Last month, the CcHUB Design Lab, a research and development lab innovating for social impact, launched the pilot of its UX Fundamentals course. This introductory course on the basics of user experience and product design is meant to help learners jump-start their design journey. The three-week hybrid course marked a major milestone in creating a community of skilled product designers ready to tackle tough challenges with a user-focused approach.
The UX Fundamentals course was all about helping budding designers, young professionals and design enthusiasts build their skills in product design. The course covered three main areas: Problem Discovery, User Research, and Interaction Design.
The course kicked off with Problem Discovery, where participants delved into Design Thinking and explored the principles of UX Design. In the second week, the focus shifted to User Research, tackling various research methods, including conducting user interviews and building user personas to understand users’ needs and preferences. The final week covered Interaction Design, exploring the basics of creating intuitive user interfaces, including elements of UX Design, user flows, information architecture, and wireframes. Throughout the course, the 24 participants engaged in collaborative sessions, sharing ideas and feedback, fostering a vibrant learning environment. By the end of the course, they had a solid foundation in UX design, ready to apply their newfound knowledge to projects.
“I am glad that I went through the most rigorous pathway towards user experience fundamentals and fortunately managed to make it to week three. It wasn’t neither easy nor hard, however it was a journey full of commitment and dedication to successfully build something of value at the end of the day!” – Felix KAGAJU (Participant)
The pilot of the UX Fundamentals course is just the beginning. The Design Lab envisions a series of programs and initiatives aimed at building the product community in Rwanda and beyond. “The UX course is one of the many initiatives we are driving at the Lab to empower passionate technologists in contributing to the growth of our ecosystem. We are excited to have set the ball rolling and our vision is to make the course better and greater in the coming months and years.- “ Kome Sideso (Lead Facilitator)
