User experience bootcamps: a case study in the limits of scaling practice-based design education

Over the past decade, user experience design went from an industry where anyone who could draw a wireframe could get a job, to one where hundreds of applicants now compete for a single job posting. Many are largely unqualified and underskilled, yet spent thousands of dollars on “bootcamps”—experimental, short-form STEM programs—trying to break into a market that appeared lucrative, fun, and most importantly, rich with jobs. In this text, I describe the growth of these programs, and how they led to the rapid oversaturation of user experience designers competing for fewer design jobs. Design has a unique pedagogy, and I explain the nature of this educational approach and show how bootcamps have largely ignored it. User experience bootcamps are one case illustrating the limits of scaling practice-based technology and design education under market pressure, and I conclude by identifying lessons learned from this rise and fall of scale-focused bootcamp education, and how those lessons can be applied broadly across all design disciplines, not simply user experience design.