Object-Oriented UX (OOUX) is a power tool every UX Designer should have in their toolkit. In this course, OOUX founder and Evangelist Sophia Prater teams up with UX consultant, author and popular Udemy instructor Joe Natoli to show you how to use OOUX to collaboratively create clarity from chaos — simplifying and supercharging User Experience and Product Design efforts.
OOUX doesn’t replace anything you are already doing, like Design Thinking or any flavor of Agile methodology — instead, it complements and powers-up UX research, UX writing, task flow design, UI design, and design systems work.
Read more
Object-Oriented UX (OOUX) is a power tool every UX Designer should have in their toolkit. In this course, OOUX founder and Evangelist Sophia Prater teams up with UX consultant, author and popular Udemy instructor Joe Natoli to show you how to use OOUX to collaboratively create clarity from chaos — simplifying and supercharging User Experience and Product Design efforts.
OOUX doesn’t replace anything you are already doing, like Design Thinking or any flavor of Agile methodology — instead, it complements and powers-up UX research, UX writing, task flow design, UI design, and design systems work.
Object-Oriented UX (OOUX) is a power tool every UX Designer should have in their toolkit. In this course, OOUX founder and Evangelist Sophia Prater teams up with UX consultant, author and popular Udemy instructor Joe Natoli to show you how to use OOUX to collaboratively create clarity from chaos — simplifying and supercharging User Experience and Product Design efforts.
OOUX doesn’t replace anything you are already doing, like Design Thinking or any flavor of Agile methodology — instead, it complements and powers-up UX research, UX writing, task flow design, UI design, and design systems work.
At its core, OOUX turns any design challenge into a tangible, approachable, solvable puzzle. So many UXers have claimed that OOUX "makes UX fun again."
You'll learn to build solid foundations and reusable parts that align to your user’s mental model and the business model.
"I believe that OOUX is the missing link in product development." Sjur Grønningsæter, Product Designer
"Gets you knee-deep into the important bits"
Carrie Lee, UX Writer
"Really nothing beats this process in breaking down the complexity of a problem before the detailed design and dev work begins. OOUX is going to save the whole industry so much time and money..."
Kristin Ouellette Muskat, Design Research Lead
"OOUX/ORCA is an excellent bridge between UX Research and UX Design"
John Crisp, UX Designers and Front-end Developer
If you’re exhausted by the feature-by-feature approach to UX and Product Design, hours of rework, and frequent thoughts of “why did no one bring this up earlier?” and generally feeling like you are designing in the dark, OOUX is your floodlight. With OOUX, you can illuminate the big picture while also exposing all the shady nooks where sticky details tend to hide.
(Which, incidentally, tend to be the places methodologies like Design Thinking overlook completely.)
No more “deer in headlights” moments when faced with complex problems — immediately after this course, you’ll be equipped to systematically break complex products into their smallest parts before architecting elegant, scalable, object-oriented designs in a game-like way.
If you’re just starting your UX career and want to ground yourself in best practices, OOUX is a must-have for approaching products holistically. And if you are 20+ years into your career and feel ready to learn something truly game-changing, come on in.
What you'll learn
Through this course, you’ll learn the basics of OOUX, how to implement it, and how to share it with your team:
After starting with an overview of the benefits of OOUX (to your work and your career. ), you’ll walk through the first steps of how to orient a product around its objects — the core concepts your users actually care about.
You’ll learn how to identify and solidify a system’s objects, pinpoint where and how the objects relate to each other, capture all the ways users can act upon each object, and flesh out their structure with core content and metadata.
You’ll also see how this totally ROCKS your product design and UX process, elevating your approach to new holistic levels that will save you time and energy.
Build onto your OOUX foundation with 4 OOUX Laws that will help you fight back against unintuitive designs sabotaging your product. (You won’t be able to unseen them after module 4, sorry not sorry. )
Dive into representing your OOUX work in card and detail page sketches. Sophia demos how pulling it all together to create contextual navigation, eliminate duplicate work and missed connections, and takes the guesswork out of visualizing a product.
Finally, get even more wind under your wings with advice and suggestions for how to introduce your colleagues to OOUX, bringing a shared language and more efficient collaboration to your team.
During this introductory course, we’ll take on an example design challenge and you’ll use the included workbook to complete the five main activities. Once the course is over, take a fresh copy of the workbook with you into your workplace and let your new OOUX skills propel you into headache-free, future-proofed UX.
Here's what just a few product design pros have said about OOUX:
"A must have toolkit" Raktim Chatterjee, Lead UXer
"OOUX is next level for experience design" Shelley Garner, Senior UXer
"It's not just A way to do things, it's THE way." Jacob Wadenpfuhl, UX Director
"My new 'secret weapon' for managing complexity" Karen Hewell, Content Strategist
"OOUX really gave me a voice [...] it's a framework that takes term and concept definition work seriously."
David Connis, Senior UX Writer and Content Designer
"a brilliant process for my team"
Tracey Vantyghem, Information Architect and UX Writer
"A framework to confidently tackle complexity"
Zainab Kashim, Product Designer
Still not sure? Google "OOUX Testimonials" and you will be.
We can't wait to see you in the course.
What's inside
Syllabus
Learn about five specific career wins you can expect when practicing OOUX.
Learn why Joe’s so excited about this methodology and get the backstory on Sophia and OOUX.
Read more
Syllabus
Learn why Joe’s so excited about this methodology and get the backstory on Sophia and OOUX.
In this introduction to unintuitive objects, Sophia illustrates how concrete objects dominate our quick thinking and why designers need to work WITH this psychology instead of against it.
Let’s take at look at the ways OOUX promotes better collaboration between designers and developers by breaking down complexity object-by-object instead of by actions.
Learn the difference between OOUX and Design Systems and how they work together to create strong but flexible rules for components and the objects they represent.
Sophia exposes two (unfortunately common) ways inconsistent visual design places cognitive strain on users.
Discover how OOUX builds understanding and strengthens collaboration by creating a shared language for teams.
Sophia and Joe discuss the risks of using a screen-by-screen approach when building (or just trying to improve!) a system.
Sophia outlines and reiterates the five main reasons it’s so important to include OOUX in your process.
Joe teases our design challenge and helps you get your head right about OOUX.
Here we cover foundational definitions and how to recognize and judge the object-oriented-ness of a system. Basically: what makes good OOUX?
Sophia takes a quick look at how OOUX supports your current UX process, making what you already do more effective, collaborative, and fun.
Meet the ORCA process, a framework that guides you through OOUX-ing your entire system.
Sophia applies ORCA to two existing systems in this redesign demo.
Agile. Lean. Iterative. Let’s get into it.
The three must-haves for any process and how ORCA cuts through all the debates on UX process.
Discover the beauty and strength in asking more and better questions earlier in the design process.
Comb through research to identify all the potential objects in a product, building a base of shared understanding with your team in the process.
Activity 1: Practice Noun Foraging with this example and check your answers against Sophia and Joe’s!
Narrow down and coalesce your potential objects into a manageable starting point.
Approach object relationships one by one with a scalable visualization, while mapping intuitive navigation.
Play Relationship Battleship while completing your own Nested Object Matrix!
Before you outline task flows — do THIS! Systematically brainstorm and document all the functionality in your system, object by object, with a CTA Matrix.
Brainstorm functionality as you build out your CTA Matrix!
Explore your system's attributes and how they create the data structure for your objects while forming a proto-prototype of the domain.
Create an Object Map with your brainstormed attributes and nested objects, providing your team with a X-ray of the product.
How UXers can harness the impact of recognizability to pave the way for users, capitalizing on real-world mental models in design.
How OOUX enables users to better understand objects and domains by directly connecting related objects, creating intuitive navigation that reflects the real world.
How an object-oriented approach to CTAs keeps affordances where users can find them, leading to less frustration and more actions taken.
How consistent object representation reduces work for designers, developers, and users.
Review how to combat all 4 horsemen and ground down into the foundations of OOUX before launching into sketching.
Prioritize and de-prioritize objects and attributes so that you can hone in on the true purpose of a design, get rid of superfluous CTAs, and phase development strategically.
Prioritized object columns in your object map can easily be transitioned into strategic screen designs, enabling you to sketch without any guesswork.
Use the Card Design Guide and a prioritized Object Map to jumpstart and streamline the process of designing your system components without having to start from scratch!
Use the OOUX Sketching Guides to easily create first drafts of your screen designs and plan your prototype with zero guesswork.
Sophia and Joe candidly discuss creativity, blank canvas sketching versus sketching with template, diagrammatic sketching, and UI sketching.
Sophia and Joe talk about what you can expect when trying to introduce OOUX and how to prepare for it.
Learn how OOUX doesn't override your UX process — OOUX only enhances it. Also featuring a quick rant on the status quo of "iteration".
The ORCA Process is a beautiful addition to an existing well-oiled design process. But what if your team’s current design process is a complete mess?
Ease your coworkers into OOUX by starting with process they already understand. Then introduce OOUX concepts like the CTA Matrix or the Object Map to move the process forward so that they can grasp the value along the way.
A Shapeshifter Audit is a great way to illustrate to stakeholders how OOUX can save them wasted design time, wasted development time, and missed opportunities with users.
Remember that you don’t need permission to understand what you’re designing. Ask the tough questions that OOUX helps you to ask, as early as possible to avoid expense and rework pain down the road.
As Joe says, “Onward!” And as Sophia says, “Happy OOUXing!”
Traffic lights
Save this course
Save
Reviews summary
Structured object-oriented ux fundamentals
Fosters shared understanding and communication.
Expert and engaging teaching from Sophia and Joe.
Builds foundational skills for tackling complexity.
Fundamentally shifts thinking about product design.
Learn tools and strategies for immediate use.
Provides a structured, actionable OOUX methodology.
Activities
Review UX Design Principles
Show steps
Solidify your understanding of core UX design principles to better appreciate how OOUX builds upon them.
Browse courses on
UX Design
Show steps
-
Read articles or watch videos on UX design principles.
-
Take notes on key concepts and examples.
-
Reflect on how these principles relate to object-oriented thinking.
Review 'A Project Guide to UX Design'
Show steps
Understand how OOUX fits into the broader UX design process.
View
A Project Guide to UX Design
on Amazon
Show steps
-
Read the book, focusing on the UX design process.
-
Identify opportunities to integrate OOUX into the process.
-
Consider how OOUX can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the UX design process.
Review 'Information Architecture: For the Web and Beyond'
Show steps
Understand the principles of information architecture to better apply OOUX concepts.
View
Information Architecture: For the Web and Beyond
on Amazon
Show steps
-
Read the book, focusing on sections about organizing information.
-
Take notes on key concepts and examples.
-
Consider how these concepts relate to object identification and relationships in OOUX.
Four other activities
Expand to see all activities and additional details
Show all seven activities
Practice OOUX with a Peer
Show steps
Collaborate with a peer to practice OOUX techniques and gain different perspectives.
Show steps
-
Find a peer who is also learning OOUX.
-
Choose a design challenge to work on together.
-
Apply OOUX principles to the challenge, discussing your approaches and insights.
-
Provide each other with feedback and suggestions.
Redesign a Simple App Using OOUX
Show steps
Apply OOUX principles to a real-world design challenge to solidify your understanding.
Show steps
-
Choose a simple app (e.g., a to-do list or a basic calculator).
-
Identify the core objects within the app.
-
Map the relationships between these objects.
-
Design the user interface based on the object relationships.
Create a Blog Post on OOUX Benefits
Show steps
Articulate the benefits of OOUX to reinforce your understanding and share your knowledge with others.
Show steps
-
Research and gather information on the benefits of OOUX.
-
Outline the key points you want to cover in your blog post.
-
Write the blog post, providing clear examples and explanations.
-
Edit and proofread your blog post before publishing.
Create an OOUX Diagram for a Website
Show steps
Visualize the object relationships of a website using OOUX principles.
Show steps
-
Choose a website to analyze.
-
Identify the core objects on the website.
-
Create a diagram illustrating the relationships between these objects.
-
Present your diagram to others and gather feedback.
Review UX Design Principles
Show steps
Solidify your understanding of core UX design principles to better appreciate how OOUX builds upon them.
Browse courses on
UX Design
Show steps
- Read articles or watch videos on UX design principles.
- Take notes on key concepts and examples.
- Reflect on how these principles relate to object-oriented thinking.
Review 'A Project Guide to UX Design'
Show steps
Understand how OOUX fits into the broader UX design process.
View
A Project Guide to UX Design
on Amazon
Show steps
- Read the book, focusing on the UX design process.
- Identify opportunities to integrate OOUX into the process.
- Consider how OOUX can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the UX design process.
Review 'Information Architecture: For the Web and Beyond'
Show steps
Understand the principles of information architecture to better apply OOUX concepts.
View
Information Architecture: For the Web and Beyond
on Amazon
Show steps
- Read the book, focusing on sections about organizing information.
- Take notes on key concepts and examples.
- Consider how these concepts relate to object identification and relationships in OOUX.
Practice OOUX with a Peer
Show steps
Collaborate with a peer to practice OOUX techniques and gain different perspectives.
Show steps
- Find a peer who is also learning OOUX.
- Choose a design challenge to work on together.
- Apply OOUX principles to the challenge, discussing your approaches and insights.
- Provide each other with feedback and suggestions.
Redesign a Simple App Using OOUX
Show steps
Apply OOUX principles to a real-world design challenge to solidify your understanding.
Show steps
- Choose a simple app (e.g., a to-do list or a basic calculator).
- Identify the core objects within the app.
- Map the relationships between these objects.
- Design the user interface based on the object relationships.
Create a Blog Post on OOUX Benefits
Show steps
Articulate the benefits of OOUX to reinforce your understanding and share your knowledge with others.
Show steps
- Research and gather information on the benefits of OOUX.
- Outline the key points you want to cover in your blog post.
- Write the blog post, providing clear examples and explanations.
- Edit and proofread your blog post before publishing.
Create an OOUX Diagram for a Website
Show steps
Visualize the object relationships of a website using OOUX principles.
Show steps
- Choose a website to analyze.
- Identify the core objects on the website.
- Create a diagram illustrating the relationships between these objects.
- Present your diagram to others and gather feedback.
Career center
User Experience Architect
Information Architect
Product Designer
Interaction Designer
Design Strategist
Content Strategist
User Interface Designer
Usability Analyst
UX Researcher
Web Designer
Application Developer
Front-End Developer
Product Manager
Digital Marketing Specialist
Project Manager
Reading list
Share
Similar courses
OpenCourser helps millions of learners each year. People visit us to learn workspace skills, ace their exams, and nurture their curiosity.
Our extensive catalog contains over 50,000 courses and twice as many books. Browse by search, by topic, or even by career interests. We'll match you to the right resources quickly.
Find this site helpful? Tell a friend about us.
We're supported by our community of learners. When you purchase or subscribe to courses and programs or purchase books, we may earn a commission from our partners.
Your purchases help us maintain our catalog and keep our servers humming without ads.
Thank you for supporting OpenCourser.
