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4 courses I reference every day as a designer (with resources + links)
Guess how many of them are design classes.
Intro to Economics
- Sunk cost, point of diminishing returns, utils, marginal cost/utility, positive & negative externalities, opportunity cost, scarcity, moral hazard — these concepts contribute to the framework through which I view user behaviors and design decisions in a broader, more structured way. That’s a useful complement to more qualitative or narrative-driven methods.
- Check out: Khan Academy’s Economics videos, NPR’s Planet Money podcast, and the Freakonomics cinematic (basically) universe for accessible ways to reorient yourself with some of these concepts.
Data Structures
- Having a fundamental understanding of data structures & algorithms gives me a basis with which to understand, empathize with, or push back on engineers’ plans as they implement and negotiate designs. It’s also just generically valuable to have at least a basic sense of how the digital world functions behind-the-scenes.
- Check out: Udacity’s Intro to Algorithms course or Khan Academy’s Algorithms content for primers on these concepts.
