UX/UI Designer Bootcamp — Program
UX/UI Designer Bootcamp — Program
A paced, ~10-week program that turns the UX/UI path from a self-serve course into a bootcamp: it sequences the lessons (Topics 1–10), the capstone deliverables (real artifacts, AI-reviewed against rubrics), the interview drills, and career services into one journey with weekly milestones.
It's self-paced — the weeks are a recommended rhythm (roughly 5–8 focused hours each), not hard deadlines. Your capstone is a single thread: FreshCart, an online grocery-delivery startup losing 58% of first-time shoppers between browsing and checkout. You'll carry that one product through every deliverable — research → IA → wireframes → prototype → usability test → high-fidelity UI → portfolio case study — so by Week 10 you have the single artifact that matters most in design hiring: proof of how you think, from problem to tested solution.
Core program (Weeks 1–10)
| Week | Learn (topics) | Capstone deliverable | Interview practice | ~Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Topic 1 (What is UX/UI design?), Topic 2 (UX vs. UI vs. Product Designer) (+ general Core Tech Baseline alongside) | — | Behavioral: start drafting your STAR stories (behavioral D1) | 5 |
| 2 | Topic 3 (The design process and design thinking) | (set up your FreshCart capstone workspace) | Design Concepts drills (design-concepts D1–D2) | 5 |
| 3 | Topic 4 (User research basics) | D1 — Research & Personas Insight Report | Behavioral drills (behavioral D2–D3) | 7 |
| 4 | Topic 5 (Information architecture and user flows) | D2 — Information Architecture & User Flow Map | Design Concepts drills (design-concepts D3–D4) | 7 |
| 5 | Topic 6 (Wireframing and prototyping) | D3 — Wireframes & Clickable Prototype | Design Exercise drills (design-exercise D1–D2) | 8 |
| 6 | Topic 7 (Usability and testing) | D4 — Usability Test Plan & Findings | Mock-interview checkpoint #1 (behavioral + app-critique) | 7 |
| 7 | Topic 8 (Visual design fundamentals) | (revise D1–D4 from feedback) | App Critique drills (app-critique D1–D3) | 6 |
| 8 | Topic 9 (Design systems and Figma) | D5 — High-Fidelity UI & Mini Design System | App Critique (app-critique D4–D6) + Design Concepts (design-concepts D5–D6) | 8 |
| 9 | (no new topic — build the case study) | (draft D6 narrative; polish all artifacts) | Design Exercise drills (design-exercise D3–D6) | 7 |
| 10 | Topic 10 (Portfolio and landing the job) + general Employability & Job Hunting | D6 — Portfolio Case Study (weaves D1–D5 into one narrative) | Mock-interview checkpoint #2 (full mock: portfolio-walkthrough + design-exercise + all banks) + career services (below) | 8 |
By the end of Week 10 you have: the full curriculum learned (Topics 1–10), a 6-deliverable capstone case study for FreshCart, repeated interview practice across all five drill banks (portfolio-walkthrough, app-critique, design-exercise, design-concepts, behavioral), and your resume/LinkedIn ready.
How the deliverables sequence onto the topics
Each deliverable unlocks right after the topic that teaches it, so you always learn the concept and immediately do it on FreshCart:
- D1 — Research & Personas Insight Report → after Topic 4 (User research basics) · ~75 min
- D2 — Information Architecture & User Flow Map → after Topic 5 (IA and user flows) · ~70 min
- D3 — Wireframes & Clickable Prototype → after Topic 6 (Wireframing and prototyping) · ~120 min
- D4 — Usability Test Plan & Findings → after Topic 7 (Usability and testing) · ~90 min
- D5 — High-Fidelity UI & Mini Design System → after Topic 9 (Design systems and Figma) · ~130 min
- D6 — Portfolio Case Study → after Topic 10 (Portfolio and landing the job) · ~110 min
Note: Topic 8 (Visual design fundamentals) has no standalone deliverable — its craft (hierarchy, color, type, contrast) is what you apply when you build D5. Week 7 is deliberately a topic-only / revision week so the visual-design lens is fresh when you start high-fidelity UI.
Interview drills — the five banks
The program rehearses explaining your work across all five UX/UI interview banks:
portfolio-walkthrough— the single most important design interview: narrating your FreshCart capstone as a story (problem → research → process → solution → testing → outcome) and defending decisions out loud. Front-loaded into the Week 10 full mock.app-critique— critiquing a product against usability heuristics and visual-design principles (Topics 7–8 vocabulary). Practiced Weeks 6–8.design-exercise— the live whiteboard / take-home "design an app/flow for X" challenge: the design-thinking loop under time pressure. Practiced Weeks 5, 9–10.design-concepts— knowledge-check fluency on IA, flows, fidelity, heuristics, visual hierarchy, accessibility/contrast, components, and Figma workflow. Practiced Weeks 2, 4, 8.behavioral— STAR-structured questions on collaboration, receiving and acting on design critique, disagreeing with PMs/engineers, and reframing a non-design background as user empathy. Started Week 1, practiced Weeks 3, 6, 10.
Career services (lite)
Delivered mainly in Week 10, drawing on the general Employability & Job Hunting track (content/general, Topics 6–10 — planning your pivot, LinkedIn, networking, resumes, interviewing). These are self/AI-reviewed against rubrics (no human mentor required).
Resume review rubric
- Outcome-focused bullets — 1: duties only · 2: some results · 3: quantified outcomes ("cut checkout drop-off from 58% to X% in usability testing").
- Design vocabulary & relevance — 1: generic · 2: some design terms · 3: clearly reframed for UX/UI (research, IA, wireframes, prototyping, usability testing, design systems, Figma).
- Portfolio linked — 1: none · 2: mentioned · 3: case study linked and tailored to the role — the portfolio is the resume's proof.
- Clarity & format — 1: cluttered/typos · 2: clean · 3: crisp, one page, scannable in seconds.
Worked example — reframing a non-design bullet into a UX outcome
Most people on this path are pivoting, so your strongest material is often hiding in non-design jobs. The move is to surface the user problem you owned and the measured change — the same problem→tested-solution arc your FreshCart capstone is built on. Here's the same line of experience scored at each level, so you can see what the rubric is actually grading:
Raw bullet (level 1 — duties only, generic):
Managed a retail team at a grocery store; handled customer complaints and scheduling.
Halfway (level 2 — a result appears, but still no design vocabulary):
Managed a retail team and reduced customer complaints about long checkout lines.
UX-reframed (level 3 — quantified outcome + design vocabulary, tied to the portfolio):
Identified that 1 in 3 abandoned carts traced to a confusing checkout, then redesigned the flow as my FreshCart capstone — cut a critical-path usability-test failure rate from 58% to 12% across 6 moderated sessions. (Full case study linked.)
Why the rewrite scores a 3 on every resume criterion:
- Outcome-focused — leads with a measured change (58% → 12%), not a list of duties.
- Design vocabulary & relevance — names the artifacts a hiring manager scans for ("checkout flow," "usability-test failure rate," "moderated sessions") instead of retail-ops language.
- Portfolio linked — points straight at the FreshCart case study, so the bullet and the proof reinforce each other.
- Clarity & format — one tight line carrying problem → action → result, scannable in seconds.
The non-design origin isn't hidden — "retail team" becomes credible evidence that you've watched real users get stuck. Run each of your own bullets through this same level-1 → level-3 lift before you self-score the rubric above.
LinkedIn review rubric
- Headline signals target role — 1: old title only · 2: mentions design · 3: clear target + value ("UX/UI Designer | ex-[field] | research-driven product design").
- About tells the pivot story — 1: empty/generic · 2: present · 3: confident pivot story (where heading, what you bring, why, proof via the FreshCart case study).
- Skills & proof — 1: none · 2: some · 3: UX/UI skills listed (Figma, user research, prototyping, design systems) + portfolio/case study shown.
- Activity — 1: inactive · 2: occasional · 3: connecting/engaging in the design community.
Mock-interview checkpoints
Use the AI mock interview spec: Checkpoint #1 (Week 6) — behavioral + app-critique, once you have research/IA/wireframes done and can talk about real decisions; Checkpoint #2 (Week 10) — a full mock across all five banks, anchored on a portfolio-walkthrough of your finished FreshCart case study. Track which rubric criteria you repeatedly miss and focus there.
Salary-negotiation practice
A short drill: given a sample design-role offer, practice (1) asking for time to consider, (2) researching the market range for the level and location, (3) making one polite counter tied to your value (your tested, portfolio-ready case study), and (4) evaluating fit/growth — design maturity, mentorship, the kind of work — not just pay (Topic 10 + general Topic 10). The AI can role-play the recruiter and give feedback.
How it fits together
Lessons teach the concept → the matching capstone deliverable makes you do it on FreshCart (and the AI reviews it against the rubric) → interview drills rehearse explaining it → career services package it for the job hunt. That loop — learn, do, get feedback, present — is what makes this a bootcamp rather than a reading list. And because every deliverable feeds the same case study, the thing you build over ten weeks is the thing that gets you hired.