Sai Kumar Mukthevi
Mentor, Agile Design School
LinkedIn profile of Sai Kumar Mukthevi (opens in a new tab) ↗
Home › Programmes › UX Research & Design Thinking Foundations
UX Research & Design Thinking Foundations
A beginner-friendly UX research and design thinking course. Learn how top product teams uncover real user problems — interviews, synthesis, usability and behavioural insight — before a single screen is designed.
Overview
About the programme
The most-searched starting point for freshers — learn how top teams uncover user problems before a single screen is designed. Instruction is delivered through live, instructor-led sessions rather than pre-recorded video, with assessment based on project work and a final portfolio review — not attendance.
Key facts
- Duration: 3 months (13 weeks · 130 planned hours), live cohort format
- Weekly: 4 live hours + about 6 hours of fieldwork and synthesis
- Projects: 5 industry research studies — a healthcare capstone plus e-commerce, fintech, edtech and enterprise SaaS
- Level: Beginner
- Fee: ₹45,000 incl. GST (EMI options available)
- Assessment: 5 case studies + research toolkit + live capstone defence (70/100 to pass), verifiable certificate ID
- Schedules: Weekday evening, weekend and blended options
Week-by-week syllabus, 13 pages · instant PDF after a 10-second form
Upcoming batches
Next 4 start dates
A new cohort of this programme starts every 15 days, alternating weekday-evening and weekend schedules — so you're never more than two weeks from beginning.
Dates update automatically · Seats per cohort are capped to keep critique quality high · Reserve via a free demo class or counselling call.
Who should join
Built for
- Freshers who want the most-searched starting point in design
- Psychology, sociology and humanities graduates entering tech
- Product managers and analysts who need research rigor
- QA engineers — you already think in edge cases
Learning outcomes
By graduation you will
- Plan and moderate interviews and usability tests without leading
- Synthesise messy data into defensible insights
- Frame problems teams actually want to solve
- Facilitate a design-thinking workshop and test a low-fidelity concept
- Check AI-generated research summaries against your source notes
- Present findings that change product decisions
Tools covered
FigJam or MiroForms & spreadsheetsNotion or a research repositoryFigma (low-fi stimuli)Video calls & recordingResponsible AI assistants
Curriculum · 2026 edition
What you will learn, week by week
13 weeks, 130 planned hours: 52 live (4 hours a week of teaching, method practice and critique) and 78 independent, mostly fieldwork and synthesis. Each month ends with a mentor review.
Month 1 · Discover and frame
Plan a study, recruit ethically, run your first interviews and turn the evidence into a defensible problem statement.
- Week 01Research purpose and planning
- Week 02Recruit and interview ethically
- Week 03Observe and synthesise
- Week 04Define the opportunity
Topics and submissions, weeks 1–4
- Week 01 · Research purpose and planning. UX research versus market research; discovery versus evaluation; design thinking; stakeholder decisions; assumptions; qualitative and quantitative questions; method selection. You submit: A one-page research plan, risk log and scoped healthcare brief.
- Week 02 · Recruit and interview ethically. Screeners; purposive sampling; inclusion; consent and recording; incentives; non-leading questions; probing; pilot sessions; note-taking; remote setup. You submit: Pilot your guide and conduct two adult patient or caregiver interviews.
- Week 03 · Observe and synthesise. Complete four interviews in total; contextual walkthroughs; transcripts; coding; affinity mapping; counterexamples; separating what people say from what they do. You submit: An anonymised evidence table and initial themes with source references.
- Week 04 · Define the opportunity. Insight quality; confidence and uncertainty; jobs to be done; journey maps; behavioural segments; how-might-we framing; desirability, feasibility and viability. You submit: The Case 1 discovery report with prioritised opportunities and open questions.
Discovery review: Your mentor checks the fit between research question, participants and method, and traces each major insight to evidence. The healthcare study continues as your capstone through month 3.
Month 2 · Evaluate and interpret
Run usability tests, comprehension sessions, a survey, card sorting and tree testing across three industry studies.
- Week 05Plan usability research
- Week 06Run tests and prioritise findings
- Week 07Test comprehension and read numbers
- Week 08Study navigation and validate AI summaries
Topics and submissions, weeks 5–8
- Week 05 · Plan usability research. Moderated versus unmoderated testing; task wording; pilot tests; observable success criteria; think-aloud limitations; moderator bias; note templates. You submit: A Case 2 checkout test plan, piloted on a demo or permitted product.
- Week 06 · Run tests and prioritise findings. Test with three shoppers; task success; errors; severity; frequency versus impact; clips and evidence; recommendations; what small samples cannot establish. You submit: The Case 2 report with three priority issues and an improvement hypothesis.
- Week 07 · Test comprehension and read numbers. Case 3 payment-status comprehension; three participant sessions; survey writing and piloting; sampling bias; counts, percentages and medians; correlation versus causation. You submit: A fintech report plus a piloted five-question survey; analysis of a labelled teaching dataset.
- Week 08 · Study navigation and validate AI summaries. Case 4 course discovery; a small open card sort with three adults; revised labels; exploratory tree testing with three adults; comparing manual and AI summaries. You submit: An EdTech navigation report, its limitations and an AI verification log.
Method review: Each focused report includes its question, method, sample, evidence, limitations and next decision. Small card-sort and tree-test samples are exploratory practice, not population benchmarks.
Month 3 · Facilitate, validate and influence
Research an enterprise workflow, facilitate a design-thinking workshop, test a concept and defend your capstone.
- Week 09Research enterprise workflows
- Week 10Facilitate a design-thinking workshop
- Week 11Prototype and test a concept
- Weeks 12–13Communicate, revise and defend
Topics and submissions, weeks 9–13
- Week 09 · Research enterprise workflows. Case 5: interview two domain practitioners; stakeholder mapping; role boundaries; task dependencies; service blueprint; evidence repository; decision logs. You submit: An enterprise workflow map, research findings and proposed operational improvements.
- Week 10 · Facilitate a design-thinking workshop. Complete the Case 5 playback; use Case 1 findings for divergent ideation, silent brainwriting, assumption mapping, prioritisation and a timeboxed concept workshop. You submit: The Case 5 report and a capstone workshop kit with agenda, outputs and reflection.
- Week 11 · Prototype and test a concept. Sketch or build low-fidelity healthcare screens; choose fidelity for the question; plan concept and usability tests; recruit three relevant adults; observe without selling the idea. You submit: A tested concept, evidence-linked revisions and outstanding questions.
- Weeks 12–13 · Communicate, revise and defend. Research storytelling; concise recommendations; evidence and limitations; stakeholder disagreement; portfolio ownership; panel questions; remediation and career reflection. You submit: Five case studies, a research toolkit, a live capstone defence and a growth plan.
Final review: You demonstrate the full research-to-decision cycle in Case 1 and method breadth through Cases 2–5. Week 13 is reserved for feedback, revision and the final review; it adds no new methods.
Five industry research studies
One end-to-end capstone and four focused studies, each ending in a product or service decision backed by evidence. They are industry-aligned educational briefs, not client projects.
| Study | When | What you produce |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Healthcare — appointment journey | Weeks 1–4, 10–12 · capstone | Discovery interviews and concept testing: an end-to-end research study. |
| 2 · E-commerce — checkout friction | Weeks 5–6 · focused study | Moderated checkout testing and a severity-ranked usability report. |
| 3 · Fintech — payment-status comprehension | Week 7 · focused study | Comprehension sessions, a piloted survey, and content and recovery recommendations. |
| 4 · EdTech — finding learning resources | Week 8 · focused study | Card sorting and tree testing, with navigation recommendations. |
| 5 · Enterprise SaaS — support-ticket handoffs | Weeks 9–10 · focused study | Practitioner interviews, a workflow map, a role map and process recommendations. |
Why this programme
Three reasons learners choose it
Real participants
Recruiting, consent and moderation included — the part no video course can teach.
Honest statistics
Enough quantitative skill to interpret data without fooling yourself.
A research portfolio piece
Your capstone study is presented to a live panel.
In the studio with
Your mentors on this programme
Like the best professional schools, every course names its instructors. These practitioners lead the studios, critiques and juries for this programme.
P.J. Prudhvi Raj
Mentor, Agile Design School
LinkedIn profile of P.J. Prudhvi Raj (opens in a new tab) ↗
Anantha Shayana. D
Mentor, Agile Design School
LinkedIn profile of Anantha Shayana. D (opens in a new tab) ↗Full bios updating shortly — verify current roles directly on LinkedIn.
Certification & FAQ
A certificate that means something when someone checks it.
You're assessed on your research — not attendance: healthcare capstone 40%, each focused study 10%, research toolkit 10% and live defence 10%. To pass you need 70/100 overall, at least 60/100 on the capstone, and the oral defence. Every graduate receives a certificate with a unique, verifiable ID.
Do I need design skills to join?
No. Research is its own discipline; we teach enough design literacy to collaborate with designers and product managers.
How often do batches start?
A new cohort begins every 15 days, alternating weekday-evening and weekend formats — see the next four dates above.
Do I need statistics or a technical background?
No. We teach the statistics you need from zero, focused on honest interpretation rather than formulas.
Will I work with real participants?
Yes — recruiting, consent, incentives and moderation are all part of the programme. It's the part no recorded course can give you.
What careers does this lead to?
UX Researcher, Design Researcher, Usability Analyst and ResearchOps roles — or a strong research foundation before the full UX/UI certificate.
Can I combine this with the UX/UI certificate later?
Yes, and many learners do. Fees paid here are considered in counselling when you upgrade to the flagship certificate (confirmed case-by-case).
What research projects will I do?
Five industry research studies: a healthcare appointment capstone that runs from discovery interviews to a tested concept, plus focused studies on e-commerce checkout testing, fintech payment-status comprehension, edtech navigation (card sorting and tree testing) and enterprise support-ticket handoffs.
How much time per week?
About 10 hours: 4 live hours (teaching, method practice and critique) plus about 6 hours of fieldwork and synthesis — 130 planned hours over 13 weeks.
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