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What are Client Capstones? 

Through our partnership with Riipen, UX Academy students will have the opportunity to work on real client projects, adding valuable industry experience to their portfolios. These projects will be: 

• Collaborative - Student will work in groups of 2-3 other Designlab students, simulating real-world team environments
• Portfolio-worthy - The final capstone project will be a real-world assignment, replacing one of the existing capstones. 
• Industry-connected - Students will work directly with real clients, gaining experience in managing client expectations and designing within real-world constraints. 

Why Client Capstones? 
 

Real-world experience makes portfolios stand out and helps students build the confidence to transition into professional roles. While UX Academy has always encouraged student-sourced real-world projects, some students found this process challenging. By partnering with Riipen, we’re making it easier for students to focus on design work rather than project sourcing.

Client Capstone Coordinator 
 

We have our wonderful Client Capstone Coordinator, Mel deVivar (she/her). Fun fact: she is also an alumn of UXA. Mel’s role is to match Designlab UX designers with real-world client projects - and support you as they navigate those partnerships. Alongside your mentor and Group Crits, Mel is here to offer an additional layer of support, especially when it comes to managing client interactions.

If you have any questions, please submit a ticket to the CX team. 

Team structure

Students are placed into teams of 2-3 students based on project availability. 

Unfortunately, due to sourcing constraints, students will not be able to select specific projects or select their teammates.

You will continue to have weekly sessions with your mentor over the five-week project period to receive feedback. You will also schedule team meetings with your group/Client.

Please share your project brief with your mentor, so they can support you through any questions you may have. 

What does User Research and Usability Testing look like in Client Capstones?

Since this is an accelerated 5-week project, user research will look different from what you’re used to in UXA. That’s intentional—client capstones are designed to simulate real-world UX work, where things aren’t always ideal.

Here’s what to expect:

This project may involve light user research, depending on whether the student team identifies gaps in existing insights. In many cases, clients will share prior research such as user interviews, surveys, or competitive analyses to help you get started.

If the student team determines that additional research is needed, they should be prepared to recruit participants independently—either through their personal network or Designlab’s Discord community. Projects are intentionally scoped with broad target audiences to make participant recruitment more accessible.

As a guideline, we recommend conducting up to 3 user interviews per team (not per individual). Please note that not all clients are able to provide a list of participants, so flexibility and resourcefulness will be key.

Note: We do our best in recruiting clients with broad target audiences to help students find participants for user research and usability testing. 

What is an example of a project timeline?

Each Riipen Project Brief will have this timeline so that clients can know what weekly milestones to expect. This is a suggested timeline, meaning that it can change or pivot based on the progression of the project. 

We always do our best to curate a 5-week project scope that is feasible to complete, and we encourage our students to vocalize to the client if there are areas where they need to pull back on. The students own the project timeline. 
 

Suggested Projected Timeline:

Week 1

• Project plan – Define goals, align on project scope, identify key milestones, and a timeline for the experience.
• Review of existing site and workflows.
• Conduct UX audit of current website (and check for accessibility)
• Competitive research (if needed)– Analyze other competitors service websites to benchmark industry design standards and features.
• Review previous research from client (i.e. market research, surveys, etc)

Week 2

• Conduct 3 (max) brief interviews with individuals who fit closely to the target audience. Note, the Client is not able to provide a short-list of names of individuals to interview. Designlab UX designers will be asked to recruit individuals from their personal network (ie. Designlab Discord Community)
• Develop low-to mid-fidelity mock ups – Present solutions to client and collect feedback

Week 3

• Prototype fidelity mockups– Incorporate branding and visual design

Week 4

• Build a clickable prototype in Figma for key user flows.

How do you log your project hours? 

Each Designlab student is expected to complete at least 80 hours of individual project work over the 5-week capstone. This guideline is designed to help you manage your time effectively while balancing other responsibilities.

Your logged hours can include:

• Team meetings (with and without your client)
• Working in Figma (wireframes, prototypes, iterations)
• Conducting user research
• Preparing presentations and deliverables
• Any additional project-related work

Please log your hours in Riipen. You can choose to enter your hours weekly or at the end of the project - whichever works best for your workflow.

There is no maximum limit on the number of hours you can log.