Accessibility fundamentals (7 modules)

Provider: Microsoft Learn
You earn: a free achievement badge for each module (badges, not a formal certificate)
Cost: Free badges · Time: approx. 6 hrs (7 short modules; no stated total)

No prerequisites. Covers what accessibility means, web accessibility principles, and how to test and evaluate.

Customer Support Course: Delivering Exceptional Customer Support

Provider: HubSpot Academy
You earn: knowledge of support basics; the course page does not state that a certificate is awarded
Cost: Free course · Time: approx. 1 hr (5 lessons, 6 videos, 3 quizzes)

A free HubSpot Academy account is needed. HubSpot’s separate Service Hub certification needs a paid HubSpot plan for its practical exercises, so we do not recommend it.

Foundations of User Experience Design

Provider: Alison
You earn: a completion record you can share for free; the PDF certificate is a paid add-on
Cost: Free course · certificate is a paid add-on · Time: 6–10 hrs

Covers the user design process, user interviews and research techniques. You need 80% or more on the assessment.

Digital Accessibility Foundations

Provider: W3C (on edX)
You earn: knowledge of web accessibility; an optional Verified Certificate
Cost: Free to audit · optional verified certificate ($99, optional later) · Time: approx. 16–20 hrs (4 weeks at 4–5 hrs)

Audit gives access to all the content. Skip the $99 certificate for now.

Google UX Design Professional Certificate

Provider: Google, on Coursera
You earn: a shareable certificate and a Credly badge (8 courses)
Cost: Apply for financial aid ($0 if approved) · otherwise $49/month after a 7-day trial (US/Canada) · Time: approx. 112 hrs of listed course time (Coursera suggests about 6 months at 10 hrs/week)

Be honest with yourself: the certificate itself needs a Coursera subscription unless financial aid is approved. Apply for aid first, and do not pay. You can also read the course list and enroll in just the first course, Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design. We could not confirm that a free audit option is offered, so check the course page.

Exercise 1: Build a journey-stage label set

1. In your GitLab workspace, open Manage › Labels and create these scoped labels: journey::awareness, journey::consideration, journey::decision, journey::onboarding, journey::adoption, journey::advocacy.
2. Scoped labels (the double colon) let an issue carry only one journey stage at a time.
3. Give each label a description in plain English, for example “The customer is trying the product for the first time.”

Exercise 2: Create a touchpoint inventory issue

1. Create one issue titled Touchpoint inventory: [your product].
2. In the description, add a table with these columns: touchpoint, journey stage, owner, channel, what the customer is trying to do, known pain.
3. Fill in at least ten touchpoints, such as the ad, the sign-up page, the welcome email, the first screen, a support reply, and the invoice.
4. Give the issue the label journey::awareness or the stage you know least about, and ask a teammate to add what you missed.

Exercise 3: Make a reusable usability-test issue

1. Write one issue called TEMPLATE: Usability test with sections for goal, task scenarios (3 to 5), participants (5), success criteria, observation notes, and findings.
2. Each time you plan a test, make a copy with the /clone quick action. File-based issue templates live in the repository, so ask your coach whether a maintainer can add yours as an official template.
3. Run a test with a real person on one task and record notes in the copy. Label it with the journey stage it covers.

Exercise 4: Link bugs and requests to journey stages

1. Pick five open bugs or feature requests. Give each exactly one journey:: label.
2. In the touchpoint inventory issue, add each one with the /relate #issue quick action so the customer pain and the work item are connected.
3. Write one sentence in each linked issue: which customer moment does this affect, and how would we know it improved?

Exercise 5: Set up a board by journey stage

1. Open Plan › Issue boards and create a new board called Customer journey.
2. Add one list per journey:: label, in order from awareness to advocacy.
3. Look for empty or overloaded columns. A column with many bugs and no ideas is a conversation to start with your team.

Practical exercise: from interview notes to a draft journey map

1. Run three to five short interviews. Remove names, emails and anything identifying before you paste any notes into Claude. Never share confidential customer data.
2. Ask Claude: “Group these notes into themes. For each theme give the participants who said it and a direct quote. Mark any theme supported by fewer than three people as weak.”
3. Bias check: ask “Which of my questions were leading? What evidence in these notes contradicts each theme? What groups of users are missing?” Read the answers critically and check the quotes against your original notes, because AI can invent or blur quotes.
4. Ask Claude to draft a journey map as a table: stage, customer goal, touchpoint, emotion, pain, opportunity. Paste it into your touchpoint inventory issue as a draft.
5. Validate with two real users: walk them through the map and ask “what is wrong or missing?” Update the issue, and note what you changed and why.