By graduate degree, I am a BFA Applied Art graduate. I know the UX field existed in India and World longer than I know but I came to know of its existence when I was at my first job around the year 2007. I am a multidisciplinary designer.
I opted to do User Experience Design/User Interaction Design/Human-Computer Interaction Design certification around the year 2016. I was going through HFI’s website since the year 2012.
HFI was having main three certifications Certified Usability Analyst (CUA), Certified Certified
Certified User Experience Analyst (CXA), Certified Digital Persuasion Analyst (CDPA).
My observation was HFI was increasing the cost of Certification every year by 15% to 20%.
When I first visited their website the cost was INR 75,000/- But when I registered for the CUA course it was INR 1,08,000/- Immediately the next year they increased rice to almost INR 1,20,000/-.
My experience with classes was fast-forwarded speed, Experts teachers were just going through textbooks as if nobody cares, and they were not taking questions between.
Renowned government design institute like Industrial Design Center (IDC) has two years courses in HCI. Which costs INR 2,00,000/- per year. And HFI is selling the same knowledge in a session of 10 days i.e. two weeks. With a cost similar to IDC.
I would agree that doing HFI is a better option than pursuing video-based courses online for learning UX. Now there is a trend that any dumb guy comes forward to put his course on the internet to sell UX crash courses. And not even yesterday did you know that person existed and there is no proof that the crash course content creator is giving valid input that may land you a high-paying job as he promised in Apple/Microsoft/Google and whatnot.
HFI has a rule you have to score more than 70% on average to get CUA/CXA/CDPA certification. One observation in my class we were 20 students and 2 got certified at the end. So the success rate of getting certified was 10% after spending lakhs of rupees just for a 10-day course. Somehow it proves HFI’s teaching doesn’t promise that you will get certified by attending their courses.
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is an Art and Science. So to acquire a skill like this you have to spend at least 10 years of your professional life dedicated and working in this domain. So better join a graduation or post-graduation or Master’s degree college that teaches this in length than just five days of learning hoping 1.5 lahks will help you get there.
I live in Maharashtra so there are institutes like IDC, JJIAA, Rachana Sansad, Raheja School of Art in Mumbai, SID, and MIT in Pune who has specialised full-length course like this. You will surely get a list of colleges on the Mumbai University website.
I hope this helps to take your decision to get into this field of HCI.
Thanks & Regards
Mandar Apte
