I started practicing OOUX in 2018, and have never looked back. Even five years later, it remains the most powerful tool I have in my design toolkit, and is the first thing I recommend to new designers when they ask me how to build their UX skills. Working with clients across many industries on projects at all levels of complexity, OOUX has been a unifying force for awesomeness. It has allowed me to quickly bring cross-functional teams of business stakeholders, executives, marketers, developers, and architects to a shared understanding and common language on any project or initiative. OOUX has a failure rate of exactly 0% across every project I've used it on, regardless of how much of the methodology I've been able to apply. It has become key to my happiness as a designer, and I wouldn't ever want to be without it.
I have been working in UX for over 20 years, and OOUX has renewed my energy for my job! It's literally the missing piece to my work, and I'm thrilled to bring it to my team. I loved this course! I can see the hard work that Sophia has put into the program and I cannot applaud her enough. I couldn't attend office hours due to a work conflict, so having recorded versions that were highlighted for me "hey, this one talks about Philler objects" was helpful. I also appreciated the video feedback! That was amazing.
As I matured as a product designer, I began to see unaddressed complexity in the products I was designing. This complexity often took the form of a lack of clear definitions for critical aspects of the system, multiple terms for the same element, lack of specifications for standard fields, two different data points with the same name—I could go on. I addressed this complexity in tactical, ad hoc ways that led to small wins but failed to address these challenges comprehensively. OOUX and the ORCA methodology provide a structure to systematically root out this complexity in existing systems and lay a foundation to avoid these challenges in new products. Junior and senior designers need the ORCA methodology in their playbook.
OOUX has been a refreshing oasis amidst a seemingly endless desert of shopworn design methodologies. Sophia Prater reminds us of our industry's roots in structuring solid, easy-to-navigate digital experiences, and firmly grounds her comprehensive ORCA process in sound information architecture practices. But the beauty of this 15-step framework is how versatile it can be and how much it opens our world up to those of our cross-functional partners, and in so doing, welcomes us in to theirs. OOUX has opened my eyes to unintuitive objects, to be sure, but it's also awakened me to my own intuition about what makes for intentional, well-designed experiences. Only now I have a name for that sixth sense. Thank you, OOUX! 🙏🏽🐳
The OOUX Certification course is one the most challenging I have experienced to date and so far the best.The robust learning materials, resources, feedback from Sophia and mentors are above and beyond. Adding OOUX and Sophia's ORCA process to my toolkit is the key to tackling complex design challenges. I look forward to continuing to learn and practice this process. I highly recommend this course to anyone tasked with designing for digital.
OOUX is the best way to level up as a UXer. I didn't have the tools to zoom out and tackle complexity at a system level and now I do. It has helped me think differently and solve problems better and faster. OOUX and ORCA let you see through the complexity to reveal the truth of what the things are and how they relate to each other, so when you go to design those things, they all make sense together (the first time).
OOUX and the ORCA methodology is my new 'secret weapon' for managing complexity and my own ADHD (ha!). As a bonafide over-thinker, this methodology gives me a repeatable, reliable framework to tease out the hidden questions and logical considerations in a system *without* getting too bogged down in shiny new ideas. I'm able to explore and document concepts, ideas, and potential opportunities without necessarily having to move on them *right away*. Plus, OOUX and ORCA has given me the perfect framework to get stakeholders excited about untangling complexity vs. completely overwhelmed. Making the system tangible and malleable means better questions, more effective collaboration and the best set of documentation I think I've ever had going into sketching! Certainly the best part of this program for me has been its flexibility. Every exercise we learned simply gave me another way to tease out complexity and ask the right questions... but weren't so concrete that I couldn't adapt them to fit specific needs in my own work as a content designer. Did I mention documentation? The most beautiful documentation.
I arrived to the program not knowing much about OOUX, but hopeful it could help bust some of the silos Ive seen surface on projects. I'm leaving the program more than hopeful -- I'm CERTAIN that OOUX and the ORCA process is what I've been looking for to put more consistency, rigor, fun, and collaboration into our design process, and help clients feel more integrated into our work too!
The OOUX Certification course has given me the confidence to take on complex design challenges. The value of a framework and methodology for asking the right questions and doing "upfront" thinking about systems BEFORE designing them is immeasurable.
I cannot fully express how thrilled I am to have discovered OOUX. It is just the perfect thing that I needed in my UX journey as I continue to take on more challenging work and face the uncertainties that our organization is working through. This approach really prepares you to become a better designer by asking the right questions to help the team gain a common understanding of the complexities we are facing through building a solid foundation on which to build a system, application, or website that its intuitive for our customers.
Through re-certification, I appreciate how much Sophia has evolved the ORCA process and how she teaches it. I’ve enjoyed building on and refreshing my knowledge!
Going through the OOUX Certification program was like being handed an organizer binder for my systems-thinking brain. Instead of struggling to piece together all the unconnected bits and pieces visually, I now have a solid process and principles to help make sense of any digital systems structure.
The OOUX Certification program has not only expanded my skillset, but increased my confidence in my ability to provide consistent and scalable human-centered experiences for complex digital product systems.
OOUX has brought order to the chaos that UX design can be at times. Not only is it the missing link between research and design, it's also the user manual, the treasure map, the shared source of truth that can unify a team. OOUX has tremendously improved my UX of doing UX.
Completing the Object-Oriented UX Certification was intensely educational - I can absolutely say it dramatically leveled up my conceptual design skills. The step-by-step journey mapping objects, attributes, relationships and actions finally structured previously abstract ideas of putting users first.
At the same time, wow did the program require serious commitment above my regular work and life schedule! I significantly underestimated the workload tackling exercises already strained from my demanding daily responsibilities. Many late nights battling workbook fatigue taught me slowing down enough to truly transform thinking takes both immersive time and support.
My big takeaway was intricately understanding experience requisites before any screens or flows unlocks essential clarity - for colleagues, clients and users alike. It powerfully accommodates chaos. But more importantly, elegantly hints at order hiding in apparent complexity. I’m so glad I pushed through because this philosophy fundamentally empowers my work with foundational confidence and fresh perspective. However, be prepared to earn that payoff around professional and personal obligations if also working full-time!
Learning OOUX has given me the confidence to guide my team through the ORCA Process. I am excited to start teaching and sharing what I have learned with my network. This process is a meat grinder for the complexity of any system.
Even though I have been practicing UX for about six years, after this course I feel like a complete UX beginner. After this course, I feel that now I have a very broad and strategic perspective on how to build digital systems and tackle complexity, my only regret is that I didn't know this earlier. I promise to keep learning, to keep honing my skills in this area, and to help more people apply this methodology.
Regards, Sophia You're a genius!
I feel like I've just scratched the surface on my OOUX journey, and discovered a magic sauce to tackle complex design problems. Tricky system architecture, hairy roles and permissions, arguing with product about requirement phases? I can use ORCA to uncover clear user mental models, uncover research needs, and validate my research step by step with documentation that allows for phased development, that's both manageable and scaleable. I'm excited to implement this into my work, and to continue to nerd out with this new community.
This course was a worthwhile investment in my career. I loved nerding out about UX and getting a new perspective on the craft. As a content designer, I think I can definitely use these new tools and ideas in my day-to-day.
I highly recommend the certification course if you want to start OOUXing. You get so much out of the hands-on practices and office hours. Did I mention that all feedback on your assignments is personalized and written just for you by a real mentor? Such a great experience!
Having completed both the OOUX self-paced course and the OOUX Masterclass, I've become a much more confident UX Designer. This curriculum, along with the support from my mentor, instructor, and fellow OOUXers, has equipped me with solid tools for my UX toolbox. I now feel even more prepared to tackle complex problems, whether starting in the messy middle or from scratch. The OOUX methodology provides designers, or anyone dealing with a problem, the vocabulary and strategies necessary to communicate and achieve a more user-centric solution that is also easier to execute and ship.
I feel that the OOUX courses have been well worth my time and financial commitments. It feels great to turn around in 10 quick weeks to find myself a more well-rounded designer prepared to benefit my users, teammates, and company.
OOUX is an incredibly valuable tool for designers looking to tackle complexity. As someone that works with a complex products, I feel like I've been given the missing piece in my skillset to allow me to have a structured and confident approach to my practise, both in my own design and how I collaborate with different roles in my team. The course was perfectly structured, and the support from Sophia and her team of mentors was phenomenal!
My journey with UX involved completing 2 certificate programs. But even after completing countless classes, I still didn't feel prepared to fully be a UX Designer -- or work in UX -- partly because I didn't have a great handle on how to collaborate with developers.
When I was first introduced to OOUX, I seriously doubted its usefulness. Where was all of the rapid prototyping? Where was all of the visual design? I'm so grateful for Sophia's unrelenting work in showing the worth of OOUX, because once I saw how useful OOUX really is, I also saw how it was the missing piece in preparing me to work in UX with confidence.
Thanks to the community and my mentor, I've made it this far -- even when I doubted myself. I'm proud to have wrestled with really complex puzzles, indebted to those who've gone before and paved this delightfully tricky OOUX path, and excited to see what doors open as a result of completing the program!
OOUX is the bridge I never knew I needed, and now can't live without! The OOUX program is thorough, hands-on and instructed through a community of awesome people genuinely interested in improving the way in which we design digital systems. It's a great investment and is only getting better, so get involved now!
It is highly recommended to learn OOUX and ORCA from Sophia V Prater if you are working with a digital system, regardless of which job role you are working for. It is mind-blowing and will guide you with a systematic process/methodology to tackle complexity. Once you start using it, you cannot drop it. Beyond methodology, it shares an important philosophy on improving team communication, finding more impactful questions, and achieving sustainability development.
OOUX is my go-to toolset for helping teams get clarity on what they're building. On large projects, it's all too easy for individual teams to diverge without realizing they're speaking different languages. OOUX is a great way to keep everyone aligned and executing on delivering a great product.
The OOUX masterclass has proven to be an exceptionally impactful (albiet challenging) addition to my UX education. I'm now equipped with a powerful tool to navigate complex and demanding projects and to bridge my research insights into a clear and actionable design roadmap. I can't wait to roll up my sleeves and put my new OOUX skills to use!
OOUX has been an amazing journey for me. My whole UX career has been a slow grind and a lot self taught. However, learning OOUX has helped me be better prepared to tackle complex problems and learn how to better collaborate with developers. The skills I learned taught me how to really think before jumping into Figma to design. Now I feel a lot more organized and my process has forever changed for the better.
OOUX brought my team together. It was the missing ingredient in finding common language to talk about complex concepts. Once everything is broken down into cute colorful stickies, even the most daunting challenges become manageable and, eventually, crystal clear.
Best money spent on my design career! After the OOUX masterclass, I felt excited to tackle complex projects with renewed passion and confidence." On a personal note, I had a job interview right after the course. I never felt so confident and articulate before. They had a shapeshifter right on their homepage. When they asked me what I would do with their site, I was like "I'm so glad you asked!" :) TY! PS. you can use that second bit as a testimonial if you like it better.
As a seasoned product manager with a focus in user experience, the OOUX course has really helped me to understand the importance of waiting to start "solving the problem" with wireframes/mockups, and provides a valuable methodology (ORCA) of how to bridge that gap in the double-diamond between defining the problem and developing a solution.
This program has been the most challenging, most rewarding step in my UX career. The ability to model object maps, understand problems through user-first noun structures is a game changer. It feels like levels of ambiguity are removed by applying this methodology when solving user-centered problems.
The ability to bring others along and have an aligned understanding of what is necessary for both business and the user with this low fidelity is a game-changer. Excited to further my understanding in OOUX as I apply in my practice!
Learning about OOUX and the ORCA process has completely changed my approach and perspective on design. I no longer see complex systems as daunting challenges but as engaging puzzles that I get to tackle with my team. Followed by the rewarding process of refining those solutions together with our users.
Discovering OOUX in 2015 was a game-changer for my product design journey, providing a solid foundation that has shaped my approach ever since. Becoming a certified strategist in 2020 with the ORCA process expanded my toolkit, empowering me to confidently address complex challenges and be an integral part of early conversations with product managers and engineers. Now, with the recent course completion and upcoming re-certification this year, I'm excited about the new insights gained and confident in making an even bigger impact on my work. Grateful for the continuous evolution of my design philosophy.
This course can only be described as a transformative journey! By adding OOUX to my toolkit, I now have a robust and repeatable methodology that I know will improve my ability to navigate complex design challenges. The emphasis on collaboration and shared understanding among cross-functional teams and stakeholders is the key to any design success, and this in my view is OOUX’s most important weapon! Besides that, the course has an ample support system, with check-ins with the mentors and with Sophia, personalized feedback and chats with fellow cohortians - all of it turned what was supposed to be overwhelming into something super easy to navigate. It was an engaging and rewarding experience, and I hope to stay in touch with this beautiful community.
For me, this was refreshing to use my brain and learn something new in the UX field. I've been doing UX work for over twenty years and I always try to keep learning, but nothing has felt new in a long time. I work with a lot of career changers who have gone to UX bootcamps and I can see how helpful this is for thinking holistically and critically. They should definitely be teaching this in those programs.
I am impressed by how many "old" UX problems OOUX and the ORCA process solve. Need to quickly understand the context of the project you've been dropped into? OOUX. Need to justify additional customer research? OOUX. Need to prevent design teams from recreating the wheel? OOUX. This methodology has something for everyone – developers, product peeps, researchers, writers, marketers. This program gives you the ultimate utility belt for handling software projects.
OOUX is brilliant because it brings a whole bunch of detailed but disparate methodologies into a framework that's both collaborative and repeatable. Some disciplines and approaches just throw academic theory at you and require you to work out the practical element yourself. OOUX is both: the theory and the practice.
This was an amazing and challenging program! This is the way to complement the practice of UX from the understanding and respect of the the user's real-world mental model. OOUX simplifies complexity, this was really enriching for my growth.
Having completed the OOUX certification program and begun to apply its methodology, I feel a bit like the Eddie Morra character in Limitless. I would consider myself a highly-ambitious individual, but prior to OOUX, I was coming up with solutions for complex UX problems in an inefficient manner. With exposure and understanding of the ORCA process, I now put objects first and it has TRANSFORMED how my brain interrupts a problem, decides what's really important, and create simpler and more powerful experiences. With OOUX and ORCA, I am now firing on ALL cylinders.
OOUX is your ace card when you find yourself thrown into an unfamiliar domain (which should be happening! You're a designer after all...). The artifacts from the process don't just help you visualize the messy parts, but provide a tool for shared understanding with your cross functional team members.
Working as a compact team in fast paced agency environment, things can get quite messy early on. Many times I have found myself in the middle of the design diamond right between an extensive research phase and the need to start defining some Information Architecture. I don't know for you, but this was rarely a "hit the ground running situation." Sophia's program gave me the keys to a process that turned this limbo into a structured approach which pays dividends in the long run.
I have searched high and low for continuing education courses in UX for years and OOUX is the first course I've found with immediate and proven value that certified folks actually recommend and rave about. I wish I had OOUX 7 years ago. Take the course, you'll understand. I'm a UX idealist but this course really teaches you how to get away from that and tackle any problem with any team. I'm excited to immediately apply this in my career and continue to learn as OOUX evolves.
Wow, just wow! OOUX has revolutionized the way I approach my work as a UX designer and even how I think about the systems I encounter everyday off the clock. I had first heard about OOUX a couple years ago and quietly lurked seeing the potential but not quite understanding how I fit into it. I finally decided to go for it and am 100000% obsessed with everything I've learned and have been finding ways to implement it into all my work. The Certification Program really packs a punch by holding you accountable to keep learning, and dishes out all the deepest, darkest secrets to untangle complexity of any project.
I have been in UX for 3 short years and have taken a few courses through Udemy and received my Nielsen Norman Group Certificate in UX. There is nothing out there, to my knowledge and extensive research, that provides more value than this course. I have been feeling a bit lost in the sauce, suffering from imposter syndrome in my new career path (former Conceptual Graphic Designer) but this course has made me feel like I can finally bring real value to any team. I've struggled with people asking me to just wireframe things and trying to figure out all the complexity on my own along the way. Wireframes have value, but the amount of time you waste creating them when you don't have the answers to the complex questions has been a constant struggle. I can't wait to bring this back to my development teams and help us all get on the same sheet of music!
The ORCA process provides a set of tools and a process for analyzing user research, domain information, and stakeholder directions, yielding a set of design outputs with phased implementation and extensibility "baked in". It takes nothing from creativity, while adding the safety of carrying the important details all the way through, into the final design.
Sophia's ORCA methodology helps focus UX practitioners on the main pillars of any system: objects, object-relationships, calls-to-action and the attributes that make up the objects. The documentation, templates and deliverables she provides at each step of the way are essential and help us with hand-offs between business, research, design and development teams. Thanks for all the hard work you put in to making this process so comprehensive!
Undoubtedly, OOUX has been the most beneficial thing I have done to improve my skills and progress in my career. I must admit that even my second certification was not an easy task, but achieving something worthwhile is rarely easy.
Running through all the OOUX steps takes out all of the guess work of how and what should be in a design. A lot of the stress and frustration of designing for something new has been eliminated by the time you get to the representation round. Even if I don't get the chance to go through all of the steps within OOUX, I feel there is something within the process that helps untangle the complexity of every project!
The OOUX certificate program is wonderful—a welcoming, challenging, beautifully structured exercise in approaching design through objects first. I already know the ORCA method will speed up and enhance my work and lead to more usable products!
As Design evolves, the systems one works with must adapt to meet the needs of impact-led Design. Looking at Design’s double diamond, Object Oriented UX is a tactical methodology to help bridge the gap between the discovery and solution spaces.
I started out as a self-paced student. After months of doing it alone, I realized I needed to be part of the cohort structure so I dove in and I have no regrets. Was it tough? Hell, yes! BUT I have such a coherent understanding of OOUX and ORCA as a viable framework from which to continue my practice as a content designer. It's been really great having something like this further build how I already think about when I work on products with my visual design colleagues, and the value I bring to the project when I get us to pause and think through information architecture, hierarchy, and product narrative.
The OOUX certification course has fundamentally changed the way we do user experience design at OddBird for the better! Clients, designers, and developers establish a shared glossary of terms and a deeper understanding of the requirements and priorities at the beginning of each project instead of somewhere in the messy middle.
Even the smallest project or engagement can benefit from OOUX! It's absolutely amazing what just 30 minutes of object mapping can do to increase understanding of any problem. Once I tried OOUX and ORCA, I was hooked (and you will be, too!)
It was TOUGH and thought straining for me, but so beneficial when you get to the end and see the results. It's so helpful to see the well defined objects and the ability to know how to sketch and put together prototypes based on real defined things, not just made up or quickly thrown together without research and prioritization. I can't wait to work this process into my UX work - it's a great addition to my toolset!
I took the OOUX Masterclass in hopes to find new, refreshing and innovative ways of design thinking...and it did not disappoint!! I have attended other UX trainings and taken other courses but nothing compares to the OOUX Masterclass. The content in the course was full of rich methods that allowed me to start practicing right away (even if I didn't fully get it yet). Now that I've completed the course, I'm eager to use the full ORCA process to tackle the many complex problems that our users are faced with.
The OOUX Masterclass Certification was one of the best things I've ever done to further my growth in the digital world. I was scared, clueless and intimidated by the amazing talent that was in the cohort with me but the experience ended up being exciting, enlightening and humbling. Everyone was so supportive and we all learned so much from each other. Sophia is a wonderful teacher whose knowledge is impressive and personality is even better - always making you feel comfortable. I look forward to growing in the OOUX world and seeing what the future holds!
This program is definitely a commitment! But by the end of it all, I really think that I have been equipped with tools and knowledge that will help me become a better designer no matter what field I am designer for. The program is one of the best designed I have attended and the feedback is custom tailored for you and our projects. So you actually walk away with points to work on every single week from professional OOUX mentors. I would recommend this program to any designer who is looking to step up their game and focus creating even more value for client of company.
As a seasoned designer, I've attended my fair share of UX courses, but I can confidently say that this course has transformed the way I approach complex design projects in a way no other course has. It has been nothing short of a paradigm shift for me.
Before taking this course, I found myself shying away from the complexity that often comes with designing intricate user experiences. But now, thanks to the OOUX course, I find myself saying, "Bring it on!" The techniques and methodologies taught by Sophia have equipped me with the tools and confidence to tackle any design challenge head-on, no matter how intricate or daunting it may seem. Sophia is a phenomenal teacher. Her ability to break down complex concepts into digestible and actionable steps is second to none. Sophia's engaging teaching style, coupled with her genuine passion for her students' success, creates a learning environment that is both empowering and enjoyable. I cannot recommend this OOUX course highly enough. Whether you're a novice designer looking to gain a solid foundation in UX design principles or a seasoned professional seeking to elevate your skills and approach to complex projects, this course is a must. Thanks, Sophia!
The missing piece to the puzzle that is UX! I stumbled across this philosophy/methodology about a year ago and read everything I could find on it. However, the articles were only shedding a maglite-size light onto the complexity I was wrangling with. Completing this course and especially having weekly check-ins, discussions with fellow cohortians and 1-on1s with Sophia have given me more insights and revelations than I thought possible at the beginning. I now feel like the maglite has grown to a floodlight and no complexity monster can keep hiding under the bed. Thanks so much!
The ORCA process provides a structured approach to analyzing and identifying the objects, their attributes and relationships and their Call-to-Actions essential to solving a business problem. I have used object oriented practices for analyzing, defining and developing applications since the '90s but have never had such a detailed methodology to document and communicate findings and to easily prioritize a release strategy. The certification course is run and supported by people with such passion for the process that it is easy to have fun even though it is a challenging pace. Sophia's passion and energy is amazing and the mentors all have their own unique and extensive experiences. The course takes you all the way from analyzing requirements and user documents through documenting the key components and attributes, to developing a feature roadmap, and finally to developing prototypes for validating your findings and testing the assumptions. I had a blast on the course and made a number of long-term friendships that I hope will result in successful collaborations. I am glad I chose to take the time to participate in this course.
The OOUX Masterclass delivers completely. If you're looking for a robust and flexible methodology to untangle complex problems and create intuitive and impactful design, this is the thing you likely need. Sophia's ORCA methodology is a fulcrum for designers and strategists ambitious for understanding. Through excellent instructional design and several student supports, she explains, models, questions, explores, and encourages. I feel solidly confident as a content designer that I can dig into any complex problem and strategize a way forward.
I am certain that OOUX and the ORCA process is what I have been looking for to break and process all the complexity and deal with the silos in SDLC. It will bring more consistency and rigor into my design process and help me bring designs closer to the vision of the clients I work for. It's a must have toolkit in every designer's processes.
OOUX is a philosophy that has changed my mind about what my design process should be. I think this philosophy and ORCA methodology are a great tools that will structure how I discover, define, design and build solutions in collaboration with dev and product teams. ORCA process is very robust but at the same time it gives you several alternatives to incorporate it in small pieces on your every day process. This program was really challenging because of all that you learn, the level of detail, explanations, examples, exercises, material, guidance are so good and extensive that you need to be at that same level of comprehension, but at the end I can tell you, the effort pays off.
I've really enjoyed learning the OOUX methodology with Sophia Prater, and I'm super pumped that I have this amazing tool on my belt. It's a great way to unravel complexity, build with intent and structure, and overall has been the most organized process to understand the purpose of what we're creating. OOUX is next level for experience design.
This program was so thoughtfully designed from the ground up. I loved how all the course materials were structured and how engaging the office hour sessions were. The program will not only give you a toolbox for tackling complexity but also give you the confidence to face it head-on. If you are looking for something "easy breezy," this is not it. Sophia and her team will challenge you in this course, and you'll become a better designer for it. The beauty of OOUX is that it is so incredibly interdisciplinary. I can't wait to continue finding opportunities to apply it professionally and personally.
OOUX is a philosophy which can be applied in any product domain - B2B/B2C. I literally learned a completely unique perspective on solving design problems. I am always keen to add value to the product and I am very happy to have this OOUX skill in my quiver for the same. It's a very well designed course by Sophia. Mentors for this course and Sophia herself are very involved with the students, which was really awesome while going through this OOUX journey. It's definitely a solid and intense course so one really needs to deep dive, but that's how the course has been designed to avoid gaining only superficial knowledge and allow the designer to push a bit to expand their horizons. But and "no but", it's a very rewarding course in all ways. The time, energy and the money was all worth it.
It's been a fun and fruitful journey learning the ins and outs of OOUX. I'm already seeing how this approach to breaking down complexity, asking deep questions, and really digging into the objects within a system is making me a better content designer. Through the discovery and requirements stages, I can start defining terminology, considering language for labels, proactively think through error messages, tooltips, and other content elements much earlier in the process. Also, I've found that I'm looking at designs through a different lens now, surfacing questions around placement, prioritization, and suggesting alternative designs for cards, new ways to sort and filter, and more. I love the deep inquiry required in the ORCA process and feel confident that I can help my team take on any complex design challenge with these new tools and skills. Thank you!
OOUX in confectionary speak is the solid, yet scrumptious gingerbread biscuit providing sound support for all the candy, morsels and frosting that make up a tasty gingerbread house (system). Paired with Sophia's ORCA process, the system, project, really whatever problem you're working to solve will seem all the simpler even in its innate complexity. I had so many lightbulb moments during this course, prompted by the thorough videos, mini quizzes, discussions in the forum and insightful feedback from Sophia and her fabulous team of mentors. OOUX and ORCA enriched my approach to system design and provided the tools for improving collaboration with stakeholders, developers and other designers in a clearly defined, inclusive and holistic way from project conception to launch.
Sophia's OOUX/ORCA certification program is the best UX learning experience I've encountered. She is generous with materials, 1:1 time, and support. (I wish I had this much support in college haha). And I feel confident that I can bring OOUX to my organization and positively influence our design process and the experiences we build.
OOUX made me understand what makes up a system and how to make it a living creature with a roadmap of its evolution and obstacles to avoid in order to keep it healthy and thriving. And involve other co-parents (developers, SME, PM) in keeping it alive and full of life.
OOUX helped me understand how important it is to really understand the objects / things that provide value in our products. It made me realize how many duplicative objects and attributes we are using and how they are perpetuating confusion with our users. Although it's just a starting point, I feel like I have more confidence to really help our team define our objects, so we can create more intuitive experiences.
I first heard about OOUX about two years ago. I immediately liked the idea and started listening to the OOUX podcast and reading almost all the materials that were publicly available. I was sure that OOUX would help me become a better digital product designer. I enrolled in the OOUX certification course and was delighted with the amount of material and the extremely detailed ORCA process designed by Sophia. She exceeded all my expectations. Although complex, the course is well laid out and not difficult to follow. The tasks are well-designed and make it easy to understand and follow the whole process. Now that I've gone through everything, I can't wait to start putting the newly acquired knowledge into practice. Sophia is a great teacher and has created a great OOUX community full of extraordinary individuals that are always ready to help beginners. I recommend the OOUX course to everyone who wants to become a better UXer and solve complex problems with greater efficiency and less headache.
As a content designer, I've often found myself in hi-fi mock meetings asking, "okay, but what is that thing? Why do we need it?" At times, it's put me at odds with design thinking because it feels like truly understanding and defining the system isn't a requirement to just toss some wireframes down. OOUX really gave me a voice and a place to not throw away design thinking, but to redefine it to be more wholistic. To tell truer stories. What I love most about OOUX is that it's a framework that takes term and concept definition work seriously. It starts with definition, creating a shared language, and telling the true story of a system, all things that get sacrificed to new feature gods. From there, anything is possible.
Sophia Prater's OOUX course is well worth the money and the time! As a senior designer who is already familiar with the basics of design thinking and user experience design principles, I found the concepts and methodology taught in this class to be very relevant to my current projects and skill level. Sophia's video lectures are thorough but delivered in a lighthearted way making them very engaging to watch. Her teaching style is to "learn by doing" as we had an end-to-end design "practice" problem to work through and really solidify the learning. Sophia was very accessible through office hours and async review to debrief on any concepts we found hard. Finally, we have life-long access to OOUX templates!! This last perk gives me a lot of confidence to hit the ground running with OOUX and apply it to my daily work. I highly recommend this course to any senior designer looking to level up in their career!
The OOUX philosophy and the ORCA process should be UX fundamentals. It's not just A way to do things, it's THE way. The steps contained within the ORCA process mirror how the Designer should be at all times: empathetic, collaborative, open-minded, and relentless. I love how it handles complexity by acknowledging it, embracing it, and turning it in to something that a User understands. The dust bunnies of complexity have nowhere to hide.
Everything about this course has changed my approach to designing. One thing I loved about this course was that it helped me increase my critical thinking skills. I'm able to methodically and thoroughly work through a project and ask better questions to myself and my stakeholders to ensure I'm not designing on top of assumptions or leaving gaps in the experience that I didn't know to design for. And even better, I can articulate design decisions with confidence without second guessing..too much, it still happens but less frequently haha. I now look forward to tackling complex problems knowing I have OOUX in my designer's tool box.
What I really liked about OOUX is how it delves past the shallow parades of beautifully-designed interfaces (that some UX bootcamps are so known for) and gets you knee-deep into the important bits. The bits that are not quite as glamorous in a UX portfolio, but are crucial to building a product that's truly valuable to users.
Before I was introduced to OOUX, I honestly didn't think I wanted to practice UX design anymore. I didn't know what else I would do, but I was getting really burnt out trying to keep track of everything happening all at once and being the one person on a team that was thinking, "when we pull this string, what other things will unravel?" I was tired of all the re-work, re-prioritization, and miscommunication that is rampant in the UX field. I had small process that sort-of worked for me and the way my brain works, but nothing that I could communicate or share with my peers. I was drowning and OOUX and the ORCA process felt like a life preserver. I finally felt like I had a leg to stand on, that my concerns were not only valid but that I had a framework in which they could be addressed. I have a framework that I can point to that can help my peers not only understand my processes better, but can help improve theirs. My mentor told me recently, "It's very rare that we find something in UX that feels so close to a silver bullet," and I'd have to agree. Sometimes that does make me feel like I'm trying to sell people on a juice cleanse, but I'm starting to become comfortable with that feeling. This program helped introduce me to the niches of UX design that I didn't even know existed, and that they are FULL of people thinking like me. While this philosophy and process may feel niche now, I have no doubt that with enough time (and dedicated practitioners) UX will return to it's Object-Oriented roots and it won't be niche for too much longer.
Once you understand OOUX (even at just a basic level), you never have to go into a project feeling that you can’t quickly start analyzing it in a productive manner. First you just start Noun Foraging in any official documentation that you can find, unofficial documentation, discussions forums, emails or even materials from competitors. Even a small dose of OOUX puts you in a much better position to see what the system is, and informs you on what questions that you need to ask. Asking the right questions can speed the process, and also inform partners that you have a grasp of the system, and you can get answers about areas that you are not sure about. You can even uncover areas where the people who own or use the system have inconsistent perceptions or use inconsistent terms about components of the system.
I had never imagined such a comprehensive framework for approaching complex problems and systems existed, and found myself astonished week after week by the ORCA process and how everything continued to just make sense. Both the 10-week course and the ORCA process are so well-structured—challenging at times, but never overwhelming.
After finishing the course I feel empowered to solve complex problems and provide tools for others and myself to ask the right questions at the right time! It was a lovely experience where you feel lost sometimes to find out at the end that it was all worth it!
In all my years in product development, the divide between design and engineering is often the source of much grief. I believe that OOUX is the missing link in product development that truly creates a shared understanding in a product team. With OOUX in the middle, design, frontend, and backend see the same picture and can make parts that fit together.
Before taking the course, my approach to figuring out a problem space was to ask tons of questions and hope that one of them would begin to untangle the complexity that appeared before me. It felt kind of random and insufficient. But even before I finished this course, I was already asking more targeted questions in meetings and analyzing existing screens with more clarity and confidence. OOUX and ORCA provide a solid framework for understanding a domain, methodically exploring its intricacies, and identifying challenging issues with your product team earlier in the process, all of which will help you be an even stronger UX professional.
Simply put, this course is fantastic! I had a hunch the first time I was introduced to OOUX that this was the missing link to our company's workflow, and the course validated this 10-fold. I urge anyone working in digital to sign up—it just makes sense. Sophia's energy, knowledge, and enthusiasm for teaching this is palpable, and the course is incredibly organized, from the signup email down to the last office hours. Thank you, Sophia!
I began using OOUX while taking the course for a complex new suite of products coming together at my company. When people around me were circling in confusion, this course gave me a great understanding of how to step through complexity and ask the right questions at the right time. This is the most valuable tool in my UX toolkit!
Having the proper tools to do a job is key. I think OOUX and the repeatable ORCA process are the exact tools that every designer and developer needs to break down complex systems into bite-sized chunks they can easily manipulate and also uncover the unknown-unknowns that plague every development project. This course is truly a game-changer for the design industry.
OOUX is like having a superpower for simplification. Before, when dealing with complex systems and problems, I felt like there was nowhere to start and no way to wrangle it all together. Now I have a plan.
This was a great course - not easy, but so incredibly useful. As someone new to UX design, I found this incredibly challenging, but I am glad I persevered. I have learned a huge amount and I am really grateful for the experience. I would enthusiastically recommend the course to others and I am keen to get to use OOUX soon!
OOUX has been one of the best methodologies I have learned in my 10-year design career. And ORCA is, without a doubt, THE best framework I have picked up in the past several years. I believe it is the sole reason I have leveled up from mid-level to senior-level roles, and I also believe it will continue to help me level-up even further as I continue to use it and improve my understanding of it. The certification course itself had the proper amount of rigor to learn a great deal in a short period, while allowing for balance of a full time role and other responsibilities.
As a UX newbie, the OOUX process feels calm, methodical and thorough—unlike anything else I've found. I highly recommend OOUX to any UX newbie who's looking for guidance.
I loved this course, I'm constantly re-watching videos to gain more insight and understanding to the process and even if I'm not perfect at it I feel more confident every time I open up the academy and putz around in MIRO. There's so much rich data to be gleaned from the OOUX process in every aspect of app development and it gives everyone involved a new perspective that creates an atmosphere of understanding each other through shared language, exercises to populate ideas, and completion of a project.
OOUX has given me a very valuable framework for making sense of any design project and the confidence to take others (engineers, product managers, designers, SEMs, Stakeholders) along on the journey. It truly feels like the cloud of confusion with any new projects has been lifted!
OOUX has been a Changer of Games for us here at Athenahealth. Being able to break down a super-complex health record and revenue cycle software into the core "objects" our customers are trying to work with, and all the different ways in which we make them reshape, permutate, and deal with those objects, has been eye-opening for almost every person I've done this process with.
OOUX has completely changed how I approach my work. I'm no longer jumping straight into design, but utilizing pieces of the process to get more clarity into the problem I'm solving. Proof of this was early on during the OOUX program, I was prepping for a meeting with another team and completely unfamiliar with their domain. After noun foraging two of their documents, I was up to speed quickly and able to summarize their docs into paragraphs plus created an object map to understand the relationships in question.
The OOUX Masterclass was extremely enlightening and probably the best thing I could have possibly done for my career. I am a junior in UX and previously found myself struggling with lack of structure to my design process. This course not only gave me that structure, but a SUPER POWER to untangle complexity at the system-level and tackle problems I never thought I could. I feel like I can come into new and complex problem spaces with more confidence, uncover smarter questions, and truly help guide my clients into creating better, more-intuitive experiences for their users!
I have been a Designer for over 10 years and in only 10 short weeks Sophia has caused a cataclysmic shift in how I think about big problems. This program gives you a frame work to break down huge problems and a systematic and logical way that is beneficial to everyone on your team. I have no way to truly explain how much I would want to recommend this certification to anyone in the UX industry.
OOUX and Sophia's ORCA process will transform how you approach system design and development. This iterative framework will help you find structure in creating consistent, scalable, and most importantly intuitive user experiences. You'll identify requirements early and you'll be able to engage stakeholders, project managers, designers, and developers in a truly collaborative and equitable practice. This methodology will give you the confidence to lay a foundation for any project that can be designed and built strategically rather than by mere intuition. OOUX will not only help you find all the puzzle pieces but also facilitate in creating a roadmap of when and how to put all of those pieces together. OOUX is a toolkit and is a must-have for any problem solver!
OOUX has forever changed my design process. I was constantly struggling with figuring out where to start, figuring out what I need before I jump into wireframing and then running into so many additional questions and complexities halfway into the project. I'm grateful to be able to have a new process to document and map out my requirements and relationships before jumping into any form of design.
Sophia takes you by the hand and guides you through the steps of OOUX. She offers her knowledge, challenges and nudges you in the right direction, step by step. How to flush out the information that is needed (from and with co-workers) to tackle complex information and break it down into a transparent easy-to-use product
I came into this course having little actual experience in UX design. I feel very confident that I now understand more clearly, and can contribute to UX discovery phase meetings in my workplace.
The OOUX philosophy is invaluable to the process of building digital products. The primary value comes with setting a clear approach that aligns EVERYONE involved in a project and the efficiencies gained in creating a shared language and working through it step-by-step. In the oft-used phrase "the costs to fix errors increase as the project matures" people are usually referencing finding errors in the design phase before development, however I'd take that one step further and say using an OOUX approach can identify those gaps in knowledge and avoid the errors all together.
I enjoyed the course material. I've been doing design, front-end development, web application development, etc., for about 15 years, so the material resonated with me. I think the documentation frameworks are super great.
Finally, a user-centric language for complex systems. As UX practitioners, we often find ourselves accountable for much more than we have influence over. That's not because we're accountable for too much — no — someone must be responsible for the entire, cohesive user experience, and if not us, then who? Rather, it's because our toolkit is woefully under equipped. We're still a young discipline, and while we're trying our best with our wireframes and task flows, entire layers of the final UX are inadvertently determined by buried technical decisions or unrelated business decisions. OOUX closes this gap considerably. Sophia's ORCA process in particular has been relentlessly developed — in the wild! — in a way that encompasses "just enough" technical concepts (reshaped to be user-centric) so that the full user experience can be articulated & collaborated upon across design, development and business in an aligned and approachable user-centric language. This is the single strongest ingredient I have encountered in my career.
So, you've been assigned wireframes for a new feature. Are you staring at a blank screen or some questionable user stories? Is complexity creeping in from the corners? Take a deep breath and step back. Include OOUX in your process and immediately effective (but also future-proofish) screens design themselves. Well, they do after you and your team have examined each object in the system to clarify its purpose and relationships. Whether you have 2 hours or 2 months, OOUX can scale up or down to serve the scope. Having asked all the right questions, you'll build confidence that you're designing a system that works -- a system that works for those building it and for those using it.
If OOUX were a person, it would be the bones, the solid foundation, which all the muscle and flesh use to move seamlessly and elegantly through the world. The lens that I view digital systems through has changed and is more connected and cohesive. I feel like I can tackle any system with OOUX and make it better which gives me a healthy boost of confidence. Thank you Sophia, I really appreciate the effort and attention to detail you put into the course and the materials and the space you held to make mistakes and learn.
I’ve listened to the OOUX podcast since the start, but never thought about getting certified. Then, when I started my first UX position it became clear that I needed a way to quickly get up to speed and smoke out complexity on complex domains (accounting, government, cyber security, and genomic science to date!). Even during the cohort I’ve been able to apply what I’m learning, scale ORCA to my project time frames, and the ORCA toolkit has given me the confidence to take on complex projects at the drop of a hat. I took the plunge to pay for the OOUX strategist certification program out of pocket because it seemed like it would give me systematic tools to wrangle complexity and abstract ideas into logical building blocks – and it has!
I was familiar with OOUX before taking the course and a complete advocate for its value. The ORCA process that is taught throughout the program brings the much needed structure required to untangle any kind of complexity. It really can be applied to anything! Sophia is a very generous teacher that makes sure you have no doubt about the concepts or exercises. The course material is very-well designed, easy to follow and very practical. I could start applying recently-learned concepts to my work as soon as day one.
OOUX provides a clear, process-driven approach to center the design of a system in a way that aligns to user mental models. The approach is importantly, content centric and complexity unveiling before a single screen is made. This has been an incredibly valuable process to learn and I'd highly recommend any Content Strategist to take the course to help in advocating for content-first design!
What I've learned in the OOUX course will forever be in my toolbox as a UX consultant. I'm no longer intimidated by products or fields I'm not familiar with now that I have this process. I can get to the right questions quicker, build shared understanding of a system across a team, and help create consistent and intuitive experiences with my colleagues. I'm excited about how the OOUX process can influence how we prioritize and estimate specific client projects because I know I'll be equipped to facilitate those tricky conversations when scoping an MVP or multiple phased project, and believe doing so our teams will be able to advise our clients better, helping them make more intuitive and efficient systems that at the end of the day helps users and visitors get what they need faster.
OOUX is a philosophy that gives an honest effort into helping teams understand the complexity of the services that we create, not only from the technical perspective, but also (and most importantly) from how we are as human beings. It gives us a chance to create more humane and relevant products that really solve our users' needs.
