The Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF) is finally live on Product Hunt! We’re on a mission to make UX education both accessible and affordable, and we hope to spread this message further and wider via the Product Hunt platform. We live in a time where community-building initiatives can slip under people’s radar, so let’s turn the spotlight on together!
Paradoxically, the internet makes it possible to get anything you’ve ever heard of but also makes it definitively impossible to have heard of everything. It allows anyone to be heard, but how do people hear of you?
— Benedict Evans, Andreesen Horowitz
Where Did It All Start?
The IxDF was founded back in 2002 by Mads Soegaard and Rikke Friis Dam. Their aim was to start an online, educational revolution that would spread design knowledge to every corner of the planet. They found it extremely unfair that people had to buy expensive textbooks or pay 80,000 USD per year to learn design at an Ivy League university.
Author/Copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
After 17 years of hard work and commitment, the IxDF now offers over 25 courses on UX, UI and interaction design as well as completely free access to:
The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, which comprises over 50 textbooks written by the world’s best design experts from industry and academia.
A wide range of UX Daily articles, which teach design theory and practice.
Topic overview pages, which help readers gain an overview of major design topics.
All of the individual textbooks we’ve published.
This has been possible through collaborations with noted authors and design leaders like Clayton Christensen and Don Norman, as well as top universities and companies—Stanford, Cambridge and SAP Labs, to name a few. And because we're mission-focused, we can provide our top-quality UX design courses at a fraction of the cost of a traditional education.
Oh and, not to forget, the IxDF team now consists of more than 15 people scattered across a dozen different countries around the world!
Author/Copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
When the World Becomes Smaller, We Can Learn and Connect More Easily
We are proud to say the IxDF has helped tens of thousands of people around the globe start a new career, transition into UX design and improve their design knowledge. In fact, our community is one of the reasons why UX is no longer an unknown term in many companies!
With 455 Local Groups in 92 countries, being part of the IxDF’s learning community means you are an active participant in our international mission to make high-quality design education accessible for as many people as possible.
Author/Copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
We Have a Favor to Ask
"If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
– African Proverb
We’ve put our hearts, minds and energy into our mission to revolutionize the education industry and provide equal access to high-quality design education.
The design elite joined our mission.
The IxDF’s readers and members embraced our mission.
And we’ve worked hard since 2002 to continuously fulfill our mission.
We'd massively appreciate it if you could show your support for our organization on Product Hunt so we can make a significant difference to the careers and lives of those who are not yet part of our international design community!
Thank you on behalf of the entire team.