Design Tradeoffs and UX Decision Frameworks

"This course translates core business principles into a design setting. Essential for those with UX brains trying to talk to those with business brains."

Neil, Severn Trent, UK

"I consider this course to be super helpful in my work activities. I'm faced with similar design decisions on a daily basis and now I feel like I have the knowledge to evaluate the situation and to ask the right questions that would help me make an educated choice."

Bozhidar Stambolov, Paysafe, Sofia, Bulgaria

"This is a great course to get a broad idea of identifying and assessing problems and making appropriate decisions for each use-case. It provides you with the tools you need to implement this from day one. The course is very well structured, and the instructor is a joy to listen to. Highly recommended."

Diana Madrigal, WeVideo, California, USA

"The instructor was very structured and pedagogic. It was the most structured and well-led class I have followed so far. She really masters the topic and you won't be bored at all - everything shared is insightful, activities are useful and relevant, I really recommend it :)"

Cynthia Mayer, Visa, San Francisco, CA

"This is the 3rd class I'm taking with Maria, and I highly recommend taking any class with her as she is extremely professional, intelligent and always inspiring. If there was a dot voting activity, I would probably place all the dots on her classes."

Yair Bahar, gohenry, London, UK

"It's a great course to help with decision making by providing frameworks to work through and make the process easier. The case study examples really brought the concepts home and made the process relevant to most situations."

Tia Escobar, Web.com Group, Jacksonville, FL

"It was a lot of good quality of knowledge. I loved a lot of suggestions to read and many anecdotes. Also great communication and language."

Kaja Kornacka, Aplikacje Krytyczne, Warsaw, Poland

"Good course, has useful frameworks for prioritizing or deciding on a course. Could be helpful for that client that wants to prioritize everything, or needs help prioritizing a list of options."

Janelle B, Washington, DC

"The course was great. A little sneak peak into ROI, but definitely worth understanding all the techniques and biases that come along with decision tradeoffs. I highly recommend it. Maria was a great speaker and the group activities were fun."

Jessica Morales, CalOptima, Highlands Ranch, USA

"Definitely yes. I think it would be beneficial to also take metrics and ROI course. I feel like it would be a good supplementation to this class. The practical exercise have a good scope for the time allocated but still allow to grab the practical aspect of the topic."

Delfina, BNT, Copenhagen, Denmark

"Good for those working in big companies and dealing with complicated products."

Teresa Bartoszewicz, Demant Technology, Warszawa

"I would highly recommend this course, the content was well thought out, understanding Design tradeoffs and UX decision frameworks is an important skill for UX practitioners."

Pablo Boerr, Shopify, Montreal, Quebec Canada

"Loved this course! Your real world examples and stories helped me better understand the concepts and will help jog my memory in the future."

Sophia Goreczky, Synopsys

"Kathryn was a dynamic and engaging speaker who managed to keep the attention of the group even in a remote format. The course ran very smoothly and the content was highly relevant and actionable. I went away with specific tactics to communicate the weight and impact of a decision which results in a design tradeoff that I can try with my team and stakeholders."

Claire Regan, Dell, Dublin, Ireland

"The course has provided me with strategies and insights for making a UX case in bigger organizations. Real world case studies further helped in understanding the nuances of working with cross functional teams."

Alka Mishra, Big Lots Inc, Columbus

"Great way to think about cause and effect in a multitude of situations. I can imagine using what I've learned in 90% of what I do on a daily basis."

Paige DuPont, Logic Dept.

"I really loved the course. It's always hard to pitch UX especially in the legacy organization bit using the proposed framework you can easily prove any point or create a compelling presentation"

Alla Gringraus

"Thank you so much for the course. Really critical information I needed in order to make decision and determine if my colleagues are doing best method of determining a path for the software."

Christine Kerr, DNVGL

"Kathryn is great addressing everyone's doubts and questions. Great tools to actually make decisions and avoid waste of time."

Jose David Rojas, BAC Credomatic

"Maria was a great teacher. She made her content easy to follow. I'm looking forward to applying these frameworks at work."

Marsha Chan, NLogic, Toronto

"Right amount of content and examples to make the discussions interesting."

Shawn Rodgers, SAP Fieldglass

"The decision making frameworks reviewed in this course covered common issues and best approaches to resolve them. I can see myself putting these learnings into action immediately, to the benefit of our organization without compromising the goals of our users."

Maria Slusarev, Guggenheim Museum

"Great content which made me consider various additional techniques as a UX decision maker. Give a more holistic perspective to the overall approach to UX management in general."

Michal Otenburg

"Really valuable course and helpful to have frameworks and advice to discussions. Also love the word 'satisfying'. Practical advice that I could start using tomorrow — not too theoretical."

Catherine Beer, AQA

"I thought the course was delightfully giving UX a practical view that is highly useful in my everyday. It gave me insights in decisions I make all the time. I'm sure I will be better at articulating them now"

S Busch, Kathert Interactive, Denmark

"Very well presented, energy was always high and all content explained throroughly."

James Lonergan, Capital One

"A really useful course. I enjoyed the course and the fact that I could use my current ux problems in the exercises."

Chris Sherwood, Swansea University

"I thought this was a fascinating course that helped me frame my UX decision making in a psychological and analytical light."

Mizkala Kerem, JHU/APL

"Great workshop. Discussing and doing activities after learning each new session helps embed the concepts in your memory."

Sanjyot Peterson, Kalaa, Inc.

"Great course, right amount of group sessions. Lots of info I will be able to influence my team with. Loved it."

Nicolas Baroudi, Nationwide Insurance

"Great speaker, I learned a lot as well as validated many assumptions I had."

Victoria, WebMD

"Really enjoyed the course and will take many of the things covered into future projects! Really liked content about design principles."

Tom Nordgren, IBIMX

"I found this workshop fantastic. Extremely useful and relevant in my role and organisation. An excellent mix of interactive exercises in groups, and solo effort. Kathryn was great and this workshop was everything I had hoped it wold be. Incredibly useful!"

Diana Low, NSW Education Standards Authority, Sydney, Australia

"Great material to help solve problems in design and what costs you suffer based on tradeoffs you have to make."

 

"Really great course, great delivery, presentation exercises. Easy to listen to and I really feel like I learned something new."

JD Vorheis, Jet Reports

"The content of the course was absolutely fantastic. I could apply 100% of it straight into my design process, and would definitely recommend it to professionals from various roles on product management. Great return on investment!"

Marcus Albeny

"This was a helpful introduction to decision making frameworks that I can build on."

Robert Ballinger, Microsoft

"Really engaging. Like the amount of measurable processes rather than all theory."

Katie Rylance

"A very broad and functional, useful course on how to set up strategic decision making methods in your workplace."

William, Standard Bank, Dubai

"Kathryn is able to tell a very structured story and is able to deconstruct any method, principle or question you throw at her."

Arjen Wiersma, Hike One

"So many valuable insights that really contextualize real world UX problems."

Lorenzo Ong, DSTA, Singapore

"Very insightful, learnt a lot of framework and techniques to deal with tricky, challenging UX situation."

Shawn Ee, KPMG, Singapore

"Great case studies and examples to illustrate the frameworks."

Catherine Francis, Ground Labs Pte Ltd, Singapore

"It's really useful, as I learned how and what are the methodologies to tackle different types of problems."

Joreen Tay, MasterCard, Singapore

"Best course yet! Kathryn knows her stuff and peppers the course with the right amount of examples and scenarios to enable the appropriate use of the frameworks. Looking forward to the next course by her."

Cindy Lim, Publicis Sapient, Singapore

"This course was really well delivered, especially considering that it was virtual. I practically felt like I was there physically, thanks to the amount of interaction I had with my peers and with the speaker, who was really clear and was great at explaining the course content."

Toby Ward, Ofqual, United Kingdom

"This is my 3rd year at the Conference and I think this was one of the best courses I had. All the methodologies and practical examples helps to apply them right away. Was specific relevant for my career at the moment and I learned a lot!"

Bibiana De Carli, Amsterdam

"Excellent course with lots of takeaways on how to make better design decisions within different contexts. The content was rich, examples were relevant, and it was the right blend of presentation with small discussions and activities. Highly recommend!"

Rebecca Blakiston, University of Arizona

"This the course for EVERYONE who deal with product development or product support. Will help you to make decisions easier and save a lot of time and efforts!"

Dmitry Bortnitsy, Apalon, Minsk, Belarus

"Kathryn was a great instructor. She broke down the topics and connected them to each other and our work to really help drive home understanding. The decision-making models she shared are valuable tools, and she gave them to us in an actionable format to make them easier to integrate into our teams."

Rachel Weatherly, Booz Allen Hamilton, St. Louis

"I finished the course feeling like I had gained real, actionable tools and ideas. I feel like I could start implementing some of these strategies at work tomorrow and it would make a positive impact."

Angela Duggan, BeyondTrust, Halifax, NS, Canada

"Excellent material for helping UX leaders move faster and choose more wisely. The case studies were relatable and the exercises were thought-provoking. Easy to see benefits not only to me but to my organization."

John Horstman, Wyzant, Chicago

"This course provides the foundation for making sound decisions as well as a framework to help overcome the natural biases unconsciously present in our intuition. It will help you understand and rationalize tradeoffs, leading to improved and more successful UX designs. I am very grateful to have taken this course, as well as "Discoveries: Building the Right Thing" with Maria Rosala. Maria is a brilliant presenter; She covers the material at just the right speed, in just the right depth, making sure to never rush and ensure everyone clearly understands the content before moving on."

Christopher Harold Butler, Accenture, Stavanger, Norway

"This is so helpful for everyone struggeling making decision or communitacting decisions back to the team. And it does not matter what your role is since a lot of the concepts are so adptable."

Ulrike Eulenfeldt, nibTravel, Sydney, Australia

"Very insightful and interactive. Loved the different group breakouts while still learning new content. It discusses different structures and framework to determine the tradeoffs and what makes the most sense to the situation or problem you have. A lot of great techniques that can be applied in real life scenarios."

Kat, Hoffman York, Milwaukee, WI

"The instructor was very clear and knowledgeable and gave good real world examples."

Jyoti Sauna, Booz Allen Hamilton, Washington, DC

"This course was EFFING amazing. Sorry for my French, but that's the only appropriate way I can express my opinion about this course. Loaded with information, presented a tremendous amount of theories with examples on how to apply them, very actionable tips, it helped me a lot to grow as a UX practitioner. It felt like attending 2 weeks of university within 7 hours. Lastly, Aurora's personality and energy is also something that elevated this course. Sincere congratulations to her for being such a great presenter!"

 

""Design Tradeoffs and UX Decision Frameworks Class Feedback"provided valuable tools and frameworks I have been looking for to anchor my design practice: e.g. "what is the right tool for the design problem at hand?" and "how do I know if I have covered enough ground for this design problem? High-quality content, well structured and paced, nicely delivered and organized, with a good mix of case studies, polls, and group exercises. I had a great virtual class experience with UX fellows around the world. The Zoom comment feature supported real-time live discussions really well."

Ying Deng, Copperleaf Technologies, Vancouver, Canada

"Taking this course significantly helped bolster my decision making skills and understanding of the different types of problems we encounter as ux designers. I'm working with my team to establish UX design principles and I'm excited to see how that helps us!"

Carrie Clough, Sling TV, Denver

"Aurora was a fantastic instructor. She was engaging, clear, responsive (kept on top of questions in the chat feed), personable, and peppered in a lot of great anecdotes from her and her colleagues' experiences."

Ginny, Fortune 100 Healthcare company, Washington, DC

"Really like the real world examples and the discussion."

Archna Tikku, Genentech, San Francisco

"It gives you a good sense of how to approach problems with stakeholders."

Lara Oliveira, Booz Allen Hamilton, Fairfax

"This course empowers you to articulate and quantify your decision criteria."

Andrew Wilbur, Concur/SAP

"Brings clarity rigor and depth to an often overlooked part of the design process. Enables and empowers UX pros to engage in decision-making effectively that drives the creation of better experiences. Massive thumbs up!!"

Damian O'Malley, ServiceNow Inc., San Diego, USA

"Even if you know you need to do better at making decisions, and know generally that you need to be more deliberate, this course gives you specific tools and frameworks to try. Can't wait to try them out!"

Kirk Grotjohn, Truist Bank, Cary, NC, US

"I left this course with information and tools I can start implementing at my company right now."

Heather Schaefer, Authentic, Richmond, VA USA

"I think this course is helpful to PMs & designers for feature prioritization, design options and navigating different goals with stakeholders."

Jessica Dee, SAP, Palo Alto, USA

"Regardless of your role, the course will help you to align and understand the other stakeholders in the process."

Karolina Matyja, Itera, Oslo, Norway

"It's perfect even for someone like me, who has been a director level for a few years now. The content really does a good job at providing structure and understanding to the high level techniques or approaches we use to make decisions to solve everyday problems."

Jeffrey Yam, Magnite, Los Angeles, CA United States

"I enjoyed every second of this course. It was well organized and presented. The case-based approach provided practical aspects and helped me to accept new knowledge quickly."

Stepan Opava, Digiteq Automotive, Prague, Czech Republic

"For management roles conveying the value of UX and helping stakeholders make the right choices is crucial. The course has equips you in several ways to drive those conversations and decisions which define the structure of identifying and narrowing down on what problems should be solved!"

Kshitij Kaushik, Koru UX Design LLP, Pune, India

"The Design Tradeoffs and UX Decision Frameworks course is jam-packed with loads of useful information. Super easy to follow along with Maria and stay engaged while also having opportunities for application in the polls and breakout activities. Maria is a wonderful instructor. She's clearly very experienced, knowledgeable, comfortable, and confident in what she's talking about!"

Megan Baker, Slide UX, Austin, United States

"I would take this course twice if my company allowed me to do so."

 

"It articulated a lot of the information clearly that will definitely help me communicate and improve decision making in my organization."

Maxwell Brieden, Truist, Atlanta, GA USA

"This shows the value of research and testing to be an advocate for the user and the business in order to build the right thing. This also challenges you to know when to pick your battles on when you need a larger research effort, or when to lean more on our intuition. I love being able they were able to put into words outcomes of tradeoffs, and when you should compromise as long as you're able to know if your decision is high or low impact, reversible or tactical vs strategic. Great stuff."

Augusto Garcia, Truist, Atlanta, GA USA

"I would say it is broad enough to be helpful for anyone in UX, and gives a lot of tools to use. I will definitely be reusing the class materials when I face a problem in my own design process or when I need to prioritize user needs and communicate rationale to PMs, etc. I liked all the real-world examples, and how they were also timely (I can tell the slides are updated from time to time). I also liked all the links to the slides, so I can continue learning or verify sources. I wish there was more of a summary at the end."

Betty Zhou, Livermore, USA

"I appreciate how clear and useful guidance and instruction throughout the sessions. The content and materials presented are relevant and up-to-date. I leave the class refresh and equipt with new and applicable insights and learning."

Chandra Pudjiatie, IKEA Foundation, Delft, The Netherlands

"The material is very practical, applicable to the challenges Product people face on daily basis. Highly recommended."

Mark Hsieh, Irvine, USA

"Great course. Looking forward to drawing up product specific, UX focused design principles to aid my team's decision making."

Ian Merry, Esure Insurance, Surrey, UK

"Great teacher, updated case studies, Interactive activities summed up to an amazing experience!"

Cristina Gomez, Reign, Santiago, Chile

"This course is great as an introduction to get out of the UX shell, and learning to communicate with stakeholders in ways they can understand. The value is on bridging the gap between UX and other disciplines."

Leonardo Hauschild, Digitec Galaxus, Zürich, Switzerland

"I would encourage them to take the class. It will improve my decision making process and I liked the case studies. It gave a more practical tone to the concepts presented."

Cristian Tituleasa, Metro digital, Bucharest, Romania

"This course allowed me to gain insight into the decision-making process in the company where I work. I will therefore have several arguments to improve this process as well as more arguments to debate with the different sectors that open in the team."

Sophie Tessier, Edilex, Laval, Canada

"Yes, even for a senior product designer it gives a new view on known things."

Maciej Karpinski, Ricardo.ch, Zug, Switzerland

"Found this course so interesting - perfect blend of theory and practical. I can take so much of this going forward in my job when I need to make decisions."

Emily Lawes, Civica, Bath, UK

"Take it, it's great!"

Gunnar Carlen, Sopra Steria, Stockholm Sweden

"I really liked this course. I think it is very realistic and covers decisions and situations you would encounter in day to day projects."

Viki Kavallari, Backbase, Amsterdam, Netherlands

"This course should be taken by every UX practitioner who wants to deliver the best possible solution in every context. A lot of knowledge that you can apply right away."

Daniel Peñaloza, Mercado Libre, Bogotá, Colombia

"If you are someone who presents strategies and designs to stakeholders, then this is the course for you! It helped me a lot on how will I weigh the company's goals vs customer experience, how will I apply this to the design, and how will I present the solution back to the stakeholders to get their buy ins."

Danalee Loprandado, GCash, Metro Manila, Philippines

"This course gives a very practical approach to how decisions are made which makes the advice to tackle really valuable in any UX setting. Loved it!"

Paolo Sta. Barbara, SBS, Sydney, Australia

"UX practitioners are always making trade-off decisions as part of their job. Having a box of tools to use to help identify these trade offs and make the best possible decision in any given situation is critical. This UX course is an excellent way to build aptitude in this important area."

Nathan Cocks, Tundra, Melbourne, Australia

"Making design decisions is the essential activity of UX designers, though I never had a chance to sit down and think from the high level of how I made the decisions. This course gave me a chance to reflect how I made decisions, and broadened my decision making toolkit and frameworks."

Naomi Zhang, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada

"If you're like me and you struggle to satisfice - "good enough is never good enough" - then you should also take this course... I really hope to implement those frameworks into my process to make more effective and efficient design decisions!"

Marion Kammerer, MYOB, Melbourne, Australia

"Very valuable to have a defined method of making highly critical decisions at a company. This course will save your company tons of time and energy!"

Sofia Mohammad, sk + co, San Pedro, USA

"Very informative! The class provided some useful framework to overcome design tradeoff. Also, finally, I know how to measure monetary value of UX."

Yasir, Kitabisa, Jakarta, Indonesia

"I thought it was great and really helpful for decision making. It also made me feel much more confident as a designer and UX Lead."

Meghan Kelly, Philadelphia

"It's a great course, I learned a lot of new terms and methods to apply in my current job."

Laura Riva Palacio, Jonajo Consulting, Chihuahua, Mexico

"Great course. Very instructive, and with excellent balance between theory and case study examples. Big recommend."

Drazen D., COBE, Osijek, Croatia

"I benefited from this course and would recommend to others. I learned news techniques for decision making that I'd never seen before."

Mike Lindberg, BYU, Provo USA

"Great insight into decision frameworks and the trade offs involved. Really beneficial advice with plenty of examples to understand the theory. Would highly recommend it."

Tom Jay, HandsHQ, London - UK

"Great course for someone working with cross-functional teams! Lots of techniques for how to communicate the value of design and to compare different solutions."

Tamara Didenko, Pex, Broomfield, CO, USA

"This was excellent material and it both re-enforced some current experience and enlightened new approaches and techniques. Maria Rosala was a delight and really knows this complex topic well. I highly recommend this class to anyone and for any company interested in learning why or why not and how to make product decisions that are potentially critical to UX."

Jonny Butler, Mile Two, LLC, Dayton, Ohio, USA

"Great class and gives in-depth knowledge about Design tradeoff and frameworks and how i can use it in my organisation."

Shilpa Misra, Metro Markets, Germany

"For me, this was what I needed to try to approach some of the struggles that I am having at the moment and it gave me some clear tangible exercises / frameworks put in place. Some of the stuff might sound like common sense, but being able to understand how to implement 'ideas and thoughts' into something useful was very insightful."

Luis Klefsjö, YLD, London

"Do It! The most important class that I took."

Leeron Ben Haim, SentinelOne, Tel Aviv, Israel

"Extremely important topic from junior designers to team leaders! The material is very well catered and presented in very natural way! Thank you!"

Stefanos Sidiropoulos, Channel VAS, Athens, Greece

"Definitely make me rethink of some of the decisions that I would normally carry out on my daily practice and the way I evaluate risk to choose different directions for the project I create."

Carlos Leon, VMware, Santa Clara, USA

"This course gives you all the tools needed to came up with a better design decision."

Bander Alhusaini, Mobily, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

"I would tell people that if they are involved in design in a SaaS or large web site company, this course will help you make better decisions and gain consensus within your team, and with other business lines and stakeholders. Lots of practical tools and insights - take this course! I intend to have everyone on my UX team to take it."

Charles Wyke-Smith, Doxy.me - telemedicine for all, Charleston, SC, USA

"I would tell them it was worthwhile, it also helps put your self in the role of others to understand how their priorities and my UX priorities can line up. Helps me understand how if I can put a better framework and explain the value/costs associated that I may be more successful in speaking a language with my SO that may resonate better."

Cheralee McNeil, Best Buy Canada, Vancouver, Canada

"I found this course really useful and it directly addressed some of the challenges that I face in my own organisation. The case studies were helpful for understanding the frameworks and some of the more complex ideas."

Laura Pledger, RNLI, Poole, UK

"I did benefit from this course. If you are making complex decision in your team or for a product, the techniques of this course might be really helpful."

Mar Zumaya, Fraunhofer, Bonn, Germany

"I recommend it. I thought the section on Design Principles was particularly useful and applicable to my job."

Brian McDonald, Silverchair, Charlottesville, VA, USA

"This course provides tools that your team can start implementing as soon as the day after to help make decisions based on concrete guidelines. If you feel the product you are working on is visually all over the place or driven by a select few stakeholders, this course is for you."

Rob Mohan, Kroger, Cincinnati, USA

"This course provides an excellent basis for framing your decision making and establishing design principles."

Justin Trout, BrainGu, Portland, United States

"This course is a detailed look into decision making principles, design tradeoffs and the need for your team to have a set of solid design principles that help guide your decisions. I would recommend the course not only for UX managers, but individual contributors as well."

Nathan Brown, Cru, Melbourne, FL, USA

"As a researcher, I sometime struggle to translate risks and rewards in design terms. The session helped restructure how to go about this. Great session."

Gavin Johnston, Cerner Corp., Kansas City, USA

"I underestimated the benefit of this course. The content was extremely valuable. Maria gave concrete frameworks, strategies, and tactics to deploy when making tough design decisions with a team."

Brandon W., Philadelphia, PA

"Would highly recommend to my colleagues who face the same challenges day to day!"

Alice, BCBS, USA

"Do you want to know how to decide where to go or do trade-offs properly? Then take this great course :)"

Michal Manak, Alteryx, Prague, Czech Republic

"I thought I knew almost everything about UX, but after participating in this course I have definitely learned everything about this new topic, and see many ways of applying this in my day-to-day work!"

Sander Coenen