that want to get to senior and beyond faster
You got hired as a UX designer, but do you actually know how to shape the user experience?
Go beyond the tactical junior skills and learn the strategic senior skills that will help UX get a seat at the table in your company.
Work on real-world projects designed to take your company's UX practice to the next level. Build confidence with newfound capabilities in research & collaboration. Learn live through engaging workshops and build an international network of designers.
that want to get to senior and beyond faster
that want to learn how customer insights can create innovative products
that want to dive deeper into the why behind the visuals
Hi, I’m Jeff! I love designing learning experiences where people explore new concepts. I’ve worked as a UX, UI, and product designer at startups for over ten years. I helped thousands of UX/UI designers break into the design field in my time as Head of Design of CareerFoundry. This program is based on hundreds of conversations with mid-career designers, and it’s the program that I wish I would have had when I was early in my UX career.
Hi, I'm Hannah! I have been creating participatory learning experiences for over fifteen years. I began the first ten years of my career path as an artist and educator, then transitioned into brand and web design. I'm now combining my past two career paths to create learning experiences for designers in the middle of their careers.
A New Type of Online Course
Learn online in live workshops where you are a collaborator, not an audience member. The virtual class format is highly interactive where you will use collaborative tools like Miro, Notion, and Zoom.
Join an international group of mid-career designers from innovative companies all over the world. Explore advanced topics in a safe online community of like-minded designers that will grow with your career.
Work on an advanced design project inspired by real-world challenges at your current position and receive expert feedback from a lead-level designer and build an asset to ignite your next career move.
Kenji Kaneko
Transitioned into Product Design Consultant after course
Anja Lena Sack-Hauchwitz
Went from Junior UX to Product Designer after course
Chang Jiang
UX Designer in a new position at a larger company after course
Randy Barias
Designer working in more strategic projects after course
You will assess your design process and your organization's structure utilizing a lean journey map and stakeholder map methods to identify the internal levers that drive the user experience for your customers. This week will give you a big-picture lens to determine the bottlenecks in connecting your user needs to the product.
You will gain the background, skills, and frameworks to influence leadership as to why discovery is essential. You will use the UX Research Canvas to find time to get real customer insights even in fast-paced agile working environments. Gaining the research skills to make more effective products that anticipate customer needs rather than react to customer wants.
Learn how to analyze and synthesize research with collaborative data walls and the Advanced Affinity Mapping method. Discover the missing step of research and turn those piles of data into conquerable problems for your team.
Learn how a facilitator's mindset can help you elevate concerns with stakeholders before collaborative work. Gain the skills to confidently walk into any co-working session knowing you will leave with a plan to drive the product further.
Learn the Presentation Process to create goal-focused presentations and make your team finally “nod their heads and smile” in full understanding of your design process.
Operationalize what you've learned with a tangible pilot project that will give you an opportunity to make a real impact and make your next employee review a success celebration.
This course will have 2 live workshops a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 18:00-20:00 CEST. Outside of live classes assignments will take 2-5 additional hours a week.
We designed this course specifically for working designers with full-time jobs. The majority of the work for the course happens in the live classes so all you have to do is block those times off and show up ready to learn!
We strongly recommend you attend all of the live sessions. This course is designed to be experienced live. However, we understand that things can come up so we record all of the sessions for you to rewatch later.
The majority of our students have their companies pay for the course in whole or part. Use our guide on How to Convince a Design Manager to Pay for a Course to get started. If you have never asked for a professional development budget before, reach out and we can help: hello@thefountaininstitute.com
Rather than using hypothetical prompts, we encourage you to find opportunities at your company to work on in your course project. We spend the first week of class on uncovering a good course project so don't worry about that until class starts. If you want to see a few examples of past student projects, check out Saran's project or Chang's project.
For an overview of our policies, see our Terms & Conditions.
We teach methods that you won't find anywhere else like Advanced Affinity Mapping and Collaborative Data Walls. Check out our UX Research Canvas for a free sample of a course asset.
For a sneak peek into what it feels like to take this course, read some reviews of the course experience on our blog.