or qualifications in either IT, digital, market research, psychology, social research or marketing, it is not essential but you will need to spend a few more hours a week on the program. In fact, two of our top students switched careers from being a physiotherapist and a finance officer and both now have successful UX jobs working for a large Australian bank and a UX agency respectively. We will teach you all the foundations of UX to start your career. 

    As soon as your payment has been made you will receive your login and then you can commence your onboarding training and course 1.

    If you want to start immediately before the next intake then we will try to accommodate you. This will be dependent on our current student numbers as we have strictly limited student numbers to ensure we give everyone the time they need.
     

    You can pay by invoice or by credit card. If you want to pay by invoice or bank transfer please contact us. We also have payment plans available.

    Payment plan

    For our UX Accelerator course, you can choose to pay for the course over 4 instalments with the first instalment payable when you register. Subsequent payments will be automatically charged every 21 days until complete. Alternatively, you may prefer to pay a discounted price available if you pay up-front in full.  

    At the end of our UX Accelerator program, we will work with you to guide you through the process of landing an internship or UX job within 6 months. We will review your resume and portfolio and help you connect with industry employers and recruiters through our networks.  We also offer qualifying students internships in our UX consulting company to give you more experience.  As long as you follow the steps we suggest if you don't find a role within 6 months you can claim your job guarantee. Read full details and conditions.

    All UX project activities, learning and coaching calls are done remotely. It is the new way we do things in UX at the moment anyway. We will schedule your 1 on 1 coaching calls at a time that suits you. With flexible ways to cancel and rebook if life gets busy.

    The UX Accelerator program is estimated to take between 100 and 150 hours. You can choose your pace, Fast - over 3 months (8-15 hours a week) or Standard - over 6 months (8-15 hours over two weeks). The most popular option is 3 months.

    There are 10 courses to complete, each with 6-8 lessons containing videos, activities to complete for your client project, and 10 on-on-one coaching calls with your coach.

    You will have 6 months to complete the coaching calls, and access to the portal for a total of 12 months to complete other projects if you choose to do more than one.

    The flexibile learning style of this program means you can complete the majority of the course in your own time.

    If you put extra effort in your project this will reflect in your portfolio.

    The one-on-one coaching calls are scheduled with you during the onboarding process.

    Yes for the UX Accelerator! But it does have conditions. We offer a money-back guarantee, if in the first 30 days after you get access to the course materials, and after you have tried the program - if for any reason you don’t want to continue with the course - then contact us and we will refund you.

    This request must come in writing as an email to our [email protected] within 30 days, and you need to have attended at least 1 live coaching call and completed the first 2 activities. After this, we will assume, you’re getting great value.

    All refunds paid in USD are processed at the equivalent of the average USD/AUD spot rate of the day when the purchase was made. Clients requesting a refund pay any associated bank fees.

    We made this course with the goal to empower you to improve the world through human-centred design. It is our goal to produce a product that will help you achieve this. We believe we have created a valuable product that will help you learn the tools, methodologies and techniques of user centred design.

    Note: we do not guarantee that you will automatically pass the exam after this program. To maintain the integrity of the certification it is only awarded to those who have achieved a pass in the exam and this is regulated by a third party. We give you a practice exam and answer sheet which should prepare you for the exam. The quality of our training is assessed by BCS and we must maintain a high pass rate to maintain our accreditation. 

    Stand out from other UX course graduates: We provide training to get you industry recognised certification offered by an external industry association. It's a stamp of excellence: Certification tells your employer and your colleagues that you've got a higher standard of knowledge and expertise. It'll help your career progression: Whether you want to 'side step into a UX Career from another profession', 'win the contract' or 'move up in your organisation', having a Foundation Certification in User Experience will boost your chances of success. Earn more money: Who doesn't want more money? Certification demonstrates that you're committed to your profession and you're willing to invest in your future. Employers will see your value, and you can use this to justify a promotion or pay increase. Future-proof yourself: One of the biggest benefits of certification is the study and time you put in to your own personal learning. The certificate at the end is also a bonus, but the time you put in will keep you current.

    You can sit the exam at any point in the 6 months after you complete the program. We will provide you with instructions to book the exam at an approved examination centre. 

    There are currently 5,000 approved examination centres in 175 countries. You can search for your city to see where your nearest test centre is.  

    We have seen job ads from competitors for coaches asking for as little as 2 years UX experience! At PeakXD, we don't hire or contract junior coaches who have little experience or experience in one area only such as UI design. Our promise to you is that you will be allocated a coach with at least 15 years UX experience who has a solid understanding of the whole end-to-end UX process. All of our UX coaches have worked on at least 100 UX projects in their career for private sector and government and have a wealth of experience to share with you.

    We have a very high success rate and can honestly say that the majority of our graduates are working in UX roles in some capacity. We just looked up our last 21 graduates on LinkedIn and these are the roles they are currently employed in: 3 UX Designers, 3 Product designers for SaaS companies, 2 UX/UI designers, App founder, CX Designer, Customer service rep, Design/UX researcher, Digital design lead, Experience Design Architect, Junior UX designer, Product manager, Project Director Digital Experience, Senior Graphic Designer, Senior UX Designer, Software engineer and Service designer.

    Fees and finance options

    • Money-back guarantee

    • We are so confident you will love the UX Accelerator that if in the first 30 days after you get access to the course you don't get huge value then contact us and we will refund you. Conditions apply.

    Hear from our graduates

    Next steps

      Do you ever feel...?

    • Frustrated that no-one cares about users?

    • ​That you want to fix problems for customers but don't know how?

    • ​Isolated - that no one is listening?

    • Like an imposter? That you're not qualified to talk about the user?

    Access our free 6-part course to find out more about a career in UX.

    Find out if a UX career is right for you