The Green UX/UI Design course is finally open for enrollment

Welcome, everyone, to today's very special episode of the Green Web podcast. It's a podcast about ecologically and socially sustainable design and I'm your host as always Sandy Dähnert, a UX UI designer myself.

And this is a special episode that I'm just celebrating so much. The Green UX design course is finally open for enrollment. Yay! I am beyond excited As you can probably hear, it's it has been a long way coming to this day and there's so much work behind it and so much love and passion has gone into the creation of this course. So I'm very much in love with it. I'm very much in love with knowing that if someone is out there who seeks to have this information on, it's actually possible it is actually possible to get this information from me via this course. So yeah, that's what I'm most excited about to make it easier for other designers for possibly you to have an easier entrance into this wonderful and amazing and inspiring topic. And to be honest, mastering Green UX UI design isn't a nice to have. It's a really bad ass skill that directly impacts your digital products, conversions and SEO rankings and customer crowd and of course the environmental impact and so many more things. So it is an incredibly increasing demand out there from clients as well as companies for permanent positions. I think it's definitely the right time to go into that area and to have much more knowledge about it, especially as we all know climate change is a thing, so we need to know more about it. And I just remember when I started with this topic or I discovered this topic that was 2018 and there was not that much out there, luckily already quite a bit from Tom Greenwood and Tim Frick and a handful of other resources that I just devoured. I met this topic or discovered this topic and I immediately went into it like. Wow. I couldn't sleep anymore and I was just immediately in love with it and I wondered why. I've never heard about it before. How could that even be that we're not talking about this in mainstream design and how I'm just I'm still wondering why we're not, but it's increasing, so I get a little bit happier about that. And I went into reading all kinds of studies and blog articles and watching random YouTube videos that just remotely had something to do with the topic. But I wanted to know everything about it. I found myself deeper in technical things as everyone was talking about compressing CSS and JavaScript and caching and image compression, but I wondered what I can do in my UX concepts information architecture, UI designs, user research, all of those things that I do in my daily life being a UX researcher, information architect and UI designer, I thought yeah, okay, image compression is cool and knowing how to compress these is in JavaScript and doing all of those technical things is really valuable, but it's not really that much of a value in my daily UX UI designer life. To be honest, I felt a bit lost and that is the reason why I did so much more research on my own and luckily other researchers and designers did as well so we could inspire each other. And I knew I wanted to make it easier for others. That's why I founded Green the Web. As in the beginning it was just an Instagram channel and then slowly going bigger and bigger just knowing that others don't have to spend that much time, all of those hours, all of those nerves and frustrations. The way that I went through just to make it easier for you and for many other designers that are out there who are seeking those informations. So knowing that we're still at the very beginning of this beautiful design area and there is so much more potential to evolve. We do have already quite a lot of knowledge in the area and I've put so much more research into all kinds of different design process aspects that I put into this Green UX design course. And I want to give you a little overview of what is in the course. So in general it follows along the design process because of course it's nice to know that I have to compress images, but that's really at the very end of each design process. So what do I have to do in the beginning? What do I have to do in the middle? What do I have to do at the end? That's why it follows along the design process from the research phase to the design phase to the development phase and in the research phase going deeper into empathizing with your users as well as with non-human actors that are always impacted by your designs and digital products. Second of all, envisioning how to do that in a better way and really seeing what impact you're having. And third of all going into user journeys and infusing sustainability in there as well as driving a great content as well as navigational architecture and structures from that because Hint click paths is definitely one of the energy eating monsters in green UX UI design And then going into the design phase it's about the UX concept. So the information architecture really thinking about what to include in a digital product and what not and how to do the things differently, especially in a creative way. Because I don't want just to say, Well, reduce images and then that's it. But I was really interested in seeing how can I do it in a creative way. So I'm still a creative person, I'm still a creative UX UI designer and I want to live that. So what are options for me in a creative way to design and architect my digital products in a greener and more ecologically sustainable way that comes in UX architecture and concepts as well as in UI design, talking about fonts and colors and image manipulation and all of those things. And in UX architecture especially about also like third party tools and animations and interactive elements that we have all those little details in the components as well as audio and storage and all kinds of different things that we have to think about. And then as the last part of the design phase, it's also about testing one of my favorite topics actually because testing with real users, building a prototype, testing with yourself and then testing with real users is just I love it. It's so amazing to hear and listen to people talking about that and seeing people how they interact with the digital product and to do that before the development phase because that saves a lot of money, a lot of time and especially a lot of energy as well before going into the development and then testing it and then starting with the whole design phase again and then going into development again. Let's just ditch that and test before. And then in the development phase it's about the developer handoff. We will talk about also hosting and some technical basics to know as well as of course compression and scaling and all of those things, plus how to analyze and audit a final digital product. And there is so many cool goodies that are coming out of this course. And one is like starting with the more in-depth design brief and empathizing with your users as well as with non-human personas, having user journey maps that are sustainability infused and really knowing how to set up your content in a better way than before, as well as lightweight high fidelity designs for your digital product with environmentally positive features plus a developer hand of how to analyze and having an analysis sheet like all of those good things that are coming out of this course are ready for you. And there is even two bonus modules one at the very beginning because I love to be more intentional with everything that I'm doing, but definitely also with the designs I'm creating and the business and the person that I want to be. So the first bonus module is before the design phases of your own vision, your own values, being more aware of what is holding you back as well as building your own manifesto that's like your anchor or your compass to go through the design phases after that. And then there is a bonus module at the end of it talking about the real life. Of course I have all kinds of content in the modules already talking about how is this unfolding in the real life. But I wanted to dedicate a whole module on it talking about what are obstacles, what are benefits, how to sell greener designs to clients or within a company, how to advocate for sustainable design in a company, how to be more sustainable with yourself and how to actually go through with your values and your intention for the whole time. It is all learning by doing so, it's very, very action based. It's not me talking and rambling about stuff for 45 minutes in a video or things like that. It's really bite sized action based and it's about a project of your choice. It can be a real project that you might have lined up waiting for you to design. It could be a hypothetical project as well that you just thought of yourself or you want to redesign something that you just really like and it could be anything. It could be really anything. A website, an online shop, mobile application, desktop application. Name it. And just so you know a little bit more about what's included. There is bite sized, easy to follow video modules that guide you through the grain design process with step by step instructions. There's three really brilliant guidebooks on lightweight design, greener e-commerce and calm design. And the more I get into them, the more I fall in love with it because they're just awesome to come back to over time and time again and to get inspired over and over again. Then there is comprehensive workbooks included with tasks and in-depth questions waiting for you. There's an exclusive Slack community to connect with the other participants as well as me. And then, as I said, those two bonus modules of your values and vision as well as real life. And if you choose to also go into the life cohort because I will run a couple of live cohorts during a year. The first one is coming up on May 4th, so you will have to be quick to actually sign up for this first live cohort. It's a nine week cohort. It has eight live group calls via Zoom for all your juicy questions to get direct feedback, ask anything that you would like to ask you will have one week off in the middle of the nine week cohort, so don't get confused with nine weeks and eight live group calls just to have a little bit more time for yourself, for designing things, for integrating, for all of those things. And then in the live cohort you also have an extra cohort based Slack group chat for in-depth feedback and questions that you're having along the way. And with both options, live cohort and self study, you get lifelong access to the self-study course materials like the videos and workbooks and guide books you have absolute flexibility on when you work on the course materials which design software to choose and what pace to go through the course. So I really intentionally designed it this way so you can come back to the materials over and over again because every project is different and needs different solutions. So that's why it was important for me to have something that is written there, especially the workbooks and the guide books for you to come back to. Plus the guide books will constantly get updates with new best practices, examples and more and you have full access to them forever. So it's a really awesome deal I would say. And after the green design course you will know exactly how to design in a more ecologically sustainable way that lets you win over your dream clients. If you're a freelancer or employers if you want to or you're looking for permanent jobs. So really, let's get started with it. I'm I'm so hyped and many companies have professional development funds for their employees. So even if you don't have an official training budget, sending an email to your bosses works very well. You can find it done for you expense email example on the course page. There is also payment plans if you're looking into that. So there's many opportunities to go into this course, as I said in self-study or a live cohort mode as well as payment plans and so many other awesome goodies. And just so you know, it's really important for me to say it's your journey, you are the creative, you are the creative designer and everything that you find in this course is dedicated for your journey and for your path. You can take all of that as inspiration. You can adjust it, you can modify it. If you feel like there is something you want to add or something you want to leave out, you can do. So it's your journey and I would never say that do it my way because that is the only correct way. I want to inspire you to go your path and to have your ideas building into your digital products because that's where the true innovation comes in and comes from.

So if you have any questions about the grain design course, just send me a message. I'm always happy to answer them all. You can find all kinds of frequently asked questions on the website as well. That is of course linked down below in the description. So there's many, many cool things waiting for you and I can't wait to get this course started and to get the first links to digital products that have been designed and non-human personas and user journey maps and all of those things. I want to see what's happening and what what is coming out of this course. I can't wait for it. I'm really, really stoked on it. So this was a very special episode today, of course, but I wanted to share that a little bit more in depth with you that this course is finally open for enrollment and the first live cohort will start on May 4th. You can be a part of it, but yeah, choose the option that suits you best and then subscribe to the podcast. Share this episode with friends and colleagues who you think might be interested in taking on this course and then follow along on Instagram at Green Web or on LinkedIn at Green Web. Spread the joy as always and let me know what questions there might be still about the course. Just send me a message on Instagram, LinkedIn, email, whatever you like the most. And then in two weeks time we will go back to the regular schedule of socially and ecologically sustainable topics and talking about them. So see you in the next one.