UX Design Workshop Team Training
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Increase your value as a developer
A developer who can both develop and produce good UX design is a valuable asset to any client
This course was the perfect mix of fun and informative, I most certainly got a lot from it. I think it would be beneficial to any developer looking for a fresh approach to problem-solving and ways of designing solutions around your client’s workflows.
—Orlando Pellicano, Data Ops
The UX Design Workshop can help...
It’s the premier all-in-one UX design course
for FileMaker developers
If you’re like most FileMaker developers creating apps, you’re laser-focused on building features and making them work from a technical perspective.
But you may be completely ignoring the design and user experience side of things. Or, you might figure that you’ll do it at the end, when it comes time to put it all together.
In my opinion, that’s a big mistake—especially if your goal is to build good-looking, modern apps.
While functionality is obviously very important, you also need to think carefully about designing the user experience.
But how do you do that, exactly? Contrary to popular belief, design is not something you can do at the end of your project, after you’ve already built everything.
You need to keep UX design in mind right from the very start.
And the easiest way to do that is to have a design process you can follow.
The UX Design Workshop is a UX design course that teaches you the Workflow Design Framework. It’s a set of repeatable steps you can use over and over again to take the pain out of making design decisions—no matter what kind of app you’re building, or who the users will be.
Most developers start here
But design really starts here
The Workflow Design Framework is the design process I use to create amazing app designs that my clients love and get tremendous value from.
Following this method ensures that I:
The UX Design Workshop is a UX design course that walks you through the first three (and most important) steps of the 5-Step Workflow Design Framework, since these are the parts of the UX design process that are least familiar to most developers.
The solid focus on user stories and acceptance criteria deepened my appreciation of the benefits from careful design planning. While we had always paid attention to this area, Alexis raised our understanding and skills to a new level. This leads to better results for clients from the outset.
—JOHN MATHEWSON, KYO LOGIC
Learning about design from Alexis changed the way I ask questions during projects. How the user experiences the system is now as important as every other technical decision. I now strive to make the apps I build to be as easy to learn as a game on your phone.
—SALVATORE COLANGELO, GOYA
I created this UX design course for FileMaker developers because I want as many people as possible to benefit from the power of good design.
And I believe that everyone has the ability to improve their design skills.
Hi, I'm Alexis Allen. I’m a FileMaker developer and designer from Toronto, Ontario.
I have over 25 years of experience creating FileMaker apps for a wide variety of clients (since version 3, in fact).
I’ve also taught and delivered presentations on UI/UX design at many FileMaker conferences around the world, including the most recent Claris Engage in Austin, Texas.
Oh, and I also have a music performance degree (in cello) from the University of Toronto (yes, I still play regularly!).
I’ve always been interested in design, but I wouldn’t say I’m “talented.” Rather, I’ve spent a lot of time studying UI and UX design principles and practicing my design skills through many years of project work with clients all over the world.
Many developers have honed their skills in scripting, calculations, or custom functions, but not in UI/UX design principles.
I’d like to change that, and introduce more people to the world of design, because poor UX design can cause a host of issues during an app development project. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Great UX design can start a virtuous cycle that leads to better and better results for you, your clients, and the people who use the apps you made!
You can improve your design skills and start reaping the benefits starting today!
Each week of the course, you’ll learn about a different topic.
Then, you’ll practice your skills by completing the homework assignments.
Here’s your roadmap:
This lesson encourages you to shift from a traditional, feature-driven approach to a modern, user-driven approach in software design. This includes focusing on the user's needs and goals, designing specific tools and interfaces for different roles, and optimizing the UI for reading information rather than data entry.
Good design is not just about aesthetics. It’s more about intentionally creating something that not only communicates with the user, but also helps them easily achieve their goals. This lesson introduces the 5-Step Workflow Design Framework, which is a structured design process that helps you efficiently design and manage an app. Following this framework ensures that you properly define the scope of work before you invest tons of time building something that may or may not address users’ goals.
Critical to the success of any app design project is correctly defining the problem you're trying to solve, and not just treating its symptoms. This lesson shows you how to structure “Just-Right” problem statements that are neither too large, nor too small. It also encourages you to generate lots of potential solutions to problems. That way, you have lots of methods to choose from when designing your app, and you don’t fall back on the same old solutions and patterns you might have used in the past, just because they’re familiar to you.
This lesson helps you discover a good data structure for your app. It explores different types of hierarchies, which can impact how users navigate and interact with a system, and discusses the importance of aligning the conceptual model with the user’s mental model. Next, it covers various types of diagrams you can use to establish and test different possible structures for your app. Finally, it helps you to determine how to categorize the information in a way that is intuitive and makes sense to the users.
To create modern, usable apps, you need to focus on, understand, and empathize with your users. This lesson shows you a number of ways to research the people who’ll be interacting with your app, and help you to understand them and their pain points better. It also introduces you to the concepts of User Stories and Acceptance Criteria, which are important tools that help in planning, organizing, and maintaining the focus on user needs during the development process. Finally, the lesson shows you an in-depth method of documenting user workflows, which is key to documenting and communicating your understanding of everything you’ve learned so far.
Wireframing is the process of sketching out your app before starting to build it. Wireframes can be hand-drawn sketches, low-fidelity wireframes, or high-fidelity mockups. They are crucial for visualizing the structure and flow of the app, and help you to identify potential problems early on. Creating wireframes (once you know how) is much faster than prototyping directly in FileMaker, and thus can save you a lot of time and headaches. This lesson shows you how to create a low-fidelity wireframe, and walks you through the process of determining your information hierarchy and navigation pattern.
Design patterns are established patterns that solve common user problems and feel intuitive to the user. When apps feel clunky or awkward, it’s often because the design pattern doesn’t effectively match the situation and solve the user’s problem efficiently. This lesson walks you through basic, intermediate, and advanced design patterns that you can use to create seamless and user-friendly interfaces.
Good visual design improves the user experience, makes an app more appealing, increases users’ trust in you, the developer, and facilitates user adoption. On the contrary, poor visual design can result in a lacklustre user experience and reduce users’ trust in the product. This lesson details the 9 most impactful visual design principles you need to know to create an appealing UI.
Usability can literally make or break your app. Usability principles are grounded in human psychology, so understanding how people perceive and process information, as well as their memory limitations, habits, and biases, is important to creating an amazing user experience. Learn how to assess the key quality components of usability, so that you can create the best user experience possible, and enhance your chances of success.
Since taking the course, I look at every FM layout, document, and webpage more critically. I’m also looking very carefully at how I start projects. Instead of diving in, taking the time to analyze the purpose and user in order to make it more welcoming to read and use.
This is just scratching the surface! Every week gave me lots of food for thought!
—BARBARA DALY, UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
Through Alexis’ course, our team of developers have learned how to put the User Story front and center in planning and developing features. She also taught us the best techniques to solve difficult User Interface issues in ways that we had never thought about before.
Her course gives developers the tools and the right perspective to solve problems in the best possible way to give the best possible experience and outcome to the end user.
—JUSTIN HESSER, KYO LOGIC
This course has given me the confidence to take on certain challenging new projects that I might have shied away from in the past. Now that I’ve learned a structured design process, I finally feel comfortable taking on more complex UI/UX work, because I know exactly what to do and in what order.
—ROBERT NAUD, ACCOLADE PLUS ACCOLADE
8 weeks of easy-to-follow, step-by-step videos
Throughout the course, you’ll apply the week’s lesson to your sample project. Each weekly assignment challenges you to put that week’s lesson into practice and grow your UI/UX design skills.
Each lesson comes with a set of recommended books, links, and/or articles that provide you with additional helpful information, so you can deepen your understanding as you progress through the course, and beyond.
The key to creating modern apps that wow your clients is thoroughly understanding your users! But you can quickly get overwhelmed with all the information you collect about them.
The user persona template makes it easy for you to gather all your important user research into one place that’s easy to keep track of and refer to throughout your project.
The heart of Workflow-Based Design is creating effective user workflows. But how exactly do you do that?
Our exclusive user flowchart template shows you which steps to document in a workflow (and which ones you can safely ignore).
Available as LucidChart or OmniGraffle templates, or use a diagramming app of your choice!
It can be hard to strike the right balance of simplicity and detail when creating a workflow diagram.
Too much detail can make your diagram overly complicated, while too little detail can leave important gaps that could trip you up later.
This downloadable PDF is full of handy tips to help your user workflows rock!
Writing acceptance criteria is essential for ensuring success in your app design project. But if you’ve never written them before, there are some common missteps you might want to avoid.
So I created this downloadable PDF guide chock-full of the important things to remember when writing acceptance criteria. It also includes some sample acceptance criteria, as well as some examples of what not to do.
You’re going to love this bonus...Have you ever wondered what it’s really like to do design with a client?
In this series of videos, you can look over my shoulder while I design a wireframe live in Balsamiq, sit in on my feedback sessions with a real user in real time, AND watch while I adjust my wireframe based on their feedback.
Some students have said this is their favourite part of the course!
You also get a free copy of The Confident Theme—a fully functional, completely unlocked FileMaker theme file designed by me.
So you can take a peek under the hood and see what a finished product looks like.
You also have access to the student community, and you can always post there to get personalized feedback from me on your homework assignments, as well as ask any questions you might have.
Everything included in Course, plus:
Currently closed to enrollments
20% - 30% off
Most of my studying for UI/UX designing was just through online resources and YouTube, but there’s no step-by-step process with feedback for my work. I loved how I could design something and get feedback from Alexis right away and correct any mistakes, instead of just reading lectures. This course was a great start to my career in UI/UX design, and gave me the courage to start a portfolio of my work.
Thank you Alexis!
—SHOBBIA RANGANATHAN, DIRECT IMPACT SOLUTIONS
When does the course start and end?”
You can start right now!
Although I recommend going through one module per week, you get full access to the course as soon as you sign up.
And you get lifetime access, so you can come back again in the future if you want to!
What’s the time commitment for this course?”
It depends... on your goals, level of commitment, and how much time you have available.
Each module consists of video lectures and homework. So, it’s a commitment of about 3-4 hours per week at minimum.
However, you could do the course all at once if you really want to!
No matter what you choose, the more time you spend practicing your newfound UX skills, the faster you’ll progress!
How does the course work?”
As soon as you enroll, you’ll be automatically added to the course. You’ll receive an email with instructions on how to access the course.
Once you log in, you can watch the videos when it’s convenient for you. There is homework at the end of each lesson, which I encourage you to complete, as it will give you an opportunity to practice the skills.
Will the course help me create a [specific] app?”
Yes, if you choose.
However, if it’s your first time through the course, I recommend that you work on a sample project (you have a choice of three different ones).
These sample projects are chosen specifically because they’re big enough for you to practice the concepts, but not so large that you get overwhelmed and confused.
That said, once you learn the concepts, you can (and should!) apply the principles to any app of your choice.
Can I try out the course before I buy?”
Yes! You can watch a sample lesson for free.
Just sign up for the Free Preview.
Inside, you can watch the introductory Week 0 video, where I explain what Workflow-Based Design is and why you might want to learn more about it. You can download the course syllabus, and you can see the complete course structure and individual lesson topics.
Is this course only for FileMaker developers?”
First and foremost, the course is about UX design, not about FileMaker specifically.
The references to FileMaker are mostly in the Introduction (Week 0), which you can watch if you sign up for the Free Preview.
The design process is relatively agnostic to the platform you use to develop your app. What could change is the way in which you implement certain features and design patterns based on the capabilities/limitations of the specific platform you choose to use.
Do I need experience with FileMaker before taking the course?”
Ideally, you should have at least some initial experience with database theory and app development.
You may find it difficult to envision your app if you have zero experience with creating apps.
However, you don’t need to have any advanced FileMaker knowledge (or any other platform) to benefit from this course.
The course is focused on helping you build your design skills, not on FileMaker. In the end, you could use this course to design an app for any platform (so long as you take the capabilities and limitations of that platform into account).
How long do I have access to the course?”
You have lifetime access to the course. As long as the course exists, you’ll have full access to it, and can take it again as many times as you like. Many students have gone through the course a couple of times.
You’ll also be able to access any future updates that are made to the course.
English is not my first language. Will I be able to follow the course?”
The course videos are in English. However, subtitles are available in English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German. Homework assignments are currently available in English, French, and Italian.
I’m fluent in English, French, and Italian, and can readily answer questions you may have. The videos themselves are very visual and reasonably easy to follow.
That said, this is honestly only something you can answer, depending on your comfort level. I suggest you sign up for the Free Preview and see if you think it will work for you.
I highly recommend this course as an outstanding learning opportunity. Alexis’ extensive knowledge and enthusiasm for FM design, combined with a thorough curriculum and hands-on experience, made for a truly transformative experience.
She was able to simplify complicated concepts, encourage a collaborative learning environment, and offer personalized guidance, making the course enjoyable and valuable.
The course covered everything from design principles to practical case studies, providing me with the necessary skills and confidence to excel in FM design
—JOE DA SILVA, ARTISAN COMPLETE