Non-Degree / Dates: 25 – 29 January 2027
This one-week practical course introduces participants to industry-standard practices for building and maintaining design systems using Figma, AI tools, and AI Agents. Through lectures, hands-on exercises, and collaborative group work, students will learn how to develop, audit, and communicate scalable component libraries that drive efficiency and consistency in digital product design.
The curriculum is divided into two focused phases: building the foundation and mastering the application of skills. First, you will explore Atomic Design principles and create Design Tokens, moving from basic styles to complex, responsive components using Figma’s advanced features such as Auto Layout and Variants. As you progress, the focus shifts to professional documentation, accessibility (WCAG) compliance, and system scaling. Throughout this course, you will also use frontier models and AI tools and learn how to integrate them in your workflows, create custom AI Agents to automate auditing, generate documentation, and streamline maintenance of your design system.
Why this course?
Teacher(s)
Yan Asadchy, MSc, Junior Research Fellow at Tallinn University, is an interdisciplinary researcher and a Ph.D. student at CUDAN Open Lab, Tallinn University. He works at the intersection of computer science and humanities and uses computational methods to examine digital culture and self-representation on social media. He is a member of MIT’s Connection Science group and the DTx Research Group at Oulu University. Yan founded Affinity OÜ, a design agency that provides ethical design consultancy and solutions to startups and research groups in digital health, wellbeing, and AI. Yan has a background in UX/UI design and earned his MSc in Human-Computer Interaction from Tallinn University.
Tallinn University reserves the right to make changes to the teaching staff where necessary. Any such changes will not affect the learning outcomes or the academic quality of the course.
Timetable
The classes will take place from Monday to Friday each week. The lectures are planned 10:00 – 13:00 daily. Students will have individual tasks and collaborative work in groups.
An approximate day-by-day course plan is available here. Please note that the schedule and topic order may be adjusted as the course is finalized.
Participants
Design students, developers, product managers, or anyone interested in interaction design and systems thinking.
Prerequisites: A basic understanding of Figma is expected.
Credit points
Upon full participation and completion of course work students will be awarded 2 ECTS points and a certificate of completion.
Assessment criteria: Individual assignments (55%) + final group project & presentation (30%) + group collaboration & contribution (15%).
Course fee
| Early-Bird Course Fee (until 31 October) | 350€ |
| Regular Course Fee (after 31 October) | 400€ |
NB! Accommodation, cultural programme and meals are not included in the price.
Contact
General Contact (registration, accommodation, cultural programme, etc): tss@tlu.ee
Information about the course content: Yan Asadchy – yan.asadchy@tlu.ee
