I'm a graphic designer who was looking to brush up my (severely outdated) UI knowledge because of some upcoming projects. I picked this course (as well as a similar one on another platform) as the starting point. Sadly, I didn't find this course very useful even as that. Unfortunately, I also have a background in learning design, so I have a few more in-depth criticisms.
Content:
Overall, the content presented covered some very low level academic fundamentals and definitions, but contained very little practical knowledge or advice. It could have been further condensed down as well and successfully summarized on maybe 2 written pages, which does not reflect well on the value of the certificate.
A big emphasis is put on how important it is to understand the user's problems and define the use cases. However, in reality, this is the product manager's / product owner's job. As a UI designer, I have to decide HOW to present the solutions to the user, not define what these solutions are. In reality, an individual CAN of course inhibit both the role of the UI designer AND the product owner, but that is in no way a given. As a UI designer who is not the product manager, I'm hardly the one who decides to run a focus group.
I asked myself, if the course is not for me, then who is it for? And I think I would have gotten something out of it if this was my very first exposure to anything vaguely design- or technology related - let's say high school, grade 9 or 10. (Example 1: I was just given the definition of "brainstorming". Example 2: I learned that I can cut a sheet of paper into 6 pieces to make my own index cards.) For anybody who has worked in the industry in any capacity before, I would not recommend the course.
Presentation:
The writing style does not fit the medium: The text works well in written form but it completely unsuitable for a video presentation. It was very obvious that the presenter read out "textbook-style" text. It is just as jarring to view/listen to as it would be jarring to read a text that was a transcript of an actual conversation.
If you stick to reading the transcript further down the page instead of watching the video, no part of the text is structured or highlighted to replace the slides.
The slides remain too high-level and don't visualize some of the most important information. (If a piece of information is so important that the presenter repeats it 3+ times, it has every reason to be written out in bullet-point form.)
Graphics (as well as fonts and layout) look outdated, with the typical "I threw this together with PowerPoint shapes as quickly as possible" look. I don't usually harp on about these points and wouldn't have brought this up if this course was about anything OTHER than design. But in a course about user interface design it struck me as really weird how much the material apparently wasn't... at all designed (let alone designed with the user in mind).
Then there were more, smaller issues, such as inconsistent capitalization and copy/paste blunders in the quizzes.
I felt sorry for the professor, as she seemed very uncomfortable on camera.
Seemingly no effort was made the edit out the occasional stumble, stutter or duplicate sentence.
Lastly, I don't understand how a six-minute video and a five-minute quiz equate to 1-2 hours of learning for the week (even taking into consideration a quick sketching exercise). The recommended reading section with its external resources hardly counts towards this course's content.
Sorry for the harsh review, but with the quality, depth and production value of free content on youTube these days, I don't think this course can compete even as a freebie. I wouldn't pay tuition for similar courses.