Design for the 21st Century with Don Norman
How This Course Will Transform Your Career
In This Course, You'll
Get excited as you learn to design a better world. Whether you want to help families save money while reducing their carbon footprint, redesign how cities manage waste, or improve public health systems, this course will show you how. You don't need to be a designer. You just need the desire to make things better. Led by world-renowned designer Don Norman, you'll learn the powerful tools of human-centered design, systems thinking, and design thinking to tackle real-world challenges like climate change, inequality, public health, and more.
Make yourself invaluable when you build human-centered skills AI can't replace. This course builds on and expands your deeply human skills like empathy, problem framing, and root-cause thinking. These skills are timeless, in demand, and AI resistant. You'll learn to apply these skills to drive innovation at work, lead meaningful projects, communicate your ideas clearly, and capture people's attention. This course helps you grow your impact, salary potential, and confidence—and feel deeply fulfilled. Did you know that design-driven companies are twice as likely to outperform their industry peers in revenue growth? The key is to go beyond traditional approaches and solve the real problems behind surface-level symptoms while integrating solutions seamlessly into real people's lives. You'll get the ability to design lasting change and learn how to work effectively with stakeholders to make it happen. You'll also discover how to move up in your company and take on bigger challenges.
Gain confidence and credibility as you apply your new skills from day one with ready-to-use templates such as the 5 Whys method. Create an optional case study aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. By the end of this course, you'll have the skills and mindset to make a difference, whether that's in your job, your community, or the world. Let's co-create a better future starting now.
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 Design for the 21st Century?
Design for the 21st Century 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: 12 hours 43 mins spread over 4 weeks.
Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction
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0.1: Get Help, Career Advice, and Job Opportunities (2 mins)
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0.2: How to Get Your Course Certificate (16 mins)
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0.3: Grow Your Global Network and Build Your Brand (12 mins)
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0.4: Global Skills, Local Jobs: Build Your Network in Your Area (2 mins)
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0.5: Gain Timeless Skills Through Courses from IxDF (21 mins)
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0.6: Mandatory vs Optional Lesson Items (7 mins)
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0.7: Learn Smarter: The Perfect Mix of Video and Text (6 mins)
Lesson 1: How Designers Can Improve the World
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1.1: Welcome to Design for the 21st Century with Don Norman (32 mins)
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1.2: 21st Century Design: Let’s Use Human-Centered Design to Solve Major Global Challenges (29 mins)
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1.3: Why We Have Evolved From User-Centered Design to People-, Human- and Humanity-Centered Design (1 hour 3 mins)
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1.4: What’s So Special about Designers? (31 mins)
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1.5: Conversations (6 mins)
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1.6: Let’s Democratize Design (23 mins)
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1.7: What is the Difference Between Wicked Problems and Complex Socio-Technical Systems? (14 mins)
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1.8: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins)
Lesson 2: How You Can Apply Human-Centered Design Insights and Processes When You Aim to Solve Complex Global Problems
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2.1: Welcome and Introduction (7 mins)
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2.2: Human-Centered Design: How to Focus on People When You Solve Complex Global Challenges (23 mins)
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2.3: Conversations (7 mins)
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2.4: Everything is a System: What Is a Feedback Loop and Why is it so Important to Humans? (55 mins)
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2.5: Implement Systems Thinking and Solve the Root Causes of Problems (30 mins)
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2.6: The 5 Whys Method: How to Identify the Root Causes of a Problem by Investigating the Entire System (27 mins)
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2.7: How to Tackle Major Problems? Muddle Through by Taking Small Incremental Steps (20 mins)
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2.8: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins)
Lesson 3: What Are the Design Skills You Will Need to Make a Difference in the 21st Century?
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3.1: Welcome and Introduction (3 mins)
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3.2: Don Norman: The Way We Measure Success Today is Wrong! (16 mins)
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3.3: Don Norman: The Way We Design Today is Wrong! (23 mins)
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3.4: How You Can Gain More Power as a UX Designer (27 mins)
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3.5: Don Norman on How to Move Up in a Company: Think Big! (10 mins)
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3.6: If You Don’t Fail, You’re Not Trying Hard Enough (23 mins)
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3.7: How to Communicate Clearly and Gain People’s Interest (16 mins)
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3.8: Conversations: Community-Based Learning and Networking (8 mins)
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3.9: What’s the Secret of Don Norman’s Success? (43 mins)
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3.10: Designer: Leverage the Power of Being a Generalist (55 mins)
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3.11: Which Skills Does a 21st Century Designer Need to Possess? (50 mins)
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3.12: How Can You as a Lone Designer Start Improving the World? (22 mins)
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3.13: How Design Educators Can Help Designers in the 21st Century (30 mins)
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3.14: Build Your Portfolio: Make a Difference (5 mins)
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3.15: Congratulations and Recap (2 mins)
Lesson 4: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up
How Others Have Benefited
Nicholas J Schroeder, United States
“It was a marvelous course that challenged me to think about my career and how to define myself in a rapidly changing and complex socio-technical environment.”
Susan Winer, United States
“Mr. Norman draws on great breadth and depth of knowledge and experience, and although he's describing Big Ideas, he breaks them down in a straightforward, common-sense approach. The material is organized progressively, each lesson building on the previous. His video presentation feels very human and accessible as if we were conversing over dinner.”
Milena Valcheva, Bulgaria
“Don Norman speaks extremely convincingly and with emotion, with which he manages to captivate the listener. This course changed my way of thinking, not just from a design perspective, but completely.”
How It Works
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Lessons are self-paced so you'll never be late for class or miss a deadline.
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Get a Course Certificate
Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to prove your skills.
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Use your new skills in your existing job or to get a new job in UX design. Get help from our community.
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