 Is the Google UX Design Certificate actually worth it? That's what we're going to be talking about in this video. First, there'll be an overview of the course. Then we'll talk about the time to completion of the course. Then we'll talk about the cost. We'll talk about the demand for the careers you might go into. We'll talk about the salary for the careers you might go into. Then the production value of the course. Then the certificates chances of landing you a job. Then the overall value of the course. And finally, I will be ranking all of those from 1 to 10 and giving you a final score as well as my thoughts on whether the certificate is worth it or not for you. So if you appreciate me doing these types of videos where I review different online educational products, go ahead, gently tap that like button and let's jump into it right now. All right, so if you'd like to see the certificate itself, you can click the link. I'll put it down in the description as well as the pinned comment below. But right at the top, if you click that link, you're going to see this is your path to a career in UX Design. In this program, you'll learn in-demand skills that will have you job ready in less than six months, no degree or experience required. So those are some very bold claims from Google. And this certificate, by the way, is hosted on Coursera. So Google first came out with these professional certificates or career certificates in response to the fact that they were having trouble filling certain positions. There are certain positions out there where the skills that they needed people to have just about nobody had them. And the main reason for that is because college was not teaching these people the skills. And so they basically decided to fill that gap in the market and come out with these professional certificates. And they did it in an extremely affordable way as well because all it costs for you to access this is about $39 a month. So if you look at other alternatives for getting into these high-demand careers, which are typically going to be college or a boot camp, college costs about $100,000, boot camps tend to cost around $10,000 sometimes even more. So $39 a month with a seven-day free trial, that's pretty good. Also, they say right on the website that the certificates are $39 a month in the US, but in other countries, they might actually be more affordable. And that would make sense because $39 a month might be a lot to somebody in India, for instance. So you can click on the link below and it'll tell you exactly how much it is depending on where you are because it is geolocated. Also, Google apparently does not generate any revenue from the Google career certificates. I'm not surprised to hear that. A lot of Google's products are completely free. I mean, I can't tell you how many Google products I use that they don't charge me for. Of course, they probably figure out how to make money on the back end because I do end up buying other Google products and who knows what's going to happen in the future. Now, since Google established this certificate system a few years ago, it has been acknowledged by many in the industry as being legit. And that was kind of the problem when this came out a few years ago is it did look great in theory, but the big question was, is it going to move the needle when you put it on your resume or your LinkedIn profile? Right, our business owners, hiring managers, recruiters, et cetera, going to respect the certificate. And we'll get into that a little bit later on in the video. So there's actually going to be seven total courses if you take this certificate. And the first one is going to be foundations of user experience. That's what UX stands for and design. Then course number two is going to be start the UX design process, empathize, define, and ideate. Number three is going to be build wireframes and low fidelity prototypes. Number four is going to be conduct UX research and test early concepts. Number five is going to be create high fidelity designs and prototypes in Figma. Number six is going to be responsive web design in Adobe XD. And number seven is going to be design a user experience for social good and prepare for jobs. And as you can see, all of these courses are rated either 4.8 or 4.9 stars out of five, which is excellent. Now let's go ahead and talk about the time to completion. So according to Coursera, this is going to take about six months to complete. And it's also 100% self-paced and online. That means you can take it anytime you want. You don't have to log in at certain times. You can take it in the morning, take it at night, take it during your lunch break, et cetera. Now, although they say it's going to take six months, most of the self-reporting indicates that you can do it quite a bit faster than that. So for instance, this person said, thanks for the review of the Google UX design. Your positive review is helpful for me to decide whether I should take it or not. Was a little bit hesitant that this seven courses may take a longer time. Not bragging about myself, I was able to finish all seven courses in 44 days, mostly due to my background in this field. I'm just trying to encourage others, experience ones to give it a try as well. Don't hesitate about how long the course is. It took me quite a bit of time to finish it and I enjoyed the last one a lot. It's a recap of five and six course but allows us to design our own unique project. So this person already had experience in UX design and they were able to finish it in about a month and a half. Now, if you compare this to UX boot camps, would you're typically going to take two to 10 months or a college degree, which is going to take four to five years, actually 5.1 years on average. That's pretty good. And I would say for this one, for a normal person, if you take it seriously, if you're not too busy, you can probably finish it in about two to three months. So overall, when it comes to the time to completion, I'm going to give this one a nine out of 10. Next one on the list is going to be the cost. So again, we're going to compare this one to the other educational opportunities, which are college and boot camps. College costs about 80 to $100,000. Boot camps tend to cost $10,000 or more. So as I mentioned before, in the United States, this certificate costs about $39 a month. And if you're able to finish it in three months, that's about $120. But even if it takes you six months to complete it, that would still be only $234. So much cheaper than a boot camp, much cheaper than college. So yeah, when you compare this to just about any other form of getting educated in order to land a job, this is incredibly affordable. Now that doesn't necessarily mean it's as good as the other two options, which we're going to get into a little bit later in the video. So this person, for instance, they talk about how they are taking the course for free because their government subsidizes further development, which is really cool. Coursera is actually working with a lot of governments around the world to get scholarships and subsidize this sort of thing. And they also say that part of the goods is it's cheap if you actively clear them out on time or earlier. And I know you might be thinking, well, there's all these ways of getting educated online that are extremely cheap. And yes, you could technically probably look all of this stuff up on your own, but you would waste 10 times the amount of time doing that. And on top of that, you wouldn't have a certificate that actually does move the needle a little bit at the end of the day to show for it. So when it comes to a cost perspective, I have to give this one a 10 out of 10. It really doesn't get any better than this. Next, we're going to talk about the demand for the careers related to UX design, right? So first of all, you do get access to a job platform, which is really cool if you're able to finish the certificate where more than 150 employers are hiring for open roles. And they say there's about 99,000 in-demand job openings in UX design. And according to indeed.com, the demand for UX UI designers is currently up by 16%. So the demand is at an all-time high. Now, some of the common job titles that you might go for after getting a certificate like this, of course, depending on your goals and your background, et cetera, are going to be UX designer, UI designer, UX UI designer, UX manager, UX researcher, UX writer, information architect or UX architect, UX strategist, product designer, product manager and product owner. Some common job titles that are actually listed on the certificate homepage are going to be UX designer, UI designer, interaction designer, visual designer and product designer. So if you type in UX design on LinkedIn, friends, since you're going to see about 16,000 results at the entry level on BLS for web developer and digital designer, you are going to see about 197,000 jobs and it's growing at 23%, which is much faster than average. And on the professional certificate itself, it says there's about 99,000 US job openings in UX design with a median entry level salary of $92,000 a year. So overall, when it comes to the demand, really good for an art related career, not going to be as good as some of the other technology, business finance related careers, but really good for an art related career. I'm going to give this one an 8.5 out of 10. Next on the list is going to be salary. So as I just mentioned, $92,000 median entry level salary. If you look up web developer and digital designer on BLS, you're going to see about $78,000 a year. If you type in UX designer on Glassdoor, you're going to see $97,000 a year. If you type in UI designer on Glassdoor, you'll see $100,000 a year. If you type in UX researcher, they make about $99,000 a year. Product designers make $93,000 a year. Information architects make $126,000. UX managers make about $161,000. And UX strategists make about $132,000. So a lot of really high paying careers there. And this makes a lot of sense because UX design is incredibly important. The way you design your website, something that possibly millions or even tens of millions of people might see is incredibly important. It makes a huge difference. And especially for an art related career, this is a phenomenal salary. So I'm going to have to actually give this one a 10 out of 10. Next on the list is going to be the production value and engagement. Now note, this is going to be extremely subjective. It really depends on the personality of the professors. But if you look at the reviews, they do tend to be pretty good. So this person, for instance, said the instructors were all very well chosen. I liked how they speak and convey ideas without the condescending, better than thou approach many industry experts are prone to. Here it was friendly to the point, easy to understand. I played most of the videos at 2x the speed to save time though, as most of them try to speak as slowly as possible to make it easier to understand for non-English speakers. That's great. This person, Karlin says the quality of the teaching and videos is very high. Lots of interesting assignments and articles, time flies by. Yet there are some comments that actually call for some improvements. So for instance, this person, Yidan says I'm not sure it's fair to call the course bad. There are improvements to be made for sure, but it's decent and free short primer for a course for newcomers. It's sort of a you get what you pay for kind of scenario. And this person, Wolfgan says I had the same thoughts about the motion design. The reason why I'm calling it bad is because it sets wrong expectations. Had they mentioned and made clear that this is just Google's take on UX, I wouldn't mind this much. This person said some of the flaws of the course are what is covered is the Google UX culture and not a generic representation of how UX teams usually are. Peer reviews are basically not helpful in improving your knowledge. And then the grading or grading rubrics has been set at a low bar. It's not hard to pass as long as you read the instructions. And this person said I agree with your review. I came into the Google certification course with UI UX knowledge already. Mostly UI. This made the beginning of the program seem very dull and slow moving for a full on beginner that could be useful to some. But I feel that it contributes a lot to the dropout rate. The lack of UI and the fact that it isn't acknowledged as being as important of a factor to learn is also disappointing. With that being said, I agree it's a great course for beginners as long as they don't rely only on this course being their ticket into the industry. So overall relatively positive comments but I will say after looking at a bunch of different products certifications, etc. This one did have more negative comments than some of the other Google certifications. So for that reason when it comes to production value and engagement I'm going to give this one a 7 out of 10. Next we're going to talk about its chances of landing you a job. Now when it comes to UX UI design just being a web designer in general you need to have an absolutely crazy good portfolio like having a great portfolio is so important. So this certification does help you build your portfolio but in my personal opinion I think you would need a little bit more than this cert, right? You need to build your portfolio outside of the projects they have you do inside of this and that did seem to be what the sentiment was when it came to the review. So for instance, Corny says took the course and got a job but the course alone did not get me the job had to build out a decent portfolio networking with other designers practice daily go to UX design digital events get a mentor from ADP list the Google course was the bare bones of all you need to do for a job. Good luck. So they still say good things about the Google course but they say as I said before that they needed to do extra things outside of the course and to be completely honest with you there are so many people out there that want to get art related careers it's actually incredibly difficult to land an art related career because of how popular it is the supply and demand just isn't there and so the fact that this cert even gets you you know maybe halfway or 80% of the way there is incredibly good especially for the price now this person says I just got an offer from my first UXR job with the Google course I had a bachelor's in biology but no other UX experience aside from the Google course like others said they took a bit to build my portfolio upskilled do a hackathon and I applied it a ton of places but going from zero to an offer in six months has been fantastic. So as the other person said the Google course was a good primer but they had to do more outside of it they had to build their portfolio Potato Mari says completing a UX certificate will not get you a job everyone's doing it nowadays with the expectation that interviews will fall into their lab the release of the Google one is making it even more competitive for junior designers to get their foot in it's more about what you do with what you learn from the certificate to build a great portfolio sure it's probably a great course to build fundamentals but there's no collaboration involved and no measurable KPIs unless you reach out to actual businesses for your project and this is how you stand out from other juniors so this person Brando says hi I finished my Google UX certification a few months ago if you know anything about UX Google UX courses are great for beginners who want to get their feet wet however when you apply for a job having a certificate is always going to be just a bonus what you need instead is a killer resume a beautiful portfolio and some interview preparation this person Fatima says I took the course while being totally new to UX design and I learned quite a lot I actually also landed my first job as a UX designer after completing the course since you have to submit a portfolio of a total of three projects by the end of the program to get a certificate of completion I kept in mind though to create a good portfolio to land a job and I also learned almost everything in Figma which wasn't really covered in the program only the very basics are shared I think this is good for someone totally new to UX but it is not enough if you want to stand out this next person Midnight says a certificate alone won't get you a job in the UX UI field you need a portfolio do you have a public portfolio available with samples case studies write-ups with your design rationale if it's good that's the thing that will get you the job so I think you get the point here there's probably a hundred other reviews that were basically just like that what most of them say is the certificate is great for beginners it's a great start but you're going to need to do more outside of that and specifically the most important thing that they mentioned over and over again was building your portfolio and anybody who's familiar with art related careers will know that this is true having a portfolio is essential so overall the chances of landing you a job I'm going to give this one a 7 out of 10 because yes it will get you a significant amount of the way there and yes it is great for beginners but you're going to need to do more outside of just the certificate alone next we're going to talk about the overall value right what value does this certificate offer so first of all they claim 75% of Google career certificate graduates in the United States report an improvement in their career trajectory now do wish that they would break that down by each specific certificate they don't but what I can say is these certificates and alternative education in general which is basically any type of education outside of traditional college is getting more and more respected by employers as time goes on and the entire pandemic situation basically accelerated this so I was making content before the pandemic happened all the way through and after the pandemic and I can tell you there has been a massive shift in how easy it is for people to get a job without having to go through the traditional education system it is very clear that the value of a college degree has been going down for decades and the cost of a college degree has continued to rise and so these alternative ways of getting educated are getting more and more valuable now one of the biggest reasons why people fail in college boot camps online courses and certificates is simply because they figure out that that career isn't for them now in college this might happen three years in when you're already like $60,000 in debt in a boot camp it might happen when you're already too far in to get a refund but the great thing about these Coursera certs is if you take this UX design cert and you figure out you know in module three module four that you're not really interested in UX design anymore it's not really what you thought it was going to be then you can easily just move on to a different certificate so you don't like the UX design certificate you can move on to the IT certificate or the data analytics certificate etc so it makes it very easy for you to sort of sample different careers and see which one resonates with you the most whereas in college you spend the first two years taking either entry-level basic classes or classes that have little to nothing to do with your major and just teach you eclectic BS nonsense all the while colleges are profiting off of naive 18 and 19 year olds so I'd say that's actually one of the biggest value propositions of these certifications is the fact that you basically get to sample different careers and different skill sets and see which one is best for you see if maybe you're naturally talented at it or it's something that you really like and you get to do that in an incredibly efficient way where you're not risking that much time effort or money so overall I absolutely love these certificates generally speaking and when you look at it from a risk or reward perspective it's a no-brainer the value is very clearly there now one thing I will say that's incredibly valuable is the fact that they help you build a portfolio and this is even more important when it comes to art-related careers so they have you do this applied learning project for instance and at the bottom here it says you'll even create a portfolio that includes three projects to share with potential employers in case the skills you learned in this program and you'll learn concrete skills that top employers are hiring for right now now on top of that it does cover the job search process a little bit it probably doesn't cover in as much detail as you'd want and it also covers the process of networking with people too and as this person says Articus in addition to what other people say about having a killer portfolio don't forget to network and connect with people most people find jobs through referrals and I would agree especially when it comes to art-related careers now the next thing is earning a career-related credential now this is something that you can put on your resume you can put it on your LinkedIn et cetera and this is actually one of the cheat codes of getting these Google certifications and the reason for that is because recruiters and hiring managers will often find people through LinkedIn through these certifications and the coolest thing is you don't actually have to finish the certificate you can be in the process of taking it and update that on LinkedIn and there has been a ton of comments on my channel from people who have taken the certificates that have said that recruiters started reaching out to them the moment that they uploaded it to LinkedIn so that is another really good way of getting discovered now that's probably not going to do you any good if you don't have a good portfolio posted on your LinkedIn right so it kind of goes back to the portfolio again you have to have a good portfolio and then of course you also get access to the private job board as well that can definitely help but again you're going to have to have a good portfolio if you want companies to actually give you a chance so overall I think pairing the Google certification to something else other types of training that is going to help you build a great portfolio and then also probably doing some networking as well because that's just kind of like a cheat code is going to help you tremendously and it will make it much more likely that you get a job I think this certification is a great place to start I do not think that most people are going to be able to get a job with just the certificate alone unless they already had a great portfolio and some experience so I think if you understand the overall value proposition of this certificate ridiculously good value so I have to give this one a 10 out of 10 so the overall score here when you add everything up is going to be 9.21 out of 10 I really do love this certificate I think it's a much better alternative to going to college for most people I think it's better than most boot camps especially when you think about it from a value perspective but is it going to get you a job on its own of course not there's no art related career that you're going to get without having a awesome portfolio right you absolutely have to build up that portfolio they're not going to know what kind of work you do if you don't have a portfolio but like I said at $39 a month you're not risking much of your time effort or money to check this out so I highly recommend it especially if you're a beginner just to try it out there is a seven day free trial I'll put that down in the description as well as the pen comment below but this is going to get two big thumbs up for me I definitely want to hear your experience if you took the certificate yourself or if you see this video and you come back later and leave a comment down below because I definitely want to hear your experience the good the bad and the ugly and definitely check this video out right here where I go over the top five Google certificates