Apprentice Program - Week of December 2nd, 2024 (WK49)
What’s on our minds these days?
Our final newsletter for the 2024 cohort apprentice program. It's been a definitive learning experience. 😸
As we wrap up this year’s cohort, we look forward to the future and next year’s cohort. Our research team did a fantastic job on their annual “State of DIA Apprenticeship Program” research study. Feel free to peruse the Executive Summary (PDF). We take our improvements both seriously and iteratively. Last year we improved on the application process. This next year, one of our primary focuses will be on events for the community.
We’d love to hear any feedback you have about the community. Use this anonymous form or reply to this newsletter for anything you would like to share.
Apprentice Program Specific News
2024 cohort
Friday, December 6th, marks the end of the program as we take a break for the holidays and gear up for next year.
Continuing apprentices
If you would like to continue as an apprentice next year, please reach out to Julia (julia@diadesign.io) and talk to your current mentor about their availability.
Julia needs to know who all apprentices are so that she can set up the proper planning and email lists for next year. :)
Apprentice Celebrations and Project Updates
We have a new project starting in January. We will need some apprentices with UX Design and SEO knowledge. It will be four months long. Reach out to Julia (julia@diadesign.io) if interested.
May First Website Redesign
We’ve been working with May First since April. From stakeholder interviews to surveys, navigation testing, sitemaps, and wireframes. Now we are doing Usability Testing and high-fidelity mockups. The plan is to finish this project by Christmas!
Kynesius Website Design
This project should be finished this week with final deliverables and documentation handed over. Look for a blog post early next year about the experience.
Upcoming Events (Not DIA Sponsored)
Advancing Service Design 2024
You can join free virtual sponsor sessions on December 3rd and 4th.
Job Opportunities
We’re always on the lookout for relevant entry-level roles to share with our apprentices. They’re usually shared on Discord under Discussion > #jobsearch-opps. If you come across any, let us know! We'll be sure to share them here for everyone else.
- UI/UX Designer at Ruangguru (NYC, USA)
- Service Designer at Photon (NYC, USA)
- User Experience Designer at AgencyQ (Bethesda, MD USA)
- Product Designer at TurboTenant (Denver, CO USA)
- Product Designer - Audio Production at Native Instruments (Boston, MA or remote USA EST)
Volunteer
Need to find a project? Check out these volunteering resources and find your next gig! We’ll highlight a few organizations in every newsletter where you can look through and find something that interests you.
- DemocracyLab needs UX, UI Designers, UX Writers, and UX Researchers
- VolunteerMatch has a lot of web redesign projects
Learning Resources
Did you know? Julia has been keeping the Design Education Resources database updated since 2022. See the full list.
- Auditing Websites for Accessibility (Free)
- UXPA Community (Free)
- Designer Slack Communities (Free resource)
- UX Fundamentals (Free)
- Accessible UX Writing ($9.99 US)
Feedback wanted
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As always, we’re around to chat. DM us on Discord, reply to this email/post or schedule some time on our calendars:
That's all for now!