User Experience (UX) Fundamentals (Udemy.com)

A free, hour-long overview of what UX is, what UX professionals actually do, and what skills the job asks for. Susan Weinschenk, a psychologist who consults on product design, delivers seven lectures across three sections with four quizzes. There are no tools, no Figma, no prototypes, just principles, roles, process and the obstacles that get in the way. It suits people who are curious about the field and want to know what it is before committing to a longer course, or working designers who want a quick check of how their skills line up with what the job expects.

With about 76,000 students and more than 6,000 reviews, the rating sits at 4.5, and over 80 percent of ratings are four or five stars. Reviewers like how clearly the instructor explains the main points, and two students in HCI classes say it lines up well with what they are being taught. The complaints are consistent. Low-star reviews call it too general and too theoretical, with one German reviewer wanting to know what a UX designer's working day looks like rather than the instructor's take on terminology. One reviewer finds the quizzes poorly structured, and one never got a certificate, which is expected since the course does not offer one.

It's free, it was last updated in April 2020, and the ideas in it have not aged much, since there is no software to go stale. Compared with the Figma and Adobe XD courses it sits beside, this one teaches nothing hands-on. Treat it as a primer to watch over lunch before choosing a paid, tool-based course, not as training that gets anyone to a portfolio. For that purpose it does its job.