When I first started working at Google, I was scared.

I thought somebody would figure out that I didn’t actually know what I was doing.

Everyday I felt like I was faking it and I wasn’t a “real” designer. I picked up tricks here and there, read articles online, but it wasn’t enough.

I always felt like I didn’t get the big picture.

Maybe you’re like me. I didn’t go to school for my current job... I studied art!

But then one day at my job, everything changed.

I met the designers at Google Ventures.

They finally put a method to my daily-work scramble.

If you don’t know, Jake Knapp and the Google Ventures team works with top startups using a “Design Sprint” process to do research, brainstorm, build prototypes, and test with users… all in 5 days.

After doing a 5-day sprint with them, I loved it. It finally felt like the design process made sense to me. It put templates and checklists in place as a process that just makes sense. With that process I felt like I did more design work in that week than in the last month sitting at my desk.

So… there’s the problem.

When I went back to my desk, I was feeling lost again.

I found myself thinking “How do I do more than just design what ‘feels right’ and ‘looks good?’”

I saw other designers struggling, too. I also met developers and entrepreneurs who wanted to use “design thinking” to do something great but didn’t know how.

The tools, framework, and process to do consistent, thoughtful, innovative design work is out there, but you have to duct tape them together yourself and learn on your own.

That’s why I wrote the Design Field Guide.

It’s what I wish I had when I started…

Introducing the Design Field Guide

The tools, framework, and process to do consistently thoughtful design work, fast.

A 37-step course, with 12 Templates and dozens of checklists.

You’ll Laugh At the Way You Used to Approach Design

Before:

“Right now, I’m mostly designing based on what I think “looks good” or “feels right”.

After

“Now I think in terms of the user, and justify each of my decisions with more concrete explanations.”

The Design Field Guide will help you level-up by growing your toolkit, practicing a startup-proof design process, and boosting your confidence. You don’t have to wing-it anymore.

Christy is a recent graphic design grad who wanted to get out of the design agency world and learn how to be a UI & UX designer. Here’s what she said:

“I wasted so much time sifting through the internet and reading books that didn't teach me anything. What you've provided has been so much more valuable to me as a designer than all my years in design school.”

Each chapter comes with an easy-to-follow PDF checklists that you can have with you at your desk to reference and practice what you’ve learned.

• No guesswork
• No wasting time reading blog posts
• No trudging through boring, academic textbooks

This Field Guide will help you level-up by growing your toolkit, practicing the best design process, and boosting your confidence. You don’t have to wing-it anymore.

So, what do you get?

Here’s the outline of the course.

Introduction: An Overview of Design

• You’ll learn the one thing every company is on a quest to answer: “How to make something people want” and how you can help guide that process
• I’ll share my personal design theory to guide your future design decisions. It’s called “Good/Bad Design”
• You’ll learn what it means to become “a Design Detective” and why it’s important that you’re constantly asking the 5 W’s.
• The one sentence that explains UX.
• We’ll review & start to internalize the 5 critical qualities of top designers.
• The two most important things to understand that you will build your career on:
• An overview of the design “Process” (how you work)
• An overview of all design “Deliverables” (what you make)

STAGE 1: Unpack

• You’ll learn how to find real problems that your users have.. the pains in their life that they will pay money for or download your app for.
• You’ll understand why the unsexiest work of designers is the most critical
• You’ll see how to avoid the pitfall most designers on Dribbble fall into
• I’ll share all my tips on working with a team to understand your users together
• You’ll have 7 exercises to run through with your team to discover deep insights about your customers
• You’ll learn Google’s “secret phrase” that top innovators use in almost every design meeting
• You’ll become a Post-it Ninja and finally understand how to use them effectively

STAGE 2. Sketching

• Understand the goal of sketching (hint: it’s not just to draw UI screens)
• Learn how to use the simplest, most effective tools for sketching so you never have to think about them again
• You’ll understand why writing is one of your most powerful and underrated skills
• Learn why a great designer believe that words are design, and designs are words
• Learn how to write 10x better UI copy

STAGE 3. Decide

• You’ll understand how to make design decisions when you don’t know which direction to go
• Watch me defend design decisions and explain my rationale
• You’ll practice effective presentation skills using Google Slides
• Learn how to get your team to vote fairly and as unbiased as possible when reviewing ideas
• You’ll learn the best words to use for critiquing others’ work and how to properly ask for feedback
• You’ll see and learn how to be a team leader by being able to ask your team members to work together and help you make design decisions
• You’ll have a framework for prioritizing designs based on necessity and how difficult they are to build
• You’ll learn a new method for getting everyone to agree and move forward quickly by collaboratively “storyboarding the Golden Path”
• You’ll understand the anatomy of a tech team: an abridged summary of team roles and how you fit into the ecosystem of PM’s (Product Managers), Design and Engineering.

STAGE 4. Prototyping

• I will show you my tools for prototyping.. I’ve done hours of research, interviews, and experimentation to arrive at this very specific set of simple tools
• You will understand how to design the simplest possible MVP (minimum-viable product)
• You will know which type of prototype to use (paper, low-fidelity wireframes, high-fidelity mock-ups), and when to use each one
• You’ll see how my “Good/Bad Design” theory fits into Prototyping and why your prototypes don’t need to be beautiful
• I will teach you how to quickly create mock-ups and prototypes even when you have no visual design background
• I will reveal my secret weapon that is in between low-fidelity and high-fidelity. “Phil-delity”. Phildelity is how to mock-up the MVP design lightning- fast, get feedback from others, collaborate on the design in real-time with anyone, and then quickly iterate… all of this using a free tool you wouldn’t expect
• You will learn how to navigate design Pattern Libraries like Material Design to reference for the rest of your design career, and design the first version of your app super fast and accurately.
• You will know how to talk to a developer, and confidently be able to talk about important UI elements like a “Table View” and a “Segmented Control”
• I’ll share my private list of of “under-the-radar” apps so you can copy and learn good UI patterns.
• You’ll get a list of websites to have as a reference for UI & UX ideas, and learn the best way to save and organize designs you like.
• You’ll learn how to design different states of an app: Empty state, scrolling, pressed state, the OOBE (Out-of-Box-Experience), so that you design the fewest amount of screens possible and not waste any time.
• You will learn the easiest and cheapest way to prototype motion design (Hint: It’s an app you already have)
• You’ll learn the absolute best way to share your design with a developer, so they understand exactly what you mean and there’s less back-and-forth. They won’t believe how real it looks and feels.

STAGE 5. Test

• Learn how to run user studies to actually test your design with real users.
• Understand why 5 is the perfect magic number of users you need to interview
• Get a run-down of the software and hardware you’ll need to run your own user studies
• You’ll have a good sense of what to expect when user testing
• You’ll have organized and clear feedback on your designs to show product managers, engineers and others that show you how to move forward.