Design Bits is a self-paced online course by Aalto University to introduce design for non-design students and professionals
My role
UX and Content design, Research and Project Management.
Timeline
March 2020 → September 2021
Other members in the team
One senior design educator and four students hired for support in (1) webdesign, (2) illustration, (3) content and (4) coding.
Goals
- To educate non-design students and professionals about the relevance of design.
- To promote Aalto University expertise on design in Finland and abroad.
designbits.aalto.fi homepage
Summary of the work
- Design Bits is an online course by Aalto University about the relevance of design.
- The main misconception about design from our students is that 'design is just visuals' and our course opens up the idea of design as a problem-solving and user-centered discipline.
- The development phase of the course happened from March 2020 → October 2020. In that phase, I was part of the team who promoted workshops with students and staff to build the structure (e.g. chapters) for the course.
- My main responsibility was to design the student experience in the course. For example, how much text, how many videos, how many cases would be used in each of the chapters. Together with the webdesigner and illustrator, we designed the visuals and planned the flow in the course.
- The first version was launched in October 2020 as a pilot. Once more, we gathered feedback from students and staff to inform changes in second version of the course.
- We relaunched Design Bits in September 2021. Here are the main changes based on feedback:
- We created 8 videos with Aalto Professors to promote Aalto's expertise in design.
We translated the course to Finnish.
- We opened the course open source. Today, anyone in the world can take the course and get credits.
- We made minor changes in the content and in the visuals of the course.
- We created DesignTalks, a series of live talks to support the discussions on the relevance of design. I hosted the event and was responsible for planning all the 7 sessions → https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/good-design-benefits-us-all-welcome-to-open-design-talks-lecture-series
Results
- 1.500+ students registered in Design Bits. The 7 sessions of DesignTalks had over 1000 people registered, being 40% from outside Finland.
- The article about the launch of Design Bits on Aalto Website was the most read link in October 2021 -> https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/open-online-design-course-launched-for-non-designers
- Design Bits was selected as one of the 2021 Aalto University highlights.
Feedback from students
Thank you for the course, I loved it, because of its structure. All theoretical material was short, consisted definitions, facts, videos and examples from real life.
I really loved it! The texts were easy to read with brilliant examples. Material was really clear and assignments were really good! The assignments challenged me to think and really dive deep into the topic. Overall the course was brilliant!
Thank you for the course, I loved it, because of its structure. All theoretical material was short, consisted definitions, facts, videos and examples from real life. I got myself that it was really enjoyable to study compared to other courses I have now. Thank you.
course structure
As part of content design, we created a student who asks questions during the chapters. In the feedback session with students, they appreciated this feature and mentioned that this added a tone of informality to the course experience.
We planned the journey for students to further their studies in design at Aalto. Thus, at the end of Design Bits, student can see options of further courses based on their interests.
Design Bits → Test it yourself
I strongly recommend you to check the final result of the course. You can do that by following these steps:
- Go to https://designbits.aalto.fi/en/ for the ENG version or https://designbits.aalto.fi/fi/ for the FIN version.
- Register with your e-mail and visit the course.
