Design for a Better World with Don Norman
How This Course Will Transform Your Career
In This Course, You'll
Get excited when you use humanity-centered design to improve lives and solve global challenges. Don Norman's insights aren't just game-changing—they're world-changing. Between 2030 and 2050, the climate crisis is projected to cause about 250,000 additional deaths every year. This course gives you the tools to use Design Thinking and timeless, human-centered skills to drive positive change and shape a more sustainable future. You'll learn to solve real-world problems like climate change, inequality, wars, and waste. You'll get the confidence and practical methods to create solutions that make a real impact—locally and globally.
Make yourself invaluable with in-demand skills to tackle both small and large-scale projects. You'll discover how to mobilize people towards common goals, overcome resistance to change, and move into leadership roles that influence systemic change. This course will give you the tools to solve complex socio-technical problems in any industry. You'll position yourself as an expert in eco-friendly solutions. You'll learn how to drive lasting business success with circular design solutions that reverse harm and design a better world.
Gain confidence and credibility as you use design as a way of thinking to influence entire ecosystems! No matter your background, you'll apply your new skills from day one. Step-by-step, you'll learn to apply incremental modular design, measure what truly matters, and incorporate AI into your work. It's easier than you think! The optional portfolio case study helps you identify organizations that truly make a difference—and quickly spot those that are merely superficial. With downloadable templates and guided projects, the Design for a Better World course gives you the tools to build real expertise and create solutions that make a difference.
It's Easy to Fast-Track Your Career with the World's Best Experts
Master complex skills effortlessly with proven best practices and toolkits directly from the world's top design experts. Meet your expert for this course:
Don Norman: Father of User Experience (UX) Design, author of the legendary book “The Design of Everyday Things,” and co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group.
Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate
Use your industry-recognized Course Certificate on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.
Our courses and Course Certificates are trusted by these industry leaders:
Why Learn to Design for a Better World?
Design for a Better World falls under the umbrella term of User Experience (UX) design. UX design is your fast-track to a meaningful, secure, and rewarding career.
Worried You'll Lose Your Job to AI? UX Design Skills Make You AI-Proof
UX design builds on your core human strengths such as emotional intelligence, deep human understanding, critical thinking, intuition, and imagination.
AI can't replicate your uniquely human ability to design for real emotions and needs such as joy, comfort, curiosity, safety, and a sense of belonging. These deeply human insights are your superpowers. With UX design skills, you'll turn them into products and experiences people truly love. You become irreplaceable, confident and in demand.
And yes, we'll also show you how to use AI to accelerate your results.
Feeling Stuck in the 9–5? Design Your Freedom
Tired of feeling undervalued, anxious, or trapped in your career? UX design skills open doors to freedom, flexibility, remote work, and a career you're excited about—without starting from scratch.
Stop wondering if you could be more. Start realizing your full potential today.
UX Design is Booming: Accelerate Your Career to Higher Salaries and Impact Across All Jobs and Industries
Salaries for people with design skills are soaring, often surpassing $200K in cities like San Francisco, and job growth is strong (13% globally). Why? Because companies thrive when their users are happy. Companies that invest in great design outperform the S&P 500 Index by a whopping 228%.
Design a Life You Love
Great design is all about helping people meet their needs and achieve their goals through intuitive, meaningful, and delightful experiences. Skills in design will empower you to create experiences and products that make people's lives easier and more fulfilling. And when people love what you create, your business thrives, and your salary potential grows. You get the ultimate double win:
You'll feel deeply fulfilled by designing experiences and products people love.
You'll be financially rewarded for your real-world impact.
Course Overview: What You'll Master
- Each week, one lesson becomes available.
- There's no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines.
- Estimated learning time: 13 hours 16 mins spread over 6 weeks.
Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction
-
0.1: Get Help, Career Advice, and Job Opportunities (1 min)
-
0.2: How to Get Your Course Certificate (16 mins)
-
0.3: Grow Your Global Network and Build Your Brand (11 mins)
-
0.4: Global Skills, Local Jobs: Build Your Network in Your Area (1 min)
-
0.5: Gain Timeless Skills Through Courses from IxDF (21 mins)
-
0.6: Mandatory vs Optional Lesson Items (7 mins)
-
0.7: Learn Smarter: The Perfect Mix of Video and Text (6 mins)
Lesson 1: The World Is Artificial and the Way We Measure It Is Wrong
-
1.1: Welcome to Design for a Better World (24 mins)
-
1.2: What Can Designers Do to Make the World Better? (10 mins)
-
1.3: Anything Artificial We Can Design Better (14 mins)
-
1.4: Use More Meaningful Measurements in Design and in the World (54 mins)
-
1.5: Conversations: Use Stories to Complement Data (14 mins)
-
1.6: Build Your Portfolio: Identify Changemakers around You (8 mins)
-
1.7: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins)
Lesson 2: How to Design For Sustainability and the Circular Economy
-
2.1: Welcome and Introduction (3 mins)
-
2.2: Recycling is Not Enough. Let's Design for Reuse (18 mins)
-
2.3: Sustainability Is Not Enough (23 mins)
-
2.4: Design Products That Are Sustainable, Robust and Resilient (26 mins)
-
2.5: Use Circular Design To Reverse Harm (30 mins)
-
2.6: How Designers Can Help Companies Design for the Circular Economy (59 mins)
-
2.7: Conversations: Which Is Better—Paper, Plastic or Cloth? (12 mins)
-
2.8: Build Your Portfolio: Analyze Sustainability and Circular Practices (7 mins)
-
2.9: Congratulations and Recap (11 mins)
Lesson 3: How to Apply Humanity-Centered Design to Solve Global Challenges
-
3.1: Welcome and Introduction (13 mins)
-
3.2: Why Should We Practice Humanity-Centered Design? (22 mins)
-
3.3: The Five Principles of Humanity-Centered Design (51 mins)
-
3.4: How to Use Incrementalism in Humanity-Centered Design for Complex Projects (21 mins)
-
3.5: How to Apply Incremental Modular Design to Global Challenges (23 mins)
-
3.6: Incremental Design in Practice (15 mins)
-
3.7: Why Should Designers Become Leaders? (30 mins)
-
3.8: Conversations: What Education Does a Designer Need? (7 mins)
-
3.9: Build Your Portfolio: Does Your Changemaker Use Humanity-Centered Design? (8 mins)
-
3.10: Congratulations and Recap (7 mins)
Lesson 4: How Designers can Drive Positive Behaviors
-
4.1: Welcome and Introduction (2 mins)
-
4.2: How to Tackle Human Resistance to Change (18 mins)
-
4.3: Why Do We Not Act on Climate Change? (20 mins)
-
4.4: Human Behavior Is the Problem and the Solution (46 mins)
-
4.5: Beyond Climate Change: Where Can Designers Make An Impact? (15 mins)
-
4.6: Conversations: Beyond Climate Change (6 mins)
-
4.7: Build Your Portfolio: Evaluate the Impact of the Changemakers (8 mins)
-
4.8: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins)
Lesson 5: How Can Designers Build a Brighter Future
-
5.1: Welcome and Introduction (2 mins)
-
5.2: Designers as Conductors of Change: Bring Experts Together to Solve Complex Problems (17 mins)
-
5.3: What Are The First Steps to Design a Better Future? (44 mins)
-
5.4: How Can Designers Adapt to New Technologies? The Future of Technology in Design (22 mins)
-
5.5: Conversations: AI Technologies as Collaborators! (7 mins)
-
5.6: Build Your Portfolio: Trim, Tune and Submit! (13 mins)
-
5.7: Congratulations and Recap (7 mins)
Lesson 6: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up
How Others Have Benefited
Nena Gačić, Croatia
“The instructor excels at effectively communicating complex ideas in a clear and concise manner, making it easy for students to understand and grasp the material.”
Alexandre de Oliveira Lot, Brazil
“The videos were amazing and concise, and the text was direct and very well written! The readings available to download and some templates were really helpfull too. Don is an amazing figure and an awesome teacher.”
Renato Castilho, United States
“It's Don Norman, just brilliant. Considering the complexity of the subject at hand, which, albeit familiar to the more experienced, always evolves quicker than one keeps up, was well compartmentalized.”
How It Works
-
Take online courses by industry experts
Lessons are self-paced so you'll never be late for class or miss a deadline.
-
Get a Course Certificate
Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to prove your skills.
-
Advance your career
Use your new skills in your existing job or to get a new job in UX design. Get help from our community.
Start Advancing Your Career Now
Join us to take “Design for a Better World with Don Norman”. Take other courses at no additional cost. Make a concrete step forward in your career path today.
Advance my career now