Cohort 3

Level up your technical literacy to become a better communicator, collaborator, and designer without learning to code.

Nick Basile

Product designer & developer

Thinking like a developer for designers

Learning to code takes months/years of sustained effort, bootcamps &amp; courses that accelerate this process cost $$$, and the time we spend here is time not spent improving our core design skills. Now, it's clear why we still do it – understanding technology helps us communicate &amp; collaborate with developers, which is essential because our designs are always at least one degree removed from end users. Think about it – no matter how user-friendly or documented or beautiful our designs are, they're ultimately implemented by a developer before they reach a user. So, our ability to improve a user experience is directly throttled by our communications &amp; interactions with developers. Clearly, there's tremendous ROI from getting better at technology, but we don't have to waste our efforts learning skills and syntax we'll never use. Instead, we can get the majority of the benefits by just understanding the technology behind the products we design, i.e. developing our technical literacy. In doing so, we can refine our ability to think critically about the tech that powers our designs, vastly broaden our career horizons, and amplify our impact on product strategy. If you're ready to level up your technical literacy, we'd love to see you in class 👋

Skip learning to code, enjoy the benefits of technical literacy instead.

You want to understand and participate in technical discussions.

You want to grow your design career by working directly with developers.

You want to improve your digital design skills and create practical solutions.

This course is for you if...

What will we be doing?

Frontend, backend, APIs, CRUD – we'll explain all those technical terms you keep hearing but have never really been taught so you can clearly and precisely communicate with developers.

Developing our technical vocabularies

How exactly does the internet work, and why does a designer need to know that? We'll be covering all of the fundamental concepts you need to know, in just enough detail, to understand how technology works today.

Deep diving technical concepts

Did you know data has a lifecycle? Most designers don't because it's never taught to us! We'll explore beyond vocab and concepts to understand how technology shapes the solutions we can offer users.

Building useful mental models for how tech works

Building on our solid foundation, we'll tie everything together and learn how to better collaborate with developers so you'll have the skills to catapult your design career forward.

Exploring tools & techniques for better collaboration

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

Course syllabus

What people are saying

Meet Nick, get the lay of the land, make some new friends – it's going to be a blast.

Orientation

Get answers to your burning questions, feedback on work in progress, and maybe even some help with that spotty internet.

*Live* Tech Support Q&As

Learn at your preferred pace with our video lessons.

Self-paced Lessons

Life's busy enough, so we're not going to give you a mountain of homework. Instead, practice on your own terms with our stretch exercises.

Stretch Exercises

Course schedule

Who's teaching this course?

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

Active hands-on learning

You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

Interactive and project-based

Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you

Course completed by

About this course

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