Best User Research Courses to Boost Product Adoption for UX-Focused PMs

As a product manager in a tight situation, you may have to look beyond the business side during the product lifecycle. Your duties may sometimes extend to user research to learn about customer preferences and behaviour, which will inform you how your product can be more appealing to your audience. 

What is user research, and how does it affect product management?

User research systematically gathers and analyses information from the users’ behaviour, needs, and pain points. 

This is an essential element of UI/UX and product management, as it helps inform the design, development (NPD), and improvement of products that cater to customer expectations. 

If you feel the need for structured learning on knowledge gaps outside your designated PM responsibilities, check these user research courses. 

How are we listing the UX research courses for product managers?

We list the best UX research courses based on the following criteria. 

• High ratings and many learners on reputed MOOCs and then curated on Shiksha Online.
• Comprehensive outcome-based curricula (practice-focused) designed by faculty of international universities, market-leading companies, and industry experts. 
• Best of free-to-enrol and paid certificate courses, with short to long durations for every learning curve.

What can you, as a product manager, expect from the UX research courses? 

Expect to learn with a hands-on approach to the planning process, conduct interviews, use proven frameworks to analyse and present the results, and more. 

The UX research courses here are for all learning, schedule, and budget levels.

On some platforms listed today, you can further expand your learning on user research, with dedicated learning paths available after completion.

Here is an overview of the platforms, durations, and prices. 

Platforms	Duration	Price Range
Coursera	~ 6 months	Monthly subscription of USD 49 (with free-to-enrol option)
Udemy	~ 15+ hours	INR 3000+ (with discounts)
Udacity	~ 3 weeks	Monthly subscription of INR 20,000+ (with discount coupons available)

Note that some course topics may overlap with your PM knowledge and experience, and you may choose just one or two modules among the many. 

While the other topics may be advanced for specialised UX roles.

For that, we will show you which will fit your needs.

1. Google UX Design Professional Certificate 

This specialisation in UX comes with a seven-part course curriculum designed by Google’s employees. It covers every essential detail with concepts and tools like Figma and Adobe XD in a highly interactive learning format. 

Course Name	Google UX Design Professional Certificate
Duration	6 months
Provider	Coursera & Google Career Certificates
Cost	Coursera Plus monthly subscription of USD 49
Trainer(s)	Google’s experts
Skills Gained	Usability testing, prototyping, user research, wireframing, etc.
Students Enrolled	1,067,899
Total Reviews	4.8/5.00 from 76,988 reviews

How will it help you as a product manager?

Completing all seven courses for the valuable certification is recommended. Especially if you are a beginner looking to build a portfolio.

But, the fourth one - Conduct UX Research and Test Early Concepts, may be more specific to your immediate PM career needs.  

It separately has four modules covering 

• The planning process of the UX research study
• The method of observing participants
• Synthesising results 
• Presenting your findings

You can cover all this within 20 hours with 19 assessments, while the entire certification programme will take around six months. 

2. User Experience Research and Design Specialization 

Another detailed but more focused Coursera course on user research is this University of Michigan offering. It begins with the principles of UX experience, moves on to what the user needs, helps you test different types of users, and then puts those findings into the design process. That follows conceptualising to prototyping. 

Course Name	User Experience Research and Design Specialization
Duration	2 months
Provider	Coursera & University of Michigan
Cost	Coursera Plus monthly subscription of USD 49
Trainer(s)	Lija Hogan, Kentaro Toyama, Mark Newman, Predrag Klasnja, and Clifford Lampe from University of Michigan
Skills Gained	Deep UX research, remote user testing, qualitative and quantitative analysis, etc.
Students Enrolled	61,333
Total Reviews	4.8/5.00 from 1,852 reviews

How will it help you as a product manager?

This is a step-by-step course on user research that supplements the design process. 

Essential concepts such as ‘human-computer interaction (HCI)’, which studies how humans communicate with computer systems, are explained well here. 

For product managers, understanding user needs can be one-sided and based on quantitative research analysis. They can overly focus on statistical data, large-size sample analysis, or A/B testing.

But, they may lack the knowledge to approach qualitative data. The 2nd module of the course delves into the qualitative side, which covers methodological processes via semi-structured interviews, creating affinity walls, etc. 

The course helps you learn both methods in detail. 

3. UX Fundamentals & Design Research

Udacity is a popular name in practical-based technology training. Though the course covers the basics, it is practical in conducting interviews and learning more about user preferences. It has also been updated this year in 2024. 

Course Name	UX Fundamentals & Design Research
Duration	3 weeks
Provider	Udacity
Cost	A monthly subscription of INR 20,000 that includes access to other related courses on Udacity
Trainer(s)	Shuang Liu from Google and the University of Michigan
Skills Gained	Design principles, conducting semi-structured interviews, understanding psychology of users, etc.

How will it help you as a product manager?

The course is one of the most well-structured ones for learning the user research aspect of UI/UX. 

The instructor gives a fine overview of the principles of design that appeal to users. 

You may already know this as a product manager. But, the course takes a different route to explain usability testing concepts using these same principles. Following that, it shifts the approach from product to make you think like a UX designer - letting you focus on areas of empathy, iterative design, or similar. 

You’ll gain a good understanding of human psychology when making decisions in the design process. This will come after you learn to conduct semi-structured interviews, which are semiformal and more conversational - allowing the user to speak freely. The instructor provides critical input on what type of questions you should be asking in such settings. 

The project included lets you conduct a UX research study from beginning to end - and how it translates into the design process. Your instructor will review the project as well. 

4. Master Digital Product Design: UX Research & UI Design

An example-focused UX research course, it goes deep into behavioural psychology, primarily focusing on making you think out-of-the-box about what makes a product design unique. 

None of the courses on this list delves into the misconceptions of user-centric design in the mainstream as this Udemy bestseller does. 

Udemy learner, Douglas D., mentions that this course is “A great journey in thought and history. Expansive knowledge shared in a way to drive you to think differently, and spark that fire inside all of us to go out and design, no matter what your field is.”

Course Name	Master Digital Product Design: UX Research & UI Design
Duration	15+ hours
Provider	Udemy
Cost	INR 3699 (INR 599 after discount)
Trainer(s)	Rob Sutcliffe with 88K+ Udemy learners
Skills Gained	Human perception, user interface design, applied psychology in design
Students Enrolled	44,704
Total Reviews	4.5/5.0 from 10K+ learners

How will it help you as a product manager?

You will be able to develop a unique design approach through a historical understanding of what makes products great. 

This course has some good exercises to help you test your knowledge in a practical setting. There are case studies, too, on Tinder, Uber, Booking.com, coupled with brainstorming and ideating exercises. 

You will gain a deeper understanding of usability testing and usability audits, using Figma for prototyping, and more. Important basics such as colour psychology and fonts are also well explained here. 

Becoming a UX-oriented PM…

Getting a foundation in UI/UX may not be required for all product managers. Courses on Coursera and Udacity are suitable for beginners and intermediates in PM or UX overall, while Udemy may make learning easy in some core gaps that you may have in UX as a product manager.

Or, if you are aspiring to a PM role, pair any of these with the short product management courses, as they can together build a solid foundation.

In addition to these, we recommend you check out the Interaction Design Foundation for UX research courses. The learning paths here are interdisciplinary, and the faculty includes renowned global experts.