Training the next generation of designers

Lambda School, 2020

Overview

In 2020, I joined Lambda School (now BloomTech) to lead and build the second half of the UX design program. During my time there, I...

Led the experiential learning design team of 2 design managers.
Oversaw design portfolio and program quality for 100+ UX design students.
Mentored students to land roles at companies like Shopify, Disney+, and Chase.
Architected scalable remote design feedback systems.
Designed & developed 5+ months of curriculum for the UX design program.
Built a partnership with Figma, so that all students could get Figma for free.

A little bit of context

Lambda School was a bootcamp famous for their ISA model: learn now and pay a percentage of your income after you get a job. Every program was cohort-based and structured in this way:

Core instruction (4 months): Instructors taught live lessons and students got evaluated on a weekly and monthly basis. Imagine a structure similar to a stereotypical classroom.
Experiential Learning, Labs (4 months): The goal of the experiential learning team was to give students hands-on, real world experience. Students worked in teams of 4-5 to build apps for real clients. During their time in the Labs program, they would complete two projects for their portfolio.
Lambda X (Until you land a job): Students who reach Lambda X are endorsed and “job ready.” In Lambda X, they actively worked on their job search and interview prep.

Before I joined, there was no design mentorship or manager support for Labs and beyond. I joined to lead and build the second half of the UX program!

The core problem

During my first week, I quickly discovered a major problem with the existing UX design program.

The UX students did not have the skills they needed to land jobs.

It was a sensitive topic because I had to prove that the first 4 months of core instruction needed a complete overhaul. We interviewed design managers at top companies in the industry and validated that our students needed to:

Improve their visual design skills and taste. Their design work demonstrated a lack of understanding of visual design fundamentals and modern taste.
Learn UX design best principles. Although they were following the “steps” of the design process, their projects were difficult to use because they did not follow standard design patterns.
Get comfortable presenting and defending their work. During the early design critiques, students did not know how to explain their design reasoning. I was concerned because explaining your process is key to landing a design job.
Become experts in design tools. Students did not learn how to use design tools during core instruction. They spent more time struggling with the “how” of the design tool than sketching designs.

I was originally hired to coach students after they had learned their core skills. However, I quickly had to shift gears and redesign the entire program. Now that you have all the context, I want to share some things I am very proud of accomplishing during my time there 😊.

Highlights

Leveling up visual design skills

One of my favorite visual design lessons was when I shared an objectively ugly design 😈 and asked the students to pretend they were my mentor. What should I change, and why?

These are some of their real responses, anonymized by Animal Crossing villagers:

The following exercise is from a lesson on the art of iteration. Students got into small groups and the goal was to create the highest number of visual design iterations on one screen!

After exercises like these, students created higher quality interfaces and were able to explain their reasoning. I also wrote about my visual design lessons in Learning playgrounds, Teaching visual design, and Who defines good taste?

Scaling feedback

With 100+ UX students across full-time and part-time, we couldn’t meet with every student 1-1 every day. Our strategies involved developing feedback themes and sharing them in group or asynchronous settings.

I wrote in-depth about our feedback systems in "Scaling" feedback.

Teaching design reasoning

Learning the why is hard! When things just “feel” right, it can be hard to put a reason behind your feeling. We realized our students needed practice explaining their design reasoning.

I wrote in-depth about learning to explain reasoning in Learning the why and Participation points.

Figma skills map

Outside of visual design principles, we noticed that students had a difficult time using design tools. We didn’t want the tool to become their blocker in creating high-quality design work, so we mapped out every Figma skill in our ideal order of learning.

Students could make a copy of this map and toggle which skills they have mastered!

Design Day!

Breaking into the design industry can be intimidating even for skilled designers! We wanted to motivate students as they reached the end of the program. I led an initiative to host a mini conference called “Design Day” to inspire them creatively. We received a small budget of $500 from the leadership team to cover costs. The day consisted of:

Joyfully subvert the status quo, May-Li Khoe: Apple, Khan Academy
Designing for blue sky, Shawn Park: Discord
Design internship panel featuring interns from Microsoft, Best Buy, and Asana
Design challenge with prizes!