PRODUCT DESIGN | A live online course with Senior Product Designer at Linkedin | ELVTR
LIVE ONLINE COURSE
ON CREATING
DIGITAL PRODUCTS
WITH IMPACT
Dates:
4 JAN - 15 FEB 2022
TUES & THURS
5 PM PST / 8 PM EST
Duration:
6 WEEKS

Digital Product Designers have the incredible opportunity to shape how millions of people interact and solve problems day-to-day.

Get equipped to be the Product Designer you want to be in this live course with Simone Ferraro, the talent behind digital products like LinkedIn Jobs and Skype.

PREPARE TO ACCELERATE

FULL-CYCLE

Each lesson takes you deep into one aspect of the digital product design process, from the very first analysis to the presentation of your final prototype. Learn how to build a repeatable product design process for ideating, prototyping, and testing solutions.

HANDS-ON

Get practical every week in demos, labs, and assignments. Simone won't just show you how to design amazing tech products, he'll put you to the test.

 
ABOUT THE COURSE
01
Technique

Step beyond the basics. Get trained in 11 project-workflow frameworks that Simone uses every day at LinkedIn, and build your own high-fidelity prototype.

02
Process

Get direct feedback on your work from a LinkedIn Product Lead. Simone will work with you in labs, assignments, and office hours to apply the principles behind great tech products, at every stage of design.

03
Portfolio

Develop your own product prototype from start to finish. You'll end the course with a portfolio piece showcasing your ability to transform user research into high-fidelity, interactive designs.

04
IMPACT

Elevate your earning potential. You'll come away from this course able to create more thoughtful, sophisticated solutions and excel in a field with an average salary of $104K.

Instructor
SIMONE
FERRARO
LinkedIn Profile
  • Senior Product Designer for LinkedIn Jobs
  • Reaches over 320 million users worldwide as a leader in digital product design
  • Designed anchoring video call UI and UX components for Android, Xbox, and desktop
  • Led design at Microsoft of a pilot product for first-line workers, supervising information architecture (IA) of communication capabilities
Simone Ferraro
SIMONE FERRARO
COURSE INTRODUCTION
SYLLABUS
01
TUE (1/4), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
Getting Started in Digital Product Design

The heart of product design is solving problems. This class dives right into one of the most fundamental aspects of that process: understanding the users that you try to help, and their problem.

  • Why a product design course?
  • Onboarding your users
  • User study and onboarding methods
  • Empathy and keeping a beginners' mindset

Assignment #01: Let’s kick off your product design process. Start by picking a product design project from the prepared list, or come up with your own. Analyze the problem and, if you can, observe how the problem unfolds in the user’s hands. The outcome of this phase should be a list of findings around your users that you’ll keep in mind during the entire process. Please explain which research methodology you employed, how many participants you had in your study, and their background.

more
02
THU (1/6), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
The Problem Statement

The problem statement is your North Star for the entire design project. This class breaks down how to distill the user problem into a strong problem statement that can serve as your foundation moving forward.

  • Why is the problem statement so important?
  • Characteristics of a good problem statement
  • Essential problems statement templates

Assignment #02: Now that you’ve identified who your users are and what their experience is, create a problem statement capable of aligning the entire team.

more
03
TUE (1/11), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
Design Principles

Once you have a handle on the problem, it’s time to define a set of principles that will serve as laws, guidelines, biases, and design considerations throughout the process. Simone will walk you through the different types of principles, from the universal all the way to product-specific principles.

  • Why we need principles in design
  • Different levels of design principles
  • Characteristics of good product design principles
  • Case study: Design principles in action

Assignment #03: Use your problem statement and what you know about your users to define 2-5 product principles that will guide your product. You’ll refer to these principles many times during the process to address feedback, help choose solutions, and to prioritize in development.

more
04
THU (1/13), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
Ideation

Now, for the fun part — coming up with the solution! Simone will go through what creativity is, how our brain works during creative activities, and his favorite techniques for facilitating a productive ideation session.

  • What is the ideation phase and why do we need it?
  • What is the ideal outcome of ideation?
  • Creativity and the brain
  • Simo's most effective ideation techniques

Assignment #04: Come up with as many possible solutions as you can in one sitting. List them out with the pros and cons of each one, what they focus on, and how they map to the problem. Go broad, challenge conventions. Then, identify the one in which you feel more confident, and explain why.

more
05
TUE (1/18), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
User Flows and User Journey

How will a user move through your product? In this class, you'll learn how to create a user flow and explore the "happy" and "non-happy" paths.

  • User journeys: Techniques for mapping out the visual trip across the solution
  • Separating user flow and user journey in your product
  • What's your user worst-case scenario?

Assignment #05: Create the user flow for a "happy path" of your product. Next, highlight where things could go wrong, aka the "non-happy" path.

Go Deeper: Create a user journey (optional).

more
06
THU (1/20), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
Lab #1: UI Components and Design Systems

In this class, you'll start to give a face to your product. Simone will teach you how to build your core user interface starting from the wireframe, and scale it up to a design system with reusable components and clear standards.

  • How to create and maintain your UI component library in Figma
  • UI standards and accessibility
  • 3 rules of working within existing design systems

Assignment #06: Design the UI components for your core screens in all their states and create a functioning Figma library.

more
07
TUE (1/25), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
UX Motion

Unlike in other design fields, motion in UX is not about delighting the user. Today, you will learn how to improve the experience of a product through the strategic use of motion.

  • Principles and best practices of UX motion
  • Motion with Figma
  • How to tell a compelling story through a prototype

Assignment #07: Look at your flow and identify where UX motion should be applied. Create the storyboard of what you would like to prototype.

more
08
THU (1/27), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
Lab #2: Prototyping

What are prototypes, and why do we need them? You'll get your hands dirty exploring the most common prototyping tools. Simone will demonstrate the fundamental techniques in class, which you will use to start creating a prototype (or prototypes) of the designs through the lens of UX motion.

  • What is a prototype
  • Why we need prototypes
  • How does it work
  • Prototyping tools
  • Demo: Prototyping in Figma

Assignment #08: Refer to your component library and flow to pick the core flows that you plan to develop into prototypes. Create at least one prototype in Figma. If you have time, create different versions with different values and properties of the same prototype.

more
09
TUE (2/1), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
Test and Validate

It’s time to put your hypothesis up to the test. Now that you have a high-fidelity design and prototype, the testing and validation phase will help you ensure that your hypothesis and design concept work as intended.

  • Elements and types of usability testing
  • Reflecting, assimilating, and reacting to the test findings
  • "I want a button here": How to interpret user feedback

Assignment #09: Identify what you would like to test and prepare a set of questions and tasks for the users to perform.

Go Deeper: Test your prototypes with 3-5 "users", using suggested tools (optional).

more
10
THU (2/3), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
Presenting Your Work

Getting your product presentation right is critical for buy-in from decision-makers (i.e., your project will be in trouble if you don't). Simone will teach you how to win over your audience and share his template for a product design deck.

  • What to prepare for feedback, questions, and critique
  • Tools, tips, and tricks to wow the audience
  • Case study: Structure and content of a product design pitch deck

Assignment #10: Prepare the structure of your deck and start identifying the key slides and the content needed. Decide at which point of the presentation you’ll show the prototypes (the heroes of your presentation).You’ll keep working on it until the last day of the course, so don't worry about perfection at this stage.

more
11
TUE (2/8), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
The Handover

All the work that you’ve done so far means nothing if the team that will build it (the engineering team) doesn’t have what they need to do their job effectively. In this class, Simone will show you how you can speed the entire production process — product, design, and engineering — by defining clear specs and milestones.

  • How (and why) to spec a design
  • Defining product milestones and keeping the end goal in sight
  • Bug bashes, feedback, and other quality assurance concerns

Assignment #11: Create the specs for one of your core designs so that a hypothetical development team would be able to pick them up and start building your product. Define the key features, flows, and screens for 3 hypothetical milestones.

more
12
THU (2/10), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
Workshop: Prototype Presentation + Feedback Session

You made it, you designed a product! This final class will simulate a presentation and feedback session as you would experience at a top company, with several students presenting their projects for critique.

more
+
 
Course Project: Your Product Pitch Deck

Over the past 6 weeks, you've outlined the why, what, and how of your product in each of the take-home applications. These will serve as the basis of a pitch deck that you'll build for this cumulative project.

 

Drawing on what you've learned about the presentation in Classes 11 and 12, choose the pieces of your design process that you feel will be most effective for communicating your product to stakeholders. Create your final pitch deck in a Google Slides presentation (10-12 slides max).

more
+
TUE (2/15), 5 PM PST/8 PM EST
Bonus Workshop: Advanced Prototyping with Adobe After Effects

This is your chance to walk through the process of creating high-fidelity video prototypes using Adobe After Effects. Simone will walk you through the key features of this software, share his tips and tricks, and demonstrate how to render a video prototype.

 
more

What our students say

Kevin Kwok NBCUniversal

"I find this course very practical. It's been helpful to learn about the design process from Simo, who has solid experience in the field. It's a fast-paced course that's packed with insights and information!"

Alessandra Cigna Hopin

"The information has been provided in an approachable manner, Simo clearly has amazing expertise, and I'm excited about the network this class has created amongst fellow students."

Carmen Rincon CleanChoice Energy

"Really great insights, and talking about real-world problems"

Cliff Ivey Jr

"I find the course structure really flexes it’s muscle well. It’s very simplistic on it’s guidance of ease through out the course. The available PDF format Class Slides & Class Resources are amazing gold nuggets I absolutely love about ELVTR!"

Andrew Dang Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company

"I love the hands-on insight Simo brings to the lectures and assignments - it is really refreshing and engaging to see/hear the thought process around each step of the design process!"

 
ENROLL
First name
This is required field!
Last name
This is required field!
Email
This is required field!
This is required field!
By registering and clicking “ENROLL”, you agree to our
Terms of Use, Privacy policy and Cookie Policy
ONE MOMENT...