New — AI in every method
12 lessons · 4 assignments · 1 capstone
Research that changes
what gets built.
A complete, working UX research course — the curriculum taught at UC Berkeley Extension, rebuilt for the AI era: every method taught with AI in the loop, and a human gate on every output. Self-paced, with optional live cohorts and one-on-one coaching.
Why this course
Insight is a skill.
This is how you build it.
Most people learn research from blog posts and guesswork. This course teaches the full craft — choosing methods, writing proposals, recruiting participants, moderating sessions, analyzing data, and presenting findings people act on. The tools now draft the paperwork; the skill is knowing what to verify. You leave with a completed research project of your own.
AI, taught properly
AI in every method.
A human gate on every output.
Synthetic participants
Pilot your guide against personas grounded in real data before you field it. Never a finding.
Analysis with AI
Codebooks, a model as blind second rater, survey stats re-derived once, and the verification log.
The Human Gate
Every AI output is a draft. You learn what “verified” means for a quote, a theme, a number.
The Practice Studio
Simulated participants, a guide critic, a synthetic pilot of your own guide, an analysis lab, and a spot-the-hallucination drill — each with a coach debrief that cites the lesson.
The platform practices what it teaches: assignment feedback is AI-drafted and instructor-approved; the companion answers only from the lessons.
Learn by doing
Real methods.
Your real project.
Every lesson feeds a capstone you pick in week one. By the end you have run a real study — proposal, synthetic pilot, survey, interviews, AI-assisted analysis with a verification log, evaluation, and a report with a provenance statement.
The curriculum
Twelve lessons.
One capstone.
Overview and Introduction
What is user experience? · The user-centered design process · Research and the product development process · Writing about behavior
Pick your capstone topic and write three ground rules for using AI in it.Working with AI as a Researcher
NewThe Human Gate: every AI output is a draft · Prompt science: test sets, rubrics, iteration · Validity, bias, and hallucination · Consent, PII, and your research AI toolkit
Start a prompt library — three prompt cards, a five-item test set, and scores.Getting Up to Speed
Learning about your product · Learning about your users · Personas and profiles · Conducting secondary research · Persona specs and synthetic pilots
Two personas from real data, their specs, and one synthetic pilot log.Research Methodologies
Choosing research activities · Survey of methodologies · Behavioral vs. attitudinal · Qualitative vs. quantitative · Where AI fits in each method
Choose the research activities that suit your project — and where AI fits in each.Preparation
The Design Sprint methodology · The research proposal · Estimating research timelines
Assignment 1 — a research proposal drafted with AI, human-edited, with an AI-use plan and verification log.Research Process
Participant recruiting · Moderating the activity · Think-Aloud Protocol · Research test runs
Begin recruitment, present a participant schedule, and pilot your guide — synthetic, then real.Surveys
Overview of surveys · Avoiding survey pitfalls · Drafting and de-biasing questions with AI · Piloting with synthetic respondents
Assignment 2 — de-bias and pilot your survey, synthetic first and then real, before you field it.Interviews
Preparing for the interview · Discussion guides with AI · Conducting the interview · Transcription and fidelity checks
Conduct and transcribe your user interviews — analysis follows in Lesson 9.Analysis with AI
NewAnalysis: what you will verify · AI-assisted coding and the model as second rater · Quantitative and survey analysis with AI · The verification log and the Analysis Lab
Assignment 3 — analyze your interviews with AI: codebook, themes with evidence, verification log.Evaluation
Introduction to evaluation · Likert-scored heuristic evaluation with an AI second reviewer · Usability test analysis with AI · The AI-in-the-loop fix cycle
Assignment 4 — a Likert-scored heuristic evaluation with an AI second reviewer and reconciliation notes.Conclusion
Design Sprints · Creating research reports · AI-drafted reports and the edit pass · Repositories, provenance, and stakeholder alignment
Create a final report and presentation for your capstone.Presentations
Final capstone presentations · Capstone — report, verification log, provenance statement, presentation
Capstone — final report, verification log, provenance statement, and presentation.Try before you buy
Lesson 1 is free. Start now.
The complete first lesson — the product development life cycle, what user experience is, user-centered design, user requirements, the business case for research, and the AI-era researcher: what changes, what doesn’t.
IllustrationYour instructor
From You & Me to WE.
Ryan has been a practicing designer, researcher, and product leader for 25 years — an Art Center graduate who has taught user research at UC Berkeley Extension. His classes are studio-based and project-driven: he sits side-by-side with students as they navigate real research challenges.
- A culture of possibility, not gatekeeping
- Side-by-side guidance, not lectures at you
- Projects with real-world relevance
- Confidence you carry into professional life
- Runs an AI-in-the-loop research practice — 55 fixes shipped mid-study in the Retailor study; heuristic evaluations scored with an AI second reviewer at heuristics.experienceplus.ai.
Ways to learn
Pick your level
of support.
Every tier includes the full course, lifetime access, and all future updates — this one included. One payment — no subscription.
Learn at your pace
Course
$199- All 12 lessons
- Every exercise and assignment
- AI-drafted feedback, approved by Ryan
- The Practice Studio and capstone brief
- Lifetime access and updates
Learn with a group
Cohort
$449- Everything in Course
- 4 live group sessions
- Peer review of each assignment
- Small groups — 8 people max
- Feedback on your capstone
Learn one-on-one
Coaching
$999- Everything in Cohort
- 3 private sessions with Ryan
- Personal review of every assignment
- A portfolio-ready capstone
- Email access between sessions
Already enrolled? The AI lessons are yours at no charge — sign in.
Before you ask
Fair questions.
Straight answers.
Do I need to pay for an AI tool?
No. The course teaches model-agnostic principles, and any current chat model will do the exercises; Claude is the worked example because the course itself runs on it. The Practice Studio — simulated participants and the coach debrief — is included with every tier.
Does AI do the research for me?
No. Every AI output in this course is a draft, and the skill you learn is verifying it — the Human Gate. Synthetic personas are instruments for piloting guides and rehearsing sessions, never respondents, and nothing synthetic ever counts as a finding.
What happens to my participants’ data?
Lesson 2 teaches you to write an AI-use policy for your own studies: what may enter a model and under which terms, how to redact, and how to ask for consent. How the course platform handles your own data is set out in the terms and privacy policy.
I already bought the course — do I get this?
Yes. Every tier comes with lifetime access and all future updates, and this is one of them. Sign in and the two new lessons, the revised readings, and the Practice Studio are there at no charge.
Is it still the Berkeley curriculum?
Yes. Every original reading from the UC Berkeley Extension curriculum is kept. The update adds two lessons and nearly thirty new readings so each method is taught with AI in the loop — the same course, taught the way the work is done now.