Uxcel Teams vs Udemy Business: Full Comparison

It is interesting that many common people without much corporate experience think that managing an enterprise company is not that hard. After all, it’s just about expanding something that’s already large, right? Yet, those who have climbed up the corporate hierarchy understand the reality. Occupying a managerial position, especially when dealing with a team that works in a department that is not an area of expertise, is a tricky business.

If you are managing a design team as a non-designer, you are taking care of their output (what they provide to the company’s clients), but you also need to take care of their input (how they polish their skills and get learning materials). Chances are that many of them are pursuing courses and enhancing their skills themselves, regardless of their current roles or experience levels. However, as a team leader, you should systematically assign tasks to the entire team while tracking their progress.

There are several problems with providing the right learning materials to people who are working full-time. They don’t have the time to spend hours listening to traditional courses, and months to earn the certificate which is not even showing the effects on their skills. Have you recognized this need, but are struggling to find the right partner to supply the necessary learning materials?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! In this full comparison of Uxcel Teams vs Udemy, we’ll explore both platforms in detail, leaving you to determine which option suits your design team best.

Uxcel Teams vs Udemy Overview

Udemy is a platform famous for its accessibility and cheap, but often quality courses. You can often find a great course for free at Udemy as well if you know where to look.

This platform allows everyone to create courses. They have a vetting process, but it is very easy to pass it, so even people without many credentials can become instructors on Udemy. That certainly sounds worse than other traditional design learning platforms such as Interaction Design Foundation or Nielsen Norman Group, where only the best of the best experts in the field are tutors. However, that doesn’t mean everything on Udemy is junk. You can easily find an amazing course from an unknown person, for just a few dollars, which makes Udemy a very cost-efficient service.

Of course, Udemy is a traditional learning platform. Therefore, design team managers who often lack deep knowledge of UX design, probably won’t be able to find those diamonds in the rough for their designers. Even if you’ve transitioned from designer to executive, this process can feel overwhelming.

On the other hand, Uxcel Teams is a platform created by designers for designers, to address these specific challenges. At Uxcel Teams Vault, you will find classic courses, but it is not the only learning material. Since Uxcel founders come from the corporate environment, they designed the app to help full-time designers specifically and adapted Uxcel Teams for managers who don’t have a background in design. With its numerous benefits we will mention in the next section, Uxcel Teams respects your time, prepares modern and segmented learning material, and all this for a great price.

Main Benefits of Uxcel Teams

From evaluating your design team's skills to assigning appropriate tasks, Uxcel Teams provides a range of benefits. Depending on your needs, this platform equips you with the tools to tackle various challenges. Here are some key advantages:

• Automatically map your design team’s skills
• Assign customized design learning content
• Easily track learning ROI
• Improve design literacy within your organization
• Match designers to projects efficiently
• Implement active learning strategies

{CTA}

Automatically Map the Skills of Your Design Team

One of the primary features of Uxcel Teams, and one of its most significant benefits, is the ability to map the entire team’s skill sets in under 30 minutes. Out of all design learning platforms, you won’t be able to find this feature anywhere else. As an executive who wants to know the strengths and weaknesses of their design team, this perk is amazing.

Uxcel’s unique Skill Graph showcases individual designers’ skills across these areas:

• Visual Design
• Interaction Design
• Research
• Content Strategy
• Leadership
• Product Thinking

For instance, if you look at Gene, he might have the highest score in visual and interaction design, making him an excellent candidate for a design lead position.

All skills here are great, although we can see that Research and Product Thinking skills are a bit lower than the rest. If you want Gene to work on those skills, you will be able to easily delegate learning material to him. We will show you how to do it in the next section of the article.

Also, you might see red exclamation marks next to some team members. It means they haven't completed their Uxcel Pulse assessment yet. From here, you can easily send them reminders:

The Uxcel Pulse assessment is a quick, precise test that provides an initial skill graph for each designer. After completing it, you’ll gain insights into their overall score, individual skills, and areas for improvement.

Once you’ve mapped your team’s skills, the next step is assigning learning materials specifically crafted to help designers improve in these areas.

Assign Fully Customized Design Learning Content

As a design team manager, your objective is to improve your team’s skills and maximize their potential while they work for you. With Uxcel Teams, this process is straightforward.

This platform always provides updated learning content that is segmented and easy to use, even for people who don’t have a background in design. As a manager, you need to delegate learning content to the design team, and one of the major issues with that on other platforms is the inability to correctly select learning material that will improve the skills of designers, but not take too much of their time. After all, your main goal is to provide excellent work for your clients. Ideally, they will be able to work on their skills and still provide great results to clients simultaneously. Luckily, Uxcel Teams provides specific types of learning materials crafted for that purpose.

You can assign learning materials in two ways. First, select the “Reporting” option from the main menu. There, you’ll find profiles of all team members, including previously assigned content and completion status.

You can easily add new assignments by clicking the “Add Assignment” button below each profile.

This method is straightforward, but you need to have at least fundamental design knowledge to assign the correct content to the particular designer. It is certainly easier and much better compared to any other design learning platform, but if you are still unsure how to select the right materials, there is another way.

Uxcel Teams recommends this method because if you use it, you will guarantee to target the right skill for the designer you previously selected.

First, go to the designer list page, and select the designer you want to assign some learning material. Next, click on the skill you want them to develop, and you will see this:

Here, you will be able to see all the courses, assessments, and design briefs that are affecting Visual Design skills only. You can browse through and select pieces of content you need to assign, based on the description of those lessons. You can assign several pieces of content and set individual deadlines.

Easily Track Learning ROI

Most platforms providing design learning materials award certificates upon course completion. However, simply having a diploma or certificate is no longer sufficient. It doesn’t reflect the actual skills of the person holding it; it merely indicates they completed a course and passed an exam, which may not be relevant to their job.

Many learning platforms have basic reporting options, but they usually don’t go further from giving you the completion rate on the course and time spent watching. So, you would be able to see how much time the designer spent learning, but you wouldn’t be able to tell how the learning affected their skills.

While Uxcel Teams also issues certificates, its most valuable asset is the Skill Graph. Apart from accurately describing the skill levels of the given designer, this perk also tracks progress over time. By clicking on any team member and selecting “View Growth,” you can observe their skill development:

By examining reports, you can identify how specific assignments impacted scores, allowing each designer to grow in the areas most crucial to your needs. Here is how the effect of learning with Uxcel Teams looks in the reporting segment:

You will able to see all the courses, lessons, assessments, and design briefs every individual designer completed, and easily measure their progress. You can also compare your designers with each other, which will help you plan their further development. This visibility ultimately serves as proof of ROI for your organization.

Improve Design Literacy Within Your Organization

Founded by UX designers with extensive corporate experience, Uxcel addresses a significant pain point many face: wasted time while trying to synchronize with management and other departments.

When those communicating with the design team lack familiarity with design principles, the input they provide can fall short, leading to miscommunication and design solutions that are not satisfying for the client.

Uxcel Teams solves this issue with a feature called “Squads”:

The idea behind Squads is to involve everyone connected to your design team on Uxcel, assess their skills, and identify improvement areas. If you connect every department through Uxcel Teams, you will be able to see the pain points clearly and solve them without much trouble.

For instance, if you discover that your design team is using terminology that is not suitable for the marketing team, you might delegate a course or assessment to the marketing team in order to solve this issue. If a person from marketing can’t really explain which design they need from the design team, the company will lose time and money, and even worse, a client, who won’t be satisfied with the solution received. This doesn’t mean that the marketing team needs to learn about design extensively, it just means they need to familiarize themselves with the subject, let’s say UX design.

Uxcel Teams offers many short courses, such as the UX Design Foundations course, that will improve the understanding between different departments.

Assign the Right Designers to the Right Projects Efficiently

As a design team manager, maximizing your team’s efficiency is vital. Uxcel Teams understands this need and offers the Top Skills feature, enabling you to quickly and accurately match the right designer to the appropriate task.

If you scroll through the design team, below every individual designer's profile you will be able to see their top skills. Also, on the right-hand side of the screen, you will see a „Top Skills“ drop-down menu, where you can search for a specific skill:

By entering a specific skill in the search bar, such as Wireframing or Figma, you’ll see a list of team members who excel in those areas, and by doing so speed up the process even more:

If Colin is the only one with expertise in Wireframing and Maze, it makes sense to assign him tasks requiring those skills.

Active Learning Implementation

Uxcel Teams is built on an active, gamified learning system that is accustomed to the age we are living in. This feature is possibly one of the biggest differences and advantages over other design learning platforms.

Many turn to Udemy, Nielsen Norman Group, or similar platforms to search for courses, but this can be a time-consuming process for both managers and teams. Traditional courses often require weeks or months to complete, resulting in a significant investment.

In contrast, Uxcel Teams offers engaging learning materials at a fraction of the cost. Its courses are gamified, easily digestible, and designed for busy professionals.

Every Uxcel course is mobile-optimized, allowing designers to learn on the go. This modern approach supports personalized learning, enabling your designers to complete several assignments weekly while significantly improving their skills. For example, here is one of the typical questions you will be able to find in Uxcel material:

Of course, Uxcel Teams offers traditional long-form courses as well. But, this platform is unique when it comes to addressing the biggest pain points of corporate design teams. Uxcel Teams is truly specialized for improving full-time working designers’ skills, without putting too much time and effort into it.

From a managerial standpoint, it is also beneficial because you are able to delegate tasks and follow the improvement in real time. You will precisely know which task affected the targeted skill and even without huge design knowledge, be able to structure a customized learning journey for each of your designers, leading to team success!

Udemy Main Benefits

Udemy is one of the world’s largest online learning platforms, offering over 210,000 courses across more than 75 languages while having over 67 million students. Whether you're looking to develop new professional skills, switch careers, or simply pursue a personal hobby, Udemy presents an incredibly diverse selection of content. The platform operates on a marketplace model, where independent instructors design and deliver their courses. This is a great chance for those instructors to make their name in this industry and get followers from a vast Udemy pool.

Udemy offers lots of benefits, both for students and instructors. Udemy for Business caters materials to business owners, but it is not segmented so well as Uxcel Teams. The main benefits are these:

• Instructor Diversity
• Udemy Business
• Affordable Learning Materials
• Huge Number of Courses Available

Instructor Diversity

One of Udemy's standout features is its vast array of instructors. Unlike many traditional education platforms where courses are often developed by academic institutions or large companies, Udemy courses are taught by independent instructors. This diversity in the instructors brings a wealth of different teaching styles, approaches, and perspectives.

This basically means everyone can be an instructor at Udemy. Naturally, it will cause uncertainty around instructors’ expertise, experience, and overall quality. However, nothing guarantees you that the course from Norman Nielsen Group created by a university professor will be appealing and helpful for you either! Trusting the authority without questioning it is not always the right call.

At Udemy, students have access to instructors who have practical expertise in their fields, whether it’s a seasoned developer, a successful entrepreneur, or an experienced artist. The fact anyone can join the platform and upload teaching material doesn’t mean that material will be approved, or successful. Successful instructors have the ratings and numbers of students behind them. The rating system at Udemy is completely native and unrestricted, and you can generally get a very good idea about the course if you read the reviews.

One of the advantages of this system is that each instructor on Udemy has their own unique teaching style. They are not tied by some platform rules, nor general practices which are usually implemented by university professors. Again, this might produce some very bad courses that are a complete waste of time, but it also can produce some complete gems and the best piece of content you will find online around the targeted subject.

Of course, while some instructors may lean heavily on practical examples, you will be able to find others who prefer to provide comprehensive theoretical frameworks, similar to university professors. With thousands of courses available, students can find instructors whose teaching methods align with their own learning preferences.

The global reach of Udemy means that the platform hosts instructors from around the world, bringing in diverse cultural perspectives. When it comes to design, it is interesting to see the perspective of an instructor who is not from your part of the world and see their examples, and how you can communicate with other target groups via design. Taking the course from such an instructor can enrich your experience and open doors to other design principles that are not often practiced by your close peers.

We already mentioned that you can fully trust Udemy reviews. They are written by real students, giving valuable feedback about the course and the instructor. Udemy itself reviews courses before approving them too. Each course is reviewed for factors like video quality, lesson structure, and clarity of instructions.

All these benefits related to Udemy courses are almost unique for this platform when compared to other similar providers, such as Coursera, or Interaction Design Foundation. However, as a manager searching for a place to find and delegate learning material to their marketing team, Udemy might not be the best option. This platform is the best for independent students, possibly freelancers and other professionals, who can decide which course to buy based on their own personal preferences. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check out Udemy Business, which offers learning for full-time employees.

Udemy Business

Despite focusing mainly on individual learners, Udemy for Business is a compelling benefit for organizations and businesses. This specialized offering to organizations came from the realization they are missing out on a potentially huge market. Udemy for Business is designed to help companies of all sizes provide scalable, on-demand training solutions to their employees.

Udemy Business offers many courses that are specifically created to meet the needs of businesses. It is important that companies can create customized learning paths for their employees, allowing them to progress through courses that align with their specific roles or skill gaps. However, this is pretty similar to other learning platforms, such as Coursera, or Norman Nielsen Group. They all recognized the need for this type of content, but they didn’t really optimize it for organizations and companies. At best, they created a library from content that is suitable for businesses in general.

We know that in a dynamic business environment with lots of competitors, it is crucial for companies to invest in their workforce by offering access to high-quality training that can improve employee performance, productivity, and innovation. As a manager, you would love for your design team to continuously work on their skills and stay ahead of the competitors, but let’s be realistic. It is very hard for any full-time employee to use traditional learning materials while working. Simply, it takes too much time and effort.

One of the perks of Udemy Business is giving access to a wide selection of courses taught by top-rated instructors. This selection helps you as a manager because you won’t need to search through the whole Udemy library to find the content you need.

Udemy Business is designed to offer a flexible learning experience, meaning employees can access courses anytime, anywhere. The platform is accessible on both desktop and mobile devices, which means designers can access the content while being outside. Additionally, Udemy Business supports features like analytics and adoption reports, allowing organizations to track employee progress and engagement with the training content.

Udemy Business operates on a subscription-based model, making it a cost-effective solution for organizations. The pricing varies based on the size of the organization and the number of employees who need access to the platform. The Team plan for 2-20 users starts from $23 per user monthly, while the Enterprise plan for more than 20 people depends on various factors, so you have to contact Udemy for the price.

For companies focused on developing leadership talent, Udemy Business offers specialized leadership development programs. These programs provide courses on executive leadership, strategic thinking, and team management, among other key areas. This enables organizations to build stronger leaders who can guide teams through challenges and drive organizational success. As a manager who recently got the task of managing a company design team, this is a great opportunity.

Udemy Business also supports diversity and inclusion training, helping organizations create more inclusive work environments. Courses on topics such as unconscious bias, cultural competency, and diversity management are available, supporting companies in their efforts to create a more inclusive workplace culture. This is not strictly related to design, but it is very important, as businesses around the world recognize the need for diverse teams to drive innovation and success.

Affordable and Accessible Learning

One of the most attractive features of Udemy is its affordability. Unlike traditional universities or certification programs, Udemy offers a wide range of courses at accessible price points, starting as low as $12.99. This makes learning more accessible to a broader audience, including individuals who may not have the time or financial resources to attend formal education programs. Additionally, Udemy frequently runs promotions that offer free courses!

Let’s face it, Udemy became well-known because of its affordability, not quality. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to snatch a great course for just a couple of bucks, because instructors know that if they manage to build their name at this platform it would be great for their branding and business long term.

Even courses that are sometimes on a free promotion can offer valuable knowledge even to seasoned professionals. However, you would need to follow the platform closely and pick the courses that are currently on promotion. The promotion lasts for several days, and during that time period, you will be able to get the most from the course while paying the least.

Huge Number of Courses Available

Udemy’s selection of courses spans a broad range of topics, from business and development to personal development and creative fields. When it comes to design and UX design in particular, you can find numerous very quality courses in that field. Theoretically, if you would be able to go through the complete offer in these fields, we are confident that you would be able to find very quality courses for each topic.

Uxcel Teams vs Udemy Comparison Table

Uxcel Teams vs Udemy Verdict

Udemy, and especially Udemy Business is an affordable option for a company that wants to delegate learning materials to their workers. On individual plans, you might find even free courses, or pay only a couple of bucks for a quality course that might cost hundreds of dollars elsewhere.

However, Uxcel Teams is a platform that is specifically modeled to address the pain points of companies with in-house design teams. If you are a manager in that type of a company, with Uxcel Teams you will get segmented learning material, designed for addressing typical knowledge gaps of your full-time designers, a Skill Graph that will accurately show their skills, and other materials and benefits that put your design team on the path to success.