The Object-Oriented UX Masterclass Certification Program

OOUX helped us move from a 35% hit rate with our A/B testing to 80%. This is because the concepts we created and implemented were so much more thoroughly tested and designed, ensuring we had user and business buy-in before we wrote a line of code.

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.

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.

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!

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 ORCA process helps us to get to a better, more complete understanding faster, and helps us communicate that understanding across a large organization where it might not be shared…It’s amazing for your toolkit — you will look like a superstar.

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.