When you immerse yourself in the context of the user, you can uncover pain points and find opportunities for improvement or innovation not always evident to your audience. In this course, part of the Design Thinking MicroMasters program, you will learn how to use simple research methodologies including active listening to understand your target audience and uncover their obvious or latent needs. Emphasis will be placed on observation and interviewing as key methods to gain empathy for the user’s experience and viewpoint. Equipped with this understanding, you will be prepared to identify and define more accurately the business problem. You will also review case studies and discuss strategies to foster productive client-stakeholder relationships, including user personification, context understanding, and empathy idea mapping (ideas that resonate with your target audience).
An excellent online course offered by edX: how it works
edX courses consist of weekly learning sequences. Each learning sequence is composed of short videos interspersed with interactive learning exercises, where students can immediately practise the concepts from the videos. The courses often include tutorial videos that are similar to small on-campus discussion groups, an online textbook, and an online discussion forum where students can post and review questions and comments to each other and teaching assistants. Where applicable, online laboratories are incorporated into the course.
edX offers certificates of successful completion and some courses are credit-eligible. Whether or not a college or university offers credit for an online course is within the sole discretion of the school. edX offers a variety of ways to take courses, including verified courses where students have the option to audit the course (no cost) or to work toward an edX Verified Certificate (fees vary by course). edX also offers XSeries Certificates for completion of a bundled set of two to seven verified courses in a single subject (cost varies depending on the courses).
An edX learning programme under Other Experiences