Design Thinking: online course with an internship agreement
The Design Thinking course teaches how to frame product problems with Jobs-to-be-Done, interview and test users weekly across EU languages, keep research claims traceable, and use AI without faking evidence. It also covers EAA and WCAG 2.2 accessibility and measuring design with HEART. It is aimed at product team members and non-designers. The course runs 100 % online for 180 days, includes an internship agreement and costs €200.
- 180 days of access
- 100 % online, at your own pace
- Level: beginner · No design background required
- Assessment: 10 quizzes (50 questions) and a final project
- Internship agreement included
- Certificate with a verifiable QR code
- Languages: Spanish, English, French
- Price: €200
Who it is for
- Product team members who are handed vague goals such as 'reduce drop-off'
- Non-designers working in shared Figma and FigJam files
- People running or supporting user research across several EU markets
- Practitioners aiming for service design or design sprint roles later on
What do you need to start?
Prior knowledge
- No prior design or research knowledge is needed
- Some familiarity with how a product team works (sprints, roadmaps) helps
- Confident reading in English; the course discusses research conducted in other languages
Software and equipment
- A computer with a stable internet connection
- Access to Figma and FigJam for the collaboration module
- A free, downloadable four-lane service blueprint template is referenced for practice
What you'll be able to do
- Turn a vague roadmap goal into a framed problem using Jobs-to-be-Done
- Set up a weekly rhythm of user contact instead of a one-off research phase
- Run interviews and usability tests across languages without losing meaning in translation
- Keep research claims traceable to specific sessions, dates and quotes in a repository
- Decide when AI speeds up research and when it wrongly replaces real users
- Check whether the European Accessibility Act applies, and which WCAG 2.2 criteria affect booking flows
- Define design metrics with HEART and Goals-Signals-Metrics for a leadership business case
- Read a service blueprint and choose between a five-day Design Sprint and a Foundation Sprint
Skills you will practise
- Problem framing
- Jobs-to-be-Done
- Continuous discovery
- Usability testing
- Research repositories
- Figma and FigJam
- WCAG 2.2 / EN 301 549
- HEART framework
- Service blueprints
- Design sprints
Syllabus
- Design thinking after the backlash: what survived and what didn't — Separates the parts of design thinking still useful in product teams from the five-stage workshop ritual that drew criticism.
- Problem framing and Jobs-to-be-Done in a product team — Turns an undefined goal such as 'reduce onboarding drop-off' into a specific, evidence-based problem using Jobs-to-be-Done.
- Continuous discovery: weekly contact with users — Replaces occasional research phases with regular weekly conversations with real users, rather than relying only on dashboards and support tickets.
- Interviewing and usability testing in a second language, across EU markets — Running think-aloud sessions through interpreters and spotting where translated notes flatten hesitation or hidden problems.
- Evidence hygiene: synthesis, repositories and traceable claims — Builds a research repository so every claim in a roadmap review can be traced to sessions, participants and quotes.
- Figma, FigJam and the collaboration stack for non-designers — How non-designers can work safely in shared design files and boards without breaking linked synthesis frames other people depend on.
- AI in the research and ideation loop, and the synthetic-user trap — Uses AI for transcription and first-pass clustering, with checks against recordings and transcripts, and rejects synthetic users as evidence.
- Accessibility as EU compliance: EAA, EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.2 — Covers EAA scope checks, the EN 301 549 and WCAG layers, per-country enforcement, and the case for building accessibility in early.
- Measuring design: HEART, Goals-Signals-Metrics and the business case — Presents design work to leadership through defined goals, signals and metrics instead of descriptions of how an interface feels.
- Service design and design sprints: the vocabulary of the next role up — Covers service blueprint lanes and the line of visibility, and when to choose a Design Sprint or a Foundation Sprint.
Internship agreement
An intern with this course could support a product, UX or research team by preparing and note-taking in user interviews and usability tests, and by maintaining a research repository. Other possible tasks include reviewing a booking or checkout flow against WCAG 2.2 criteria and helping define HEART metrics for a feature.
The internship can run at the same time as the course, within the 180 days of access.
Frequently asked questions
Will the Design Thinking course make me a Service Designer?
No. The Design Thinking course introduces service blueprints and design sprints as the vocabulary of the next role up, and it does not grant the title of Service Designer. In the job listings surveyed in the materials, Service Designer roles had no junior tier, only Lead and Senior positions. The course therefore treats Service Designer as a career target to grow into after practical work in product and research, rather than a role to apply for straight away.
What could I actually do during the internship with this course?
Suitable tasks are close to a product or UX team's weekly work. Examples include setting up user interviews, taking notes in usability tests, tagging findings in a research repository so claims stay traceable, and checking flows against WCAG 2.2 criteria such as tap target size. You find the host company yourself. The school then issues the internship agreement and its annex, which the company usually signs electronically within one to two working days.
Which frameworks, standards and tools does the course cover?
The course covers Jobs-to-be-Done for problem framing, continuous discovery, and usability testing across languages. It also covers Figma and FigJam for collaboration, and AI for transcription and clustering. For accessibility it covers the European Accessibility Act, EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.2. For measurement it uses HEART and Goals-Signals-Metrics. It closes with service blueprints, the classic five-day Design Sprint and the two-day Foundation Sprint first published in January 2025.
Can AI-generated users replace interviews with real people?
The course says no. AI can compress slow tasks: it turns recordings into text and makes a first-pass grouping of notes into themes. However, synthetic users are not evidence, even if the model was trained on human data. AI transcripts must be checked against the recording before quoting, and AI summaries can attribute quotes to participants who never said them. Clustering also needs checking against raw transcripts before it counts as synthesis.
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Content updated: 07/10/2026