Design · 14 weeks · Intermediate

Modern Product Design Foundations

Build the practice, taste, and process of a modern product designer — and graduate with a portfolio that gets interviews.

Design course preview

Course overview

Designing products is more than wireframes and Figma files — it's a craft of thinking, deciding, and communicating. This 14-week cohort gives you the muscle memory of senior product designers: research that informs decisions, systems that scale, and prototypes that earn buy-in.

You'll work through three real-world projects (a consumer app, a B2B dashboard, and a brand refresh), each reviewed weekly by your instructor and a guest critic from a partner studio. By week 14, you'll have a portfolio you'd be proud to send to anyone.

What you'll learn

User research methods

Interviews, surveys, usability testing, and synthesis frameworks that scale.

Information architecture

Map flows, taxonomies, and navigation that match how users actually think.

Design systems

Tokens, components, and patterns that hold up across teams and time.

Prototyping & motion

From low-fi flows to motion-rich prototypes that communicate intent.

Curriculum

  • The product design loop — research, frame, design, ship, learn
  • Interview techniques and synthesis
  • Defining the right problem (and saying no to the wrong one)
  • Project 1 kickoff: a consumer mobile app

  • Maps, models, and mental models
  • Designing flows that respect time and attention
  • Edge cases, error states, and the unhappy path
  • Project 1 wrap & critique

  • Type, color, and spacing systems
  • Building a design system in Figma
  • Project 2 kickoff: a B2B analytics dashboard

  • From wireframe to motion prototype
  • Communicating intent to engineering
  • Project 2 wrap & cross-cohort critique

  • Project 3: brand refresh + storytelling
  • Building a portfolio site that hiring managers actually read
  • Demo day with hiring partners

Meet your instructor

Maya Lin

Maya Lin

Lead Product Designer · Atlas Studio

Maya has shipped consumer and enterprise products for the last 12 years — formerly at Stripe, Airbnb, and Atlas Studio. She teaches the way she works: opinionated, generous, and always grounded in the user.