Course Memo: An Impossible Problem

You know that moment when you’re explaining something you’re passionate about and suddenly realize the person across from you is interested in the topic for completely different reasons?

No? Well that is what happened to me the second I put on my serious hat and dove into what it would take to make a design fundamentals course

I took a look at everyone who had signed up and immediately ran face first into a wall.

A very familiar wall for anyone making courses, but one exacerbated by the nature of my audience and my intentions for this course.

Intention:

A design course which covers the fundamentals that go into making all design “good”.

Outcome:

Students who complete the course become better at creating “good” design.

Reality:

I'm making a course for people who have no interest in being a practicing designer.

So why are you here?

My best guess is that you want to understand the fundamentals, and language behind design, but will you complete every exercise? Let's be real, even if you WANT to be a practicing designer, you might not.

That doesn't mean I don't want you here. In fact it made me realize that I needed to face an even harder goal. How do I provide value to everyone?

How do I make a course that is worth every penny regardless of whether your goal is becoming a better designer or just understand design better?

Well, I imagine this will be a moving target but here are my initial thoughts on this problem.

I want to make sure that the video lessons are packed with value and information in a way that even if you don't want to become a designer, you can finish watching the video and feel like you understand the underlying concept. This means explaining theory in a way that anyone can understand and then tying it to reality in a way that you can relate to.

What if you want to do the work required to exit this course a better practicing designer? That is where reps come in. To get better at design, and this may come as a total shock to you, you have to do MORE design. The problem with a lot of the fundamentals is that it's a lot of theory. It's a lot of abstract concepts. So the hard problem to solve here is finding ways to have exercises that are both practicing the underlying abstract concept while still tying a thread to things that are practical. Pushing you to willingly and hopefully eagerly do the work because the outcomes feel more anchored in reality.

This feels like a tall order, but that also makes me want to do this more. Hard problems are rewarding to solve, and even if I fail I think the journey will be worth it.