📚 This guide is designed to help you learn UI/UX design, and is divided into three levels: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert. It includes learning resource, guides and tools that cover all aspects of designing user interfaces and user experiences.
Everything you need to go from zero to hired as a UI/UX designer, in one page.
Forty-four topics across three levels. Each one gives you the goals to hit, the books to read, the articles and talks worth your time, and the tools you will actually use. Start where you are — Beginner, Intermediate, or Expert.
Found a dead link, a better resource, or a typo? Read the contributing guide — reporting one broken link is a real contribution. Everyone here is expected to follow the code of conduct.
Author or publisher? If your book is mirrored here and you want it removed, open a takedown request — no lawyer or formal notice needed, and it is handled first. Prefer to keep it private? See about the mirrors for a direct contact.
The guide is one long document, organized as a path. Each level holds several tracks, and each track holds topics. Every topic gives you the same four things, so you always know what you are looking at.
— free to read or download from the publisher or author. Nothing to pay.
— a commercial book. The Buy link goes to the publisher so the author gets paid.
Buy — the official page. Use this one if you can afford it.
⬇ Mirror — a copy hosted on MEGA for people who cannot. Click and it downloads.
If a book has no Buy link, it was never sold — it is a free paper, deck, or report.
Please buy the books you can afford. These authors are the reason this guide exists. The mirrors are for people who genuinely cannot — see about the mirrors.
The Path
The guide is a library, but it is meant to be walked in order. Here is that order, with what you should be able to do by the end of each step.
Times are rough, and assume a few focused hours a week. Move faster if you can, slower if life happens. The deliverable matters more than the schedule.
You have applied to ten roles and practiced the interview out loud
ongoing
Checkpoint: you have a portfolio that argues for you when you are not in the room.
Do not read this front to back. Do step 1, then build something. Every step has a deliverable because reading about design does not make you a designer — the reading only makes sense once you have hit the problem yourself.
This level is for anyone starting out in User Experience and User Interface design. It covers what UX and UI actually are, how to work in a design tool, and the visual fundamentals — typography, color, and layout — that everything after this builds on.
Beginner Level - Curriculum
Introduction to User Experience Design
User experience design is the process of creating products that give people meaningful and relevant experiences. This section covers what a UX designer actually does day to day, and why designing around real users beats designing around assumptions.
What is UX Design?
“A person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service.” — ISO 9241-210, Ergonomics of human-system interaction—Part 210: Human-centered design for interactive systems
Goals
Goal
Description
Understand
Learn about the field of UX design and the role of a UX designer.
Learn
Learn about the importance of user experience design in the digital world.
Differentiate
Learn to differentiate between "Good" and "Bad" UX design.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
UX For Dummies
Chesnut, Donald, Nichols, Kevin P
Get up to speed quickly on the latest in user experience strategy and design UX For Dummies is a hands-on guide to developing and implementing user experience strategy.
The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition
Don Norman
The foundational text on human-centered design, explaining why some products delight and others frustrate through the principles of affordances, signifiers, and feedback.
UX Crash Course - Getting Started in User Experience Design
Jesse Showalter
User experience design (UX, UXD) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction with a product by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction with the product.
UX Design vs UI Design - What's The Difference? (2023)
CareerFoundry
What’s the difference between UX and UI design? What will you be doing as a user experience designer, or a user interface designer? In this video, we delve into these two in-demand design roles, sharing key definitions, responsibilities, similarities and differences.
UX matters because it meets real user needs, and people stay with products that work for them. That loyalty is what makes UX a business argument and not just a design preference.
Goals
Goal
Description
Understand
Understand what makes an experience feel good rather than merely functional.
Learn
Learn what your users need and what they are trying to achieve.
Write
Write a plan for improving the user experience of a product.
Discuss
Make the case for UX design to someone who is not a designer.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
The UX Book: Process and Guidelines for Ensuring a Quality User Experience
Rex Hartson & Pardha Pyla
The UX Book: Process and Guidelines for Ensuring a Quality User Experience aims to help readers learn how to create and refine interaction designs that ensure a quality user experience (UX).
In today’s industry of rapidly growing interfaces, UX design has become increasingly important. The UX team at Rocket55 are here to explain what “User Experience” is all about.
User-centered design (UCD) puts the needs, wants, and limitations of real users at the center of every decision. In practice that means involving users at each stage rather than checking with them at the end.
Goals
Goal
Description
Understand
Understand how involving users early changes what you build.
Learn
Learn to design around users by studying them, not guessing.
Plan
Map out a user-centered process for a project of your own.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Fundamentals of User-Centered Design
Brian Still, Kate Crane
This book explains in-depth on what that UCD to usability and User Experience (UX) principles and best practices
User-centered design: A developer's guide to building user-friendly applications
Travis Lowdermilk
You’ll learn valuable strategies for conducting each stage of the design process, from interviewing likely users and discovering your application’s purpose to creating a rich user experience with sound design principles.
The User-centered design (UCD) process outlines the phases throughout a design and development life-cycle all while focusing on gaining a deep understanding of the user.
User-centered design is an approach to design that puts users' needs front and center and follows an iterative design process that focuses on user feedback.
How to Conduct User-Centered Design [Step-by-Step Guide]
CareerFoundry
User-centered design is an approach to design that puts users' needs front and center and follows an iterative design process that focuses on user feedback.
What is UCD, and what is the difference between UX, CX and UI design. How do they influence the design and development of your digital product or service and ultimately impact your sales funnel.
What is human-centered design, and why is the "human" aspect so crucial to the design process? Learn how to run and promote a truly human-centered design process.
User interface (UI) design is the craft of building the screens people actually touch: layout, controls, type, and color. Looks matter here, but the real goal is making the product obvious to use.
What is UI Design?
UI design covers everything a user sees and acts on: buttons, forms, icons, spacing, and states. Good UI makes the next action obvious without the user having to think about it.
Goals
Goal
Description
Understand
Understand the building blocks of an interface: layout, controls, type, and color.
Learn
Learn how to turn a requirement into a screen that works.
Plan
Plan the steps from first sketch to finished interface.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Designing Interfaces
Jenifer Tidwell
Learn how to design interfaces that are usable, useful, and desirable.
User interface design (UI) is the process of designing interfaces in software or computerized devices with the focus on looks or style. The goal of this design is to maximize the ease of use for the people using the product.
User interface (UI) design is the process designers use to build interfaces in software or computerized devices, focusing on looks or style. Designers aim to create interfaces which users find easy to use and pleasurable.
What is user interface (UI) design, and how is it different from UX? What is the UI design process? Learn everything you need to know about UI design here.
What Is UI Design? Definition, Tips, Best Practices
Coursera
UI stands for user interface. It is the point of contact between humans and computers. Any technology you interact with as a user is part of the user interface.
User interface (UI) design is an incredibly broad, multidisciplinary, and creative field. Good UI design is increasingly recognized as an essential tool to increase user engagement and create products that are both useful and visually pleasing.
User interfaces (UIs) are what allow us to interact with and navigate through our favorite programs and devices. Every time you click a button on a website or swipe to a different screen, you're engaging with UI.
User Interface (UI) Design Principles Series Introduction
Brendan Colarusso
In this video, I explain how I came to my list of 12 UI Principles that we will be going over in depth in this series over the next few weeks. Check out the resources below to start learning about these principles.
What is user interface (UI) design, and how is it different from UX? What is the UI design process? Learn everything you need to know about UI design here.
Take your first steps in the world of User Interface (UI) design with this beginner-friendly tutorial. From understanding the basics of UI design to creating wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity mockups, we'll guide you through the process.
In this design thinking tutorial, we will be looking at what is design thinking, why design thing is important, steps of design thinking, empathy mapping, five phases and four pillars of design thinking and agile methodology with design thinking.
Best practices are the shortcuts other designers already paid for: consistency, clear hierarchy, forgiving defaults, and visible feedback. Learn the rule and the reason behind it, so you know when breaking it is the right call.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the common UI conventions and the reasoning behind them.
Understand
Understand how each convention changes the user's experience.
Practice
Apply them in your own projects, and notice where they conflict.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
The Essential Guide to User Interface Design
Wilbert O. Galitz
This book explains in-depth on what that UI design is and how to design a user interface.
User Interface (UI) Design focuses on anticipating what users might need to do and ensuring that the interface has elements that are easy to access, understand, and use to facilitate those actions.
10 Fundamental UI Design Principles You Need to Know
Renee Fleck
Most users only notice the UI design of an app or software when something goes wrong. For this reason, we can say that good UI design is almost invisible, leaving the user free to get down to work without interruption.
27 UI/UX Design Principles and Best Practices 2021
729solutions
Great design goes a long way. The experience visitors have with your website sets the stage for their relationship with your product, your company, and your brand.
The most progressive and interesting designers steer clear of visually stale design solutions and ditch restrictive rules by learning UI design best practices and avoiding common design mistakes. 🔊
UX/UI BEST PRACTICES FOR WEB DESIGN: Free Web Design Course
Flux Academy
This is what you need to know about UX UI design to quickly improve as a beginner. The best tip I can give you is to not make people think. Don't be original, be obvious. Don't be witty, be crystal clear.
Designing for mobile means designing for small screens, thumbs, and constant interruption. Touch targets, one-handed reach, and slow connections all constrain what works, so a mobile layout is rarely a shrunken desktop one.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the constraints of small screens and touch input.
Understand
Understand how those constraints change your layout decisions.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Mobile Design Pattern Gallery: UI Patterns for Smartphone App
Theresa Neil
When you’re under pressure to produce a well-designed, easy-to-navigate mobile app, there’s no time to reinvent the wheel—and no need to.
Usability Matters: Mobile-first UX for developers and other accidental designers
Matt Lacey
Usability Matters: Mobile-first UX for developers and other accidental designers gives you practical advice and guidance on how to create attractive, elegant, and useful user interfaces for native and web-based mobile apps..
How to Design a Mobile App User Interface Like a Pro
CareerFoundry
If you want to design a great, functional mobile app interface, you’re in the right place. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the key principles of mobile app design.
Here are many things to consider when designing for mobile. We’re sure that this detailed guide will help you get rid of that headache when building apps.
Mobile user experience (UX) design refers to the design of positive experiences during the use of mobile devices and wearables, and applications or services running on such devices. — Interaction Design Foundation
Mobile design can be a tricky subject, with many things to consider when creating a mobile app. To simplify the task, I’ve prepared some highly practical tips on what you should and what you shouldn’t do when designing mobile apps.
How to design a mobile app tutorial - a step by step guide
Malewicz
Here's another part of our design super-basics free course. Today I'll show you a step by step guide on how to start your first mobile app project. This is perfect for beginners and junior designers who want to have a good template to begin their projects with.
We're here with another edition of the UI/UX Workshop where I revamp 3 user-submitted designs. For this edition, I've chosen 3 mobile UI's just to show that the process is all the same regardless of design dimensions
Design tools are where the work actually happens: wireframes, mockups, prototypes, and developer handoff. This section helps you pick one and get productive in it.
The tool matters less than fluency in one of them. Compare the options below, pick the one used by the teams you want to join, and go deep rather than wide.
Design Tools Overview
Design tools are where the work happens: wireframes, mockups, prototypes, and developer handoff. Compare the options and pick one to go deep on.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn which tools designers actually use, and what each is for.
Understand
Understand the core concepts: frames, components, and styles.
Practice
Rebuild an existing screen in the tool you chose.
Tools
Title
Description
Link
Free
Figma
Figma is a vector graphics editor and prototyping tool which is primarily web-based.
New to Figma? Get started with "Figma for beginners" tutorials
Figma
f you’re brand new to Figma or design tools, check out this playlist for a quick tour of key features as we take you through a rough approximation of the design process, and design a mobile app together.
Figma UI Design Tutorial: Get Started in Just 24 Minutes!
AJ&Smart
Do you want to learn Figma but don’t know where to start? Well, if you follow this step-by-step tutorial, it will only take you 24 minutes to learn all the basics you need to know to start designing apps and websites in Figma.
Today, we're going to step back into the world of UI/UX design and cover one of the most popular UI/UX design and prototyping tools: Adobe Experience Design (Adobe XD). You're going to learn all major features of this powerful app in crash course format, all while doing so by creating a UI for a fictional business.
Learn Adobe XD, earn certificates with paid and free online courses from Coursera, Treehouse, YouTube and other top learning platforms around the world. Read reviews to decide if a class is right for you.
Sketch is an application which has already won the hearts of UI and UX designers around the world, even though just about anybody can learn how to use it.
The principles of visual design include contrast, balance, emphasis, movement, white space, proportion, hierarchy, repetition, rhythm, pattern, unity, and variety. Used together, they make a screen readable at a glance instead of merely decorated.
Typography
Typography is the craft of arranging type so written language is legible, readable, and pleasant to read. In practice that means choosing typefaces and sizes, then tuning line length, leading, tracking, and kerning until the text stops fighting the reader.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn typeface anatomy, scale, leading, and measure.
Understand
Understand how type choices change legibility and readability.
Practice
Build a type scale that gives a page clear hierarchy.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
The New Web Typography: Create a Visual Hierarchy with Responsive Web Design
Stephen Boss & Jason Cranford Teague
The New Web Typography: Create a Visual Hierarchy with Responsive Web Design shows you how to implement web-safe fonts to create visually appealing and multi-browser-friendly websites while encouraging you to develop designs that express your own unique typographic voice.
Discover the incredible power of fonts - how they influence your decisions, alter your perceptions, stir your emotions and change how you understand the world around you.
Designing with Type: The Essential Guide to Typography
James Craig
The classic Designing with Type has been completely redesigned, with an updated format and full color throughout. New information and new images make this perennial best-seller an even more valuable tool for anyone interested in learning about typography.
Breaking Down the Principles of Design (with Infographic)
Toptal
Understanding the principles of design and how they interact is vital for both new and expert designers. Implementing them purposefully is key to creating visually appealing, functional designs.
Good typography is one of the cornerstones of good design. In The Ultimate Guide to Typography, you'll learn everything from the most basic elements of typography and common mistakes through to more complex topics like combining and choosing fonts for your projects.
In this course, you'll learn all you need to know about creating good typography as a UX Designer: how to choose a typeface; what to look for when laying out type, how to create typographic hierarchy, laying out type, and creating responsive typography.
Color theory explains how colors relate to one another and how those relationships read on screen. For interface work it is what lets you build a palette that carries meaning — state, hierarchy, brand — rather than one that just looks nice.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how to create a harmonious color scheme.
Understand
Understand how hue, saturation, and value work together.
Apply
Apply a palette to a real interface, including text and states.
Create
Create a color scheme that stays readable at accessible contrast.
Experiment
Try the same design in several palettes and compare.
Inspire
Use color to set the mood you want a product to have.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
The Elements of Color
Johannes Itten
The Elements of Color is a classic book on color theory. It is a must-have for anyone interested in learning about color theory.
In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist’s palette, Victoria Finlay explores the history of color, from the first cave paintings to the latest scientific research.
You’ll find this book to be an interesting read. A fascinating book for UI and UX designers who are interested in the history of colors from an unusual perspective.
Color: A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Colors
Betty Edwards
Mastering the art of mixing colors is a skill that every artist should have. This book will help you to learn how to mix colors and create beautiful color schemes.
Conceived as a handbook and teaching aid for artists, instructors, and students, this influential book presents Albers’s singular explanation of complex color theory principles.
Best Practices for Graphic Designers, Color Works: Right Ways of Applying Color in Branding
Eddie Opara & John Cantwell
This is the go-to guide for designers as it outlines and details the essential color design skills needed to create successful, meaningful and memorable brand
Color theory is the collection of rules and guidelines which designers use to communicate with users through appealing color schemes in visual interfaces.
An Introduction to Color Theory and Color Palettes
CareerFoundry
Have you ever seen a color that has immediately reminded you of a particular brand? Maybe you’ve struggled to feel relaxed in a room that has a clashing color scheme, or returned an item of clothing you got as a gift because the color wasn’t quite right.
Color Theory for Designers – A Crash Course (with Infographic)
Toptal
Color: It’s stunningly beautiful and maddeningly deceptive. Use this color theory field guide (with an infographic) to make lightning-quick color choices with unwavering confidence.
The article focused on the basics of color theory and color combinations in design: learn more about color wheel, RGB, CMYK and models of color harmony.
What is color theory? Why do your colors look awful? How do you use color? And why is it so difficult? In this episode, Greg Gunn will teach you the basics of how color works and provide some easy tips and tricks for using it.
Super Practical Guide to Color Theory, Color Models and Perfect Color Palettes - UI Design
DesignerUp
Maybe you’ve followed all the color harmony and color theory tutorials to a tee and generated a complementary color palette, but you notice that the colors don’t seem to match very well, perhaps they look harsh or a bit muddy and unprofessional and you don’t really know why.
How do you apply color in mobile UI design projects? Here's a little tip, the 60-30-10 color rule(it's more like a guideline) will help you to get a good start to applying color in a mature and seamless way.
Layout and composition are how you arrange elements on a screen: what goes where, how much space it gets, and what the eye reaches first. Grids, alignment, and spacing do most of that work, which is why they are worth learning properly.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how grids, alignment, and spacing structure a screen.
Understand
Understand how layout directs where the eye goes first.
Apply
Apply a grid to a design you have already made.
Practice
Practice with auto-layout and constraints until layouts survive resizing.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Design School: Layout: A Practical Guide for Students and Designers
Richard Poulin
It provides a comprehensive introduction to creating and changing layouts: a crucially important skill that underpins practically every aspect of graphic design.
Modular Design Frameworks : A Projects-based Guide for UI/UX Designers
James Cabrera
Learn the basic principles of modular design, and then put them into action to create sites that are easy to use, look great, and can be adapted within the context of your business needs.
The rules of composition allow you to place the content in the most logical and appealing form. If you think that composition is something from the art world that has nothing to do with UX/UI, you’re terribly wrong.
In many ways, layout and composition are the building blocks of design. They give your work structure and make it easier to navigate, from the margins on the sides to the content in between.
Composition and its rules in the design of interfaces
UX Planet
Composition — is interaction of interface elements with a goal to convey the meaning of this very interface. To give user an opportunity to easily understand the interface, it is necessary to use the rules of composition.
Master LAYOUT & COMPOSITION Design - Why Layout Is SO IMPORTANT
Satori Graphics
Do you want to learn how to master layout and composition design, improving your graphic design workflow and designs? In todays composition and layout design tutorial, learn why layout is so important, and why you need to focus on it regarding your graphic designs.
Create an auto layout, style guide, typography, and color palette for a design you created above.
Intermediate Level
This level assumes you are comfortable with the beginner material and ready to work with real users. It covers user research, information architecture, prototyping, design thinking, and designing with AI.
Intermediate Level - Curriculum
User Research
User research is how you replace assumptions about your users with evidence. Done early, it tells you which problem is worth solving before you spend weeks solving the wrong one.
Introduction to User Research
This section covers why research matters, the difference between qualitative and quantitative methods, and how to run a study without a budget.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the main research methods and when each one fits.
Understand
Understand what research can answer and what it cannot.
Apply
Apply what you learned here to a design you are working on.
Practice
Run a short study on a product you already use.
Reflect
Turn what you found into concrete changes to the product.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Think Like a UX Researcher: How to Observe Users, Influence Design, and Shape Business Strategy
David Travis & Philip Hodgson
Think Like a UX Researcher will challenge your preconceptions about user experience (UX) research and encourage you to think beyond the obvious. You’ll discover how to plan and conduct UX research, analyze data, persuade teams to take action on the results and build a career in UX.
Quantifying the User Experience. Practical Statistics for User Research
Jeff Sauro & James R Lewis
The book presents a practical guide on how to use statistics to solve common quantitative problems that arise in user research. It addresses questions such as: How do I know if my results are statistically significant? How do I know if my results are reliable? How do I know if my results are valid?
Observing the User Experience, Second Edition: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research
Elizabeth Goodman & Mike Kuniavsky & Andrea Moed
Observing the User Experience is a practical guide to conducting user research in the field. It provides a step-by-step approach to planning and conducting user research, and includes a wealth of examples and case studies.
User Research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through interviews, surveys, usability evaluations and other feedback methods.
As we know, UX research is all about gathering insights that can be used to inform the design process. Different research methods will uncover different insights.
User research is the methodic study of target users—including their needs and pain points—so designers have the sharpest possible insights to work with to create a product or service that meets those needs.
The goal of UX research is to prioritize the user and help bridge the gap between what a business thinks the user needs and what the user actually needs, before an expensive and time-consuming product is made.
UX Research - Get Started With Qualitative User Research (2023)
CareerFoundry
User research is a vital part of the UX design process. It influences design solutions and the entire product development process! In this video we’ll give you an intro to user research and show you how to conduct amazing user interviews!
Userbrain shows you what's working for your product — and what's not. A simple tool that lets you create a user test in minutes and get results in just a few hours.
A persona is a composite character built from real research data, not from imagination. Its job is to keep a team designing for one specific person instead of a vague everyone.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn what belongs in a persona and what to leave out.
Understand
Understand the goals and frustrations behind each persona.
Design
Design a feature aimed at one persona rather than at everyone.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Personas - User Focused Design
Lene Nielsen
Personas, a user centered design methodology covers topics from interaction design within IT, through to issues surrounding product design, communication, and marketing.
Personas are fictional characters that represent your target users. They are based on real data and are used to help you design better products and services.
What Are User Personas and Why Are They Important?
Adobe
User personas are archetypical users whose goals and characteristics represent the needs of a larger group of users. Usually, a persona is a composite of several real users.
As you break into a career in UX, user personas are one tool you’ll certainly want to have available as you gather user research and find design solutions to solve problems and create more human-friendly products and experiences.
You can create the best service with the most modern technology, but if you do not understand the user’s preferences and desires, our efforts towards creating the best service are easily lost.
Personas help product teams with exactly that: to understand, empathize with, and design for their target users, thereby putting faces to people they are designing for.
What are personas and why are they so crucial to the design process? Explore the different types of personas, as well as how to create and make use of them, in this topic definition video from UX expert William Hudson.
User Forge provides a lot of freedom to add your own criteria than other persona generators in the market. It is a collaborative tool with an excellent UI which makes the process of generating personas much easier.
User Personas represent real, living and breathing people who will engage with your product. While individuals featured on a persona are technically hypothetical, the information on the document should not be hypothetical.
A journey map lays out the steps someone takes to reach a goal, along with what they feel at each one. Mapping it end to end is how the gaps between screens become visible.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn to map a journey from first contact through to the goal.
Understand
Understand how sitemaps, user flows, and journey maps differ.
Implement
Map the journey for a product you are designing.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Creating Value through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams
James Kalbach
Customers who have inconsistent, broken experiences with products and services are understandably frustrated.
User journey map is a powerful asset that's used to understand how people use our products. It is an essential tool for building websites, applications, and services.
A user journey map (also known as a customer journey map) is a diagram that visually illustrates the user flow through your site, starting with initial contact or discovery, and continuing through the process of engagement into long-term loyalty and advocacy.
Journey mapping is a process that provides a holistic view of the customer experience by uncovering moments of both frustration and delight along the way.
‘How do people actually use our product?’ is a fundamental question that every product creator must answer. In order to answer this question, product designers need to understand the essence of the whole experience from the user’s perspective.
What are User Flows in User Experience (UX) Design?
Camren Browne
The concept of flow in UX design was first coined by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He deemed it a highly focused mental state where the user is fully immersed in what they are doing and the task they aim to accomplish.
Sometimes UX design requires the perspective of a kid, full of curiosity, to find new heights. By creating a UX sitemap, you’ll be able to take an early glance at your website or application from the tree tops. Let’s look at the what, when, how, and why of UX sitemaps.
The 5 components of a journey map and the benefits of using this qualitative method as part of a UX design process to discover, document, and share the bigger picture of what users want.
In this video, I teach you the basics of customer journey mapping, followed by a tutorial. This is one of the most powerful techniques you can use to dramatically improve the customer experience and the performance of your business.
A practical guide of how to do user story mapping. In this lesson we'll be covering how you can get the stories from your product backlog ready for software development.
Today, we're stepping into the world of UX design and we're going to tackle a common task: creating a user flow diagram. In this video, I'll address the what, why and how of ux design flows. I will also create my own user flow for the upcoming relaunch of DesignCourse.com so that you can see a user flow constructed in a real-world context.
User testing puts a real person in front of your design and watches where they struggle. Heuristic evaluation is the cheaper stand-in: an expert checks the interface against known usability rules when you cannot recruit users.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how to conduct user testing and heuristic evaluation.
Understand
Understand when to use each method and what each one misses.
Practice
Test a design with five people and write up what broke.
Apply
Apply the ten usability heuristics to a product you use daily.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Handbook of Usability Testing: Howto Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests
Jeffrey Rubin & Dana Chisnell & Jared Spool
This book is a comprehensive guide to usability testing, from planning and designing tests to analyzing and reporting results. It provides a thorough overview of the field, including the latest research and best practices.
Step-by-step guidance on all important methods now in use, including the heuristic evaluation method, the pluralistic walkthrough method, the cognitive walkthrough method, and more. The first comprehensive, book-length work in the field of usability evaluation. Designed to get you quickly up and running with a full complement of UI strategies, tools, and techniques.
User testing, aka usability testing, user research, UX testing… everyone’s talking about it, all the best companies are doing it, but what exactly is user testing? And why are your peers banging on about it so much?
6 Simple Steps to Conduct User Testing Successfully
Adam Fard
User testing, or usability testing, is a key component in designing, finalizing and launching a great digital product. It’s about detecting usability issues at any stage of the product development cycle with the aim of improving the overall user experience.
Heuristic evaluation is a usability inspection method for finding problems in a design. It is a method of usability inspection that helps to find usability problems in a design.
Usability testing is a method of evaluating a product by testing it on users. It is a common practice designed to find usability problems early in the development cycle.
Usability testing is a powerful tool for evaluating a website's functionality and making sure people can navigate it efficiently. In this section, we explore different usability testing methods, when you should use them, and why.
Heuristic evaluation is a process where experts use rules of thumb to measure the usability of user interfaces in independent walkthroughs and report issues.
The A to Z of UX — H is for Heuristics: 9 steps to carry out a heuristic evaluation
Darren Wilson
Heuristics are a well established and accepted list of UX principles used to assess how well a user interface has been designed for its intended purpose.
What is user testing? User testing is a technique used in user-centered design to evaluate a proposed solution or product by testing it with real or potential users.
In this video, you'll learn how to uncover secrets of user testing in just 5 minutes! User testing is an essential part of the user experience design process, and this video will teach you how to use it to your advantage.
In this video, you'll learn how to conduct usability testing with Maze. Usability testing is a method of evaluating a product by testing it on users. It is a common practice designed to find usability problems early in the development cycle.
Usability Testing Tips & Tools: Powerful UX Research Method
ProjectUX
ProjectUX creator and UX Researcher Rob Andrews breaks down the process of usability testing with some specific tips and tools to help you with this powerful UX method of user research.
The 10 basic principles for designing a good user experience: these have remained true for decades, since they were introduced for heuristic evaluation of user interfaces.
Information architecture is how you structure content so people can find it. Interaction design is how you shape what happens when they act on it, and together the two decide whether a product feels navigable or confusing.
Information Architecture
An information architecture is the blueprint of a product: its pages, its content, and how they nest and link. Get it wrong and no amount of visual polish will make things findable.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn to structure content with sitemaps and clear labels.
Understand
Understand why findability decides whether features get used.
Apply
Restructure an app's navigation and check it with a card sort.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Information Architecture and UX Design: The Integration of Information Spaces
Wei Ding, Xia Lin & Michael Zarro
Information Architecture is about organizing and simplifying information, designing and integrating information spaces/systems, and creating ways for people to find and interact with information content.
Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond is the first book to provide a comprehensive, practical, and accessible introduction to the field of information architecture.
Information architecture (IA) is far more challenging—and necessary—than ever. With the glut of information available today, anything your organization wants to share should be easy to find, navigate, and understand
Information Architecture Guide for UX Architects & Designers
Nick Babich
If you want to build a great house, the person to call is an architect. We all know this, but architecture applies not only to traditional buildings but also to the information space.
The World Wide Web contains a tremendous amount of information which is hard to imagine unstructured because a human brain wouldn’t be able to perceive any single thing.
Information Architecture Design: A Step-By-Step Guide
Nick Babich
Information architecture is a discipline that focuses on organizing information within digital products clearly and logically. It helps users answer the question, “Where can I find the information I’m looking for?”
In this video, you'll find a comprehensive introduction to information architecture. Learn exactly what information architecture is and why it's so important, and discover an easy-to-follow process for defining the information architecture of your website.
What Is Information Architecture? (UX Design Guide)
CareerFoundry
In this video, Maureen will give you an introduction to information architecture, as well as detailing the three key components to good information architecture: the user, the content, and the context.
In this video, you'll learn about information architecture (IA), a discipline that focuses on organizing information within digital products clearly and logically.
Information Architecture & Sketching for UI/UX Projects
Maddy Beard
I go through my process for determining important touch-points, putting together the information architecture for the app, and starting to sketch the important flows.
Interaction design (IxD) is about what happens between a user and a product: the trigger, the response, and the state the system lands in. It asks what a control should do, how fast, and what tells the user it worked.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how triggers, feedback, and system states fit together.
Understand
Understand why feedback timing changes how a product feels.
Apply
Design the states and transitions for one interactive component.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
Alan Cooper
The essential interaction design guide, fully revised and updated for the mobile age About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design, Fourth Edition is the latest update to the book that shaped and evolved the landscape of interaction design.
Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences (Voices That Matter)
Stephen P. Anderson
What happens when you’ve built a great website or app, but no one seems to care? How do you get people to stick around long enough to see how your service might be of value?
Interaction design is an important component within the giant umbrella of user experience (UX) design. In this article, we’ll explain what interaction design is, some useful models of interaction design, as well as briefly describe what an interaction designer usually does.
Interaction design is a specialized discipline within UX design. Where UX looks at the entire user experience and how everything ties together to create a cohesive experience, interaction design focuses on the interactions between the user and the product.
Interaction design (IxD) is a connection between a product and the user. The role of interaction design is to give users information concisely and efficiently to help them accomplish their goals.
In this video, you'll learn about the basics of interaction design. You'll learn about the different types of interaction design, the different types of interaction design roles, and the different types of interaction design tools.
There’s a lot of common area between the two fields, and both of the design disciplines strives to improve overall User Experience with a product/service.
In this video, you'll learn about the basics of interaction design. You'll learn about the different types of interaction design, and how to design for tasks.
Microinteractions are the small moments a product handles well or badly: a toggle switching, a field validating, a like registering. Each one has a trigger, a rule, and feedback, and together they are what make a product feel responsive.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the four parts: trigger, rule, feedback, and loop.
Understand
Understand how small feedback details build user confidence.
Apply
Add a microinteraction to a component you already built.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Microinteractions: Full Color Edition: Designing with Details
Dan Saffer
Microinteractions is a book about the details of interaction design. It’s about the small, seemingly insignificant moments that make up the experience of using a product.
Designing Interface Animation: Improving the User Experience
Val Head
Designing Interface Animation is a practical guide to creating animation for user interfaces. It covers the entire process of creating animation, from the initial concept to the final implementation.
Microinteractions are single interactive moments in a product that enhance the workflow and make a product more enjoyable. This article highlights key parts of microinteractions and patterns.
Microinteractions convey system status, support error prevention, and communicate brand. They are initiated by a trigger, are single-purpose, and can make the experience engaging.
How Micro Interactions have become an essential part of great products.
Prayag Gangadharan
The world of User Experience design is growing fast, everyone wants their user to have the best experience. There are many ways to improve the user experience, including defining personas, well-structured information architecture and thoughtful written content.
Micro-interactions: why, when and how to use them to improve the user experience
Vamsi Batchu
Micro-interactions are events which have one main task — a single purpose — and they’re found all over your device and within apps. Their purpose is to delight the user; to create a moment that is engaging, welcoming and, dare we say it — human.
How to create complex micro interactions in Figma!
Kimo
In one of my previous videos, I showed some examples of micro-interactions with smooth and complex animations. in this video, I will remake one of them to show how you can do it in Figma.
In this video, you'll learn about the basics of interaction design. You'll learn about the different types of interaction design, and how to design for tasks.
A prototype is a cheap, fast stand-in for the real product, built to test an assumption before anyone writes code. This section covers the whole range, from paper sketches to clickable high-fidelity builds.
Introduction to Prototyping
Prototyping turns an idea into something people can click, poke, and complain about. That is the point: feedback on a rough prototype costs far less than feedback on a shipped feature.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn what to prototype at low fidelity and what needs high.
Understand
Understand which assumptions a prototype can actually test.
Apply
Build both a low-fidelity and a high-fidelity version of one flow.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Designing UX: Prototyping: Because Modern Design is Never Static
Ben Coleman, Dan Goodwin
It's well known that identifying and fixing problems in design is easier and cheaper if it can be done earlier in the process of design and build. That's because as the fidelity of the project we're working on increases, the effort involved in making changes increases.
Prototyping is an essential part of any UX design process. It allows designers to quickly and easily create a working model of their design that can be tested and iterated upon.
Perfect Your UX Design Process: A Guide to Prototype Design
Judit Casacuberta
The process of prototyping—from creating simple wireframes to testing fully functional mockups—is one of the most potent and powerful set of skills any designer can master. It’s also fraught with peril in workplaces where the process is skipped in lieu of just “designing a prototype” as a simple deliverable to give to the next department to build.
In this video, we will cover the basics of prototyping in Figma, including how to create a prototype, how to add interactions, and how to share your prototype.
A wireframe is the skeleton of a screen: structure, hierarchy, and content blocks, with no color or styling to argue about. Keeping it deliberately rough is what makes people comment on the layout rather than the shade of blue.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn to sketch structure before committing to visuals.
Understand
Understand why staying low-fidelity gets you better feedback.
Apply
Wireframe a full flow before you open a color picker.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Wireframing essentials : An Introduction to User Experience Design
Hamm & Matthew J
Whether you are looking to become a professional UX Designer, or just need to get the job done, the principles and processes discussed in this book will help you understand how to craft reliably effective and successful design solutions.
Wireframing is a way to design a website service at the structural level. A wireframe is commonly used to layout content and functionality on a page which takes into account user needs and user journeys.
A wireframe is a schematic or blueprint that is useful for helping you, your programmers and designers think and communicate about the structure of the software or website you're building.
Low-fidelity prototyping is a fundamental phase in the web design process. Ideas and concepts are presented using simple lines and shapes (e.g. boxes for content blocks, circles for photos, etc.), without concern for aesthetics or detailed content.
In this video Alvin talks about the difference between Lo-fi vs. High-fi wireframes, when to best use them respectively and also some examples of what they might look like.
In this video, we will cover the basics of prototyping in Figma, including how to create a prototype, how to add interactions, and how to share your prototype.
Build Wireframes and Low-Fidelity Prototypes is the third course in a certificate program that will equip you with the skills you need to apply to entry-level jobs in user experience (UX) design. In this course, you’ll continue to design a mobile app for your professional UX portfolio.
A high-fidelity prototype looks and behaves close enough to the real thing that testers forget it is a prototype. That realism is what makes it useful for usability testing, and what makes it expensive to change.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn to wire up real interactions, states, and transitions.
Understand
Understand when the extra fidelity is worth the extra time.
Apply
Turn one of your wireframes into a clickable prototype.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Prototyping for Designers: Developing the Best Digital and Physical Products
Kathryn McElroy
Prototyping and user testing is the best way to create successful products, but many designers skip this important step and use gut instinct instead.
High-fidelity prototyping: What, When, Why and How?
Eleonora Ibragimova
As part of the user experience design series at MOBGEN, we have recently covered the benefits of low-fidelity prototyping within design process of digital products.
A prototype is the work product of the prototyping phase of the interface design process. Since it is a simulation of the end product, it is used for user testing to identify pain points and improvements earlier in the design process.
Low-fidelity vs. High-fidelity Design Prototypes (and when to use which)
Ravneet Singh
User Experience (UX) is an essential element of software design, and it’s something software companies work to understand before spending precious resources writing code. Prototyping makes this possible.
What are High Fidelity Prototypes?Types and Examples.
Club UX
Often mistaken as the Final Product, High Fidelity Prototypes are closer to the finished product. They are highly functional and engaging but takes longer to be built and Costly.
High-Fidelity Prototyping Demand is GROWING! (Don’t Miss Out)
Mizko
ProtoPie is the easiest prototyping tool for all digital products. Turn your interaction design ideas into high-fidelity prototypes for mobile, desktop, web, all the way to IoT. Import your designs from Figma and create dynamic prototypes beyond what Figma can do.
In this Figma Mobile App Design Tutorial, you are going to learn how to design a Modern Mobile App in Figma. Figma is a free UI Design tool used creating Mobile App UI and UX.
Design thinking is an iterative, non-linear process for problems that are badly defined: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test. You have already met most of these phases separately, and this section shows how they connect into one loop.
Design Thinking Process
The five phases are Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. They form a loop rather than a checklist, because what you learn in testing routinely sends you back to redefine the problem.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the five phases and how they loop back on each other.
Understand
Understand why the process suits ill-defined problems.
Apply
Run a full design thinking cycle on one small problem.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Basics Design: Design Thinking
Gavin Ambrose, Paul Harris
Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
Design Thinking: New Product Development Essentials from the PDMA
Michael G. Luchs & Scott Swan & Abbie Griffin
Design Thinking is the Product Development and Management Association's (PDMA) guide to better problem solving and decision-making in product development and beyond.
Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test.
The design thinking process is a five-step process that helps you to solve problems and create innovative solutions. It is a human-centered approach to problem solving that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
A Complete Guide to the Design Thinking Process in 5 Steps
CareerFoundry
The Design Thinking process can be divided into five key steps: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. The 5 steps in the Design Thinking process are: EmpathizeDefineIdeatePrototypeTest
In life we’re always bumping into new problems, and while we have the desire to solve them, it’s often hard to find the right solution or even know where to start. That’s where “design thinking” comes in.
Design Thinking Full Course - Design Thinking Process
Simplilearn
In this design thinking tutorial, we will be looking at what is design thinking, why design thing is important, steps of design thinking, empathy mapping, five phases and four pillars of design thinking and agile methodology with design thinking. It is extremely helpful in solving problems that are ill-defined or unknown. Design Thinking is an iterative method that helps resolve user issues or redefines problems in alternative strategies and solutions.
In this video, I will be going over the advanced design process. This is a process that I have developed over the years and it has helped me to create some of my best work.
We will be going over the UX design process in this video. We will be going over the first three steps of the UX design process: Empathize, Define, and Ideate.
The Design Thinking Process (Explained By An Expert)
CareerFoundry
In this video, we explore the wonderful world of Design Thinking. Design Thinking is both an ideology and a process; it's all about solving complex problems in a user-centric way. Design Thinking was created as a way of taking the processes and approaches that designers use and applying them to problems that designers don't typically approach — for example: organizational design, business or marketing issues within a company.
A critique is structured feedback on a design, not a vote on whether people like it. Run well, it surfaces problems while they are still cheap to fix and teaches everyone in the room something.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how to run a critique session that stays useful
Understand
Understand why framing feedback around goals beats trading opinions
Receive
Receive feedback with an open mind (no ego 😁)
Apply
Make changes to your own designs based on feedback
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Discussing Design: Improving Communication and Collaboration through Critique
Adam Connor, Aaron Irizarry
Real critique has become a lost skill among collaborative teams today. Critique is intended to help teams strengthen their designs, products, and services, rather than be used to assert authority or push agendas under the guise of "feedback."
Design Critiques: Encourage a Positive Culture to Improve Products
Sarah Gibbons
Open feedback is essential for a collaborative UX process. However, sharing unfinished work is naturally uncomfortable and often generates tension. The right facilitation process can foster an efficient, honest feedback loop.
What is a Design Critique and How Can it Improve Your Designs?
UXPin
Collecting feedback is an integral part of a product designer’s work – one which allows them to make sure that the product they’re designing is both intuitive and adds value to users’ lives.
When you’re working on a team, there are a lot of opportunities for collaboration. But this also means there are opportunities for mixed messages, differing opinions, and multiple rounds of edits along the way.
If you have ever taken a design or art class, you may already be familiar with design critiques. But as you grow as a designer, how do you know what to look out for when giving and receiving a design critique? In this article, we’ll share our tips.
Get a detailed look at giving and receiving feedback as you learn about design critique sessions. Watch part of a mock design critique session in action and see how you can turn feedback into concrete actions.
Task One: Conduct a user research session with a friend or family member
Task Two: Using the information you gathered from your user research session, create a user persona and apply Design Thinking to solve a problem for your user
Task Three: Create an information architecture diagram, journey map, and user flow diagram
Task Four: Create a low-fidelity prototype using Figma/Adobe XD
Task Five: Conduct a design critique session with a friend or family member
Task Six: Make changes to your prototype based on the feedback you received during your design critique session
Task Seven: Create a high-fidelity prototype using Figma/Adobe XD
Task One: Identify the user experience problems with the current design
Task Two: Analyze these problems and identify the root causes
Task Three: Perform a competitive analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current design
Task Four: Create a user journey map to identify the user's pain points and opportunities for improvement
Task Five: Develop an information architecture that organizes the app's content in a logical and user-friendly way, and apply the principles of interaction design to create intuitive and engaging user interactions, such as animations and feedback
Task Six: Create a low-fidelity prototype using Figma/Adobe XD
Task Seven: Identify opportunities for micro-interactions that enhance the user experience, such as providing feedback on completed workouts or congratulating the user on reaching their goals
Task Eight: Conduct a design critique session with a friend or family member
Task Nine: Iterate on the design based on user feedback and refine the create the high-fidelity prototype using Figma/Adobe XD
Task Ten: Create a presentation that explains the design process and the design decisions you made
Designing with AI
Artificial intelligence changed what a designer is responsible for. You are no longer designing a system that behaves the same way every time — you are designing a relationship with a system that guesses, sometimes guesses wrong, and changes as it learns. This section covers both halves of that job: designing products that use AI honestly, and using AI in your own practice without outsourcing your judgment.
Foundations of AI for Designers
Before you can design with a material, you have to know how it behaves. This covers what machine learning actually does, where its outputs come from, and the vocabulary you need to scope work with engineers.
Goals
Goal
Description
Understand
Understand what machine learning models can and cannot do
Differentiate
Tell genuine AI capability apart from marketing claims
Communicate
Use the right vocabulary when scoping AI work with engineers
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
UX for AI: A Framework for Designing AI-Driven Products
Greg Nudelman & Daria Kempka
A practical framework drawn from 35 real commercial AI projects, covering how AI products differ from conventional software and what that means for your process.
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference
Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapoor
Two Princeton researchers separate AI that works from AI that is sold as working. The judgment this book teaches is the foundation for everything else in this section.
The canonical free guidebook for designing AI products, with worksheets you can run as exercises. Written in the classifier era, so read it for method rather than for LLM specifics.
Most AI failures are expectation failures. Users assume the system knows more than it does, or trust it less than they should. Your job is to calibrate that before the first interaction, not after the first mistake.
Goals
Goal
Description
Calibrate
Set accurate expectations of capability before first use
Onboard
Design first-run experiences that teach the system's limits
Frame
Choose language and affordances that avoid over-promising
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Designing Human-Centric AI Experiences: Applied UX Design for Artificial Intelligence
Akshay Kore
Applied UX patterns for AI products, covering onboarding, expectation setting, and how to communicate confidence to users.
The 18 guidelines are the most-cited set in the field, organized by when they apply across an interaction. Dated in places, but the lineage every AI designer should know.
Users decide whether to trust an AI system long before they can verify it. Explanations, citations and confidence signals are the interface for that decision, and the research on what actually works is more surprising than you would expect.
Goals
Goal
Description
Explain
Communicate why the system produced a given output
Ground
Design citation and source patterns that users can verify
Measure
Understand what genuinely builds trust versus what merely feels reassuring
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Sentient Design: Crafting Intelligent Interfaces with AI
Josh Clark & Veronika Kindred
Treats AI as a design material and builds a vocabulary for interfaces that perceive context, interpret intent, and act with agency.
Designing for Errors, Uncertainty and Hallucination
Conventional error design assumes the system knows it failed. AI systems are frequently confident and wrong at the same time, which breaks every error pattern you already know. This is the hardest problem in the section.
Goals
Goal
Description
Anticipate
Design for confidently wrong output, not just failure states
Recover
Give users a path back when the system is wrong
Degrade
Build experiences that fail gracefully rather than collapsing
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Conversations with Things: UX Design for Chat and Voice
Diana Deibel & Rebecca Evanhoe
The practical method for conversation design, with the best treatment available of error recovery and repair in conversational systems.
An agent acts on the user's behalf, which means the design problem shifts from "what does it show" to "what is it allowed to do, and how does the user stay in control". Permission, oversight and reversibility become interface concerns.
Goals
Goal
Description
Scope
Define what an agent may do without asking
Supervise
Design oversight that does not become rubber-stamping
Reverse
Make agent actions auditable and undoable
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Designing Agentive Technology: AI That Works for People
Christopher Noessel
The foundational text on software that acts on a user's behalf. Written before the current hype cycle, which is exactly why it holds up.
Disclosure stopped being an ethical preference and became law. Since 2 August 2026, the EU AI Act requires AI-generated content to be machine-readably marked. This subsection covers both the ethics and the statute.
Goals
Goal
Description
Disclose
Label AI-generated content in line with legal requirements
Assess
Identify who a system could harm before it ships
Advocate
Make the case for responsible choices inside a product team
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Weapons of Math Destruction
Cathy O'Neil
The standard introduction to algorithmic harm at scale, and why opaque scoring systems damage the people least able to contest them.
The other half of the job: using AI in your own practice. These tools compress prototyping and research synthesis dramatically, and they will happily produce confident nonsense. Knowing when to trust the output is the actual skill.
Goals
Goal
Description
Accelerate
Use AI to move from idea to testable prototype faster
Synthesize
Apply AI to research analysis without outsourcing your judgment
Evaluate
Assess AI output critically instead of accepting it
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Creative Prototyping with Generative AI
Patrick Parra Pennefather
Generative tools placed inside a real prototyping workflow, with an honest account of where they help and where they waste time.
This section covers advanced topics such as design systems, design thinking, and virtual and augmented reality. By the end, you should have the skills and the confidence to apply for your dream design job 🎉💲.
Note: This section is for those who are looking to take their design skills to the next level. If you are just starting out, I recommend you start with the Beginner and Intermediate sections.
Expert Level - Curriculum
Advanced Design Techniques
This section covers designing for accessibility, designing for internationalization, and building design systems.
Designing for Accessibility
Accessible design means building for the needs of everyone who might use your product: your target users, people outside that demographic, and people with disabilities. This section covers the basics.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the basics of designing for accessibility.
Understand
Understand why accessible design benefits every user, not only some.
Apply
Apply what you learn to your own design projects.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Practical Approaches For Designing Accessible Websites
Smashing Magazine
We design with viewports in mind, keep track of loading times, and hunt down even the smallest browser bugs — all to create the best possible user experience. But despite all these efforts to constantly improve our products, there’s still one aspect that, unfortunately, comes up short quite often: accessibility.
Designing for Accessibility: A Business Guide to Countering Design Exclusion
Simeon Keates
A step by step guide, this book covers how to design products that offer the right combination of functionality, usability, and accessibility for all consumers
Inclusive Design for a Digital World: Designing with Accessibility in Mind
Regine M. Gilbert
What is inclusive design? It is simple. It means that your product has been created with the intention of being accessible to as many different users as possible. For a long time, the concept of accessibility has been limited in terms of only defining physical spaces
A web for everyone: designing accessible user experiences
Horton, Sarah, Quesenbery, Whitney
If you are in charge of the user experience, development, or strategy for a web site, A Web for Everyone will help you make your site accessible without sacrificing design or innovation. Rooted in universal design principles, this book provides solutions: practical advice and examples of how to create sites that everyone can use.
Design for Inclusivity: A Practical Guide to Accessible, Innovative and User-centred Design (Design for Social Responsibility)
Roger Coleman, John Clarkson, Hua Dong, Julia Cassim
Inclusive design not only ensures that products, services, interfaces and environments are easier to use for those with special needs or limitations, but in doing so also makes them better for everyone.
Refactoring UI is a book about designing better user interfaces. Learn how to design awesome UIs by yourself using specific tactics explained from a developer's point-of-view.
“Imagine if 90% of the websites or mobile apps you use today locked you out. Everyone else continues to experience the convenience of mobile banking, the connectedness of social media, and the freedom of online shopping, but, for you, they’re inaccessible. For the 57 million people with disabilities in the United States, this is their everyday experience.”
People come with all different types of abilities and disabilities. By designing with accessibility in mind, you can open up a world of opportunities for users of all abilities to engage with your work.
Imagine you were left-handed (and if you are, reflect on your left-handedness). You are part of a 10% minority in the world. Adjusting to certain tasks takes longer — but help in the form of left-handed stationery, sports equipment, etc. is available easily.
Accessibility in UX Design: Guidelines and Key Principles
Ramotion
Learn about the importance of accessibility in UX design. Understand the key principles involved in making designs more accessible to the target audience.
7 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about Accessibility
Jesse Hausler
Accessibility enables people with disabilities to perceive, understand, navigate, interact with, and contribute to the web. Imagine a world where developers know everything there is to know about accessibility.
Join Nissa in this webinar to learn how easy it is to implement simple strategies to ensure that your designs reach every person in your audience. Understand how people with different disabilities engage with your work. Learn how easy it is to make sure that everybody is included. Once you know it's not so hard to implement.
In this video, we will be talking about how to design for accessibility. We will be talking about the color contrast accessibility, clickable area accessibility and common content accessibility
This recorded webinar provides a brief introduction to designing for accessibility: the importance of accessible design and high-impact practices digital content creators can apply to create accessible documents, images, audio, video, and web content.
Internationalization (i18n) is the practice of designing a product so it can be adapted easily for audiences that differ in culture, region, or language. Getting it right early is what makes localization straightforward later.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn about the importance of internationalization in UX design.
Understand
Understand the key principles that make a design easy to localize.
Apply
Apply what you learn to your own projects.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Usability and Internationalization of Information Technology
Nuray Aykin
Contributors from the US, Europe, and Asia provide a theoretical foundation and practical examples and guidelines for designing information technology for different cultures, languages, and economic standings, describing methods that can be used to ensure their usability across cultural boundaries.
The path for developing an internationally usable product with a human-machine interface is described in this textbook, from theory to conception and from design to practical implementation.
In this article, we will be talking about how to design for internationalization. We will be talking about the color contrast internationalization, clickable area internationalization and common content internationalization.
So let’s say it turns out that you’ll need to localize the product / service you’re working on to certain countries. What are the main design aspects? This sketch summarizes some of the main things you need to pay attention to.
UX Localization: How to Adapt User Experience for International Users
Phrase
That a visually stunning app won't be a hit if it can’t provide a stellar user experience (UX) is old news. It’s the whole reason UX design appeared on the tech map in the first place. What’s relatively new, though, is UX localization—the art of catering UX across borders.
Internationalization and Localization – Key Differences in App Design
UXPin
Internationalization is crucial for startups and companies with global aspirations. If organizations want to succeed in an international market and compete locally, they must create relatable, locally relevant product experiences.
UX design helps companies to deliver the best solutions for their business while being respectful of users, not only with regards to their needs but also to their mindset and culture.
What Is Internationalization (I18N) - Localization Basics
Localization Academy
Are you new to the localization industry? Learn the localization basics in these short whiteboard sessions. In this video, find out what is Internationalization (I18N).
Florence Okoye tells us why empathy is good, but not enough, in the world of design. In an era of deep minds and deep learning, Florence believes it's time we start to design deeper and empower each other in the process.
51. Design - Designing for Internationalization - User Interface Design
Frederic Desbiens
This episode: With Frederic Desbiens in this week's episode of the ADF Architecture TV series you will learn about the issues you need to take into account when designing user interfaces for internationalization.
50. Design - Designing for Internationalization - Understanding Internationalization
Frederic Desbiens
This episode: In this week's episode of the ADF Architecture TV series Frederic Desbiens explores the basic concepts of internationalization (i18n) and explains why it involves much more than simply translating the user interface.
A design system is a collection of reusable components, guided by clear standards, that can be assembled together to build any number of applications. It’s a visual language that synthesizes UI patterns, interactions, motion, and scale into a unified experience.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn about the importance of design systems in UX design.
Understand
Understand the standards and patterns that hold a design system together.
Create
Create your own design system.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Practical UI Patterns for Design Systems
Diana MacDonald
Understanding UI patterns is invaluable to anyone creating websites for the first time. It helps you make connections between which tools are right for which jobs, understand the processes, and think deeply about the context of a problem.
Laying the Foundations is a comprehensive guide to creating, documenting, and maintaining design systems, and how to design websites and products systematically. It's an ideal book for web designers and product designers (of all levels) and especially design teams.
Modular Web Design: Creating Reusable Components for User Experience Design and Documentation
Nathan A. Curtis
User experience design teams often suffer from a decentralized, blank canvas approach to creating and documenting a design solution for each new project. As teams repeatedly reinvent screen designs, inconsistency results, and IT teams scramble to pick up the pieces.
A design system is a set of standards to manage design at scale by reducing redundancy while creating a shared language and visual consistency across different pages and channels.
A design system is a library of reusable components and guidelines that people within a company can combine into interfaces and interactions. What goes into a design system and how it is implemented can vary quite a bit from company to company, depending on the size and maturity of the design practice and the needs of the product team.
What is a Design System? Design Systems 101 for Designers
DesignCourse
Today, we'll take a deep dive into the world of design systems and figure out exactly what they are. We'll take a look at a few definitions and several examples of actual design systems in the real world. By the end, you should have a solid understanding of what a design system actually is, and then (shortly) I will show you how to create one.
Learn how to build a design system in Figma. By the end of this course you will become a master of building design systems in Figma and understanding master components.
Create your style guide, type scale, and brand color scheme and turn them into shared styles, grids, and typography to kick off designing a design system from scratch.
Style Guides, Pattern Libraries, and Design systems are all anyone is talking about lately, and for good reason. They all share a similar goal of creating a more consistent design process that increases productivity and also effectiveness. Some people don’t know the difference, so let's break them all down.
5 Best Design Systems and How to Learn (and Steal) From Them
DesignerUp
Design systems (like Material Design, and Lightning Design) are all the rage and while most articles talk about what a design system is and best practices for creating them, at DesignerUp we've been framing them as a teaching tool and design tutorial with our product design students to help them better understand, explore and learn the philosophies, best practices and principles of UI design, UX and Product Design.
Design System Checklist - A checklist for your design system. Visit
Inspiration
Design Systems
Description
Link
Airbnb Design System
Airbnb's design system is a collection of reusable components, guided by clear standards, that can be assembled together to build any number of applications.
The Atlassian Design System is a collection of reusable UI components, guidelines and resources for product designers and developers to create exceptional experiences.
The IBM Design Language is a living, breathing expression of IBM. It is a toolkit of principles, guidance, and code that serves as the foundation for IBM’s digital user experiences.
The Fluent Design System is a collection of design principles, tools, and resources that help teams create high-quality, engaging experiences for Windows, Windows Phone, and the web.
Polaris is Shopify’s design system. It’s a collection of reusable components, guidelines, and resources that help teams build exceptional online stores.
Lightning Design System is the design system for Salesforce Lightning Experience. It is a collection of reusable components, guided by clear standards, that can be assembled together to build any number of applications.
Apple Design Resources for iOS include Sketch, Photoshop, and Adobe XD templates, along with comprehensive UI resources that depict the full range of controls, views, and glyphs available to developers using the iOS SDK.
Carbon is IBM’s open-source design system for products and experiences. With the IBM Design Language as its foundation, the system consists of working code, design tools and resources, human interface guidelines, and a vibrant community of contributors.
This section covers the technologies changing how people interact with products: voice user interfaces, augmented and virtual reality, and artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Voice User Interface Design
A voice user interface handles the interaction between a person and a voice-controlled device. Designing one means thinking in conversation rather than in screens.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how to design for voice user interfaces.
Understand
Understand how conversation design differs from screen design.
Practice
Practice voice user interface design.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Designing Voice User Interfaces: Principles of Conversational Experiences
Cathy Pearl
Voice user interfaces (VUIs) are becoming all the rage today. But how do you build one that people can actually converse with? Whether you’re designing a mobile app, a toy, or a device such as a home assistant, this practical book guides you through basic VUI design principles, helps you choose the right speech recognition engine, and shows you how to measure your VUI’s performance and improve upon it.
Voice User Interface Design: Moving from GUI to Mixed Modal Interaction
Ritwik Dasgupta
Design and implement voice user interfaces. This guide to VUI helps you make decisions as you deal with the challenges of moving from a GUI world to mixed-modal interactions with GUI and VUI.
Conversational UX Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Natural Conversation Framework
Robert J. Moore & Raphael Arar
As voice interfaces and virtual assistants have moved out of the industry research labs and into the pockets, desktops and living rooms of the general public, a demand for a new kind of user experience (UX) design is emerging.
When we stop for a moment and think about how popular voice-controlled devices and virtual assistants have become, it is only necessary to look deeper into the VUI design and learn more.
Voice user interfaces (VUIs) allow the user to interact with a system through voice or speech commands. Virtual assistants, such as Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa, are examples of VUIs.
Everything You Want To Know About Creating Voice User Interfaces
Nick Babich & Gleb Kuznetsov
reating voice user interfaces requires a lot of design expertise in various areas such as conversation design, interaction design, visual and motion design. This article covers the most critical aspects of designing for voice user interfaces — designing the conversation and designing visual interfaces.
Just about every product features a voice user interface (VUI), from phones, wearables, and speakers to your car and even the fridge. According to Statista, the number of voice assistant devices will exceed 8.4 billion units by 2024-more than the world’s population.
Discover why conversational UIs and voice apps are surging in popularity and learn how to design voice user interfaces (VUIs) for both mobile and smart home speakers.
As a voice user experience designer, I’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies to help improve their speech applications. In this article, I want to share my experience on what are some of the things you should think about when designing for voice.
The Voice Design Process For Voice User Interfaces (VUIs)
CareerFoundry
If you’ve found yourself wondering where to begin the Voice Design Process, you’ve come to the right place! Since voice interface design is so rapidly evolving, there aren’t many resources out there for a clear process or path to designing voice interactions.
Houndify combines the smartest voice AI with engineering expertise to help brands build conversational voice assistants. From proprietary components to a customizable and scalable voice AI platform, we have the tools to build a highly accurate and responsive voice user interface.
Curious about the future of conversational interfaces? Join Cathy Pearl, Head of Conversation Design Outreach at Google and author of Designing Voice User Interfaces, as she demystifies this rapidly-growing field and provides best practices for building engaging and effective conversational systems.
Virtual reality (VR) replaces the real world with a simulated one; augmented reality (AR) overlays digital objects on top of it. Both are used across industries, including gaming, education, and healthcare. This section covers the basics of designing for each.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the basics of VR and AR design.
Understand
Understand the differences between VR and AR design.
Practice
Practice VR and AR design with tutorials and exercises.
Apply
Apply VR and AR design to your own projects.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice
Doug A. Bowman, Ernst Kruijff, Ivan Poupyrev Joseph J. LaViola
Many people already have seen 3D UIs in computer-aided design, radiation therapy, surgical simulation, data visualization, and virtual-reality entertainment. The next generation of computer games, mobile devices, and desktop applications also will feature 3D interaction.
Virtual and augmented reality are the next big thing in computing. They’re the next step in the evolution of the computer, and they’re going to change the way we interact with computers and the world around us.
Learning Virtual Reality: Developing Immersive Experiences and Applications for Desktop, Web, and Mobile
Tony Parisi
Get an introduction to the technologies, tools, and techniques for programming virtual reality on the latest generation of desktop and mobile VR hardware. With this hands-on guide, you’ll learn essential development and production concepts, including UI design, stereo rendering, 3D input, and programming VR applications for native desktop, mobile and the web.
Bradley Austin Davis & Karen Bryla & Phillips Alexander Benton
SummaryOculus Rift in Action introduces the powerful Oculus Rift headset and teaches you how to integrate its many features into 3D games and other virtual reality experiences.
A Design Model and Methodology for Developing Virtual Reality Interfaces
Vildan Tanriverdi and Robert J.K. Jacob
Compared to conventional interfaces, Virtual reality (VR) interfaces contain a richer variety and more complex types of objects, behaviors, interactions and communications.
Virtual reality is no longer in the realm of science fiction. Immersive technology desperately needs skilled designers to jump in, get involved, take risks, and create something new. Leap into VR/AR!
Introduction - The Design of Virtual and Augmented Reality
Aliheston
Good virtual and augmented reality adapts to the diversity of humans as multifaceted, intersectional, and complex beings. We as designers have the opportunity (and responsibility) to create experiences that are inclusive, accessible, and equitable.
The hierarchy of needs in virtual reality development
Beau Cronin
There’s a certain anxiety in the VR community that surfaces in many conference panels and interviews with industry leaders: plenty of veterans are worried that this latest flowering of the technology will end with the same commercial disappointment that we saw in previous decades.
I am a product designer at Google, and I joined the company through Sparrow, a French startup that got acquired on July 20, 2012. Since then, I worked with the Gmail team to build from scratch a flagship product that became Inbox by Gmail. It shipped on October 22, 2014.
The Nintendo “Virtual Boy” was released in the United States in 1995 and discontinued in 1996 — making it the white whale of gaming tech in our little home town. My youngest brother spotted one at a garage sale and traded the sweat of his summer labor for a glimpse into the future.
5 Lessons I Learned From Designing the VRUI of Beloola
Vincient Munoz
The future of social media is in Virtual Reality, no doubt about that. But we’re not there yet. It will take a couple of months or even years for the masses to be able to get their first VR HMDs, which makes enough time for us to switch from 3D Web to Web VR — and actually we are already doing pretty good stuff in VR.
The rise of a new medium: virtual reality (VR). And with this comes a new set of challenges that give UX designers the opportunity to build a new grammar and symbology.
Designing VR UI in Figma and testing it with no code
Albertmauri
UI has been in constant evolution since 1973 when Xerox Palo Alto Research Center created the first UI as we know it nowadays. Read more about the evolution of UI in this article “UI Evolution: From Computers To Virtual Reality Headsets”.
Virtual reality provides new opportunities for user interactions with computer applications. The process of designing a comprehensive interaction paradigm will require a significant amount of consideration and development.
Josh Carpenter (@joshcarpenter) is a UX Designer with Mozilla, currently focusing on virtual reality and the open web. He has worked previously in architectural visualization, building automation, motion graphics and digital services, the common thread always being a fascination with the intersectio
📚 This guide is designed to help you learn UI/UX design, and is divided into three levels: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert. It includes learning resource, guides and tools that cover all aspects of designing user interfaces and user experiences.
Everything you need to go from zero to hired as a UI/UX designer, in one page.
Forty-four topics across three levels. Each one gives you the goals to hit, the books to read, the articles and talks worth your time, and the tools you will actually use. Start where you are — Beginner, Intermediate, or Expert.
Found a dead link, a better resource, or a typo? Read the contributing guide — reporting one broken link is a real contribution. Everyone here is expected to follow the code of conduct.
Author or publisher? If your book is mirrored here and you want it removed, open a takedown request — no lawyer or formal notice needed, and it is handled first. Prefer to keep it private? See about the mirrors for a direct contact.
The guide is one long document, organized as a path. Each level holds several tracks, and each track holds topics. Every topic gives you the same four things, so you always know what you are looking at.
— free to read or download from the publisher or author. Nothing to pay.
— a commercial book. The Buy link goes to the publisher so the author gets paid.
Buy — the official page. Use this one if you can afford it.
⬇ Mirror — a copy hosted on MEGA for people who cannot. Click and it downloads.
If a book has no Buy link, it was never sold — it is a free paper, deck, or report.
Please buy the books you can afford. These authors are the reason this guide exists. The mirrors are for people who genuinely cannot — see about the mirrors.
The Path
The guide is a library, but it is meant to be walked in order. Here is that order, with what you should be able to do by the end of each step.
Times are rough, and assume a few focused hours a week. Move faster if you can, slower if life happens. The deliverable matters more than the schedule.
You have applied to ten roles and practiced the interview out loud
ongoing
Checkpoint: you have a portfolio that argues for you when you are not in the room.
Do not read this front to back. Do step 1, then build something. Every step has a deliverable because reading about design does not make you a designer — the reading only makes sense once you have hit the problem yourself.
This level is for anyone starting out in User Experience and User Interface design. It covers what UX and UI actually are, how to work in a design tool, and the visual fundamentals — typography, color, and layout — that everything after this builds on.
Beginner Level - Curriculum
Introduction to User Experience Design
User experience design is the process of creating products that give people meaningful and relevant experiences. This section covers what a UX designer actually does day to day, and why designing around real users beats designing around assumptions.
What is UX Design?
“A person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service.” — ISO 9241-210, Ergonomics of human-system interaction—Part 210: Human-centered design for interactive systems
Goals
Goal
Description
Understand
Learn about the field of UX design and the role of a UX designer.
Learn
Learn about the importance of user experience design in the digital world.
Differentiate
Learn to differentiate between "Good" and "Bad" UX design.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
UX For Dummies
Chesnut, Donald, Nichols, Kevin P
Get up to speed quickly on the latest in user experience strategy and design UX For Dummies is a hands-on guide to developing and implementing user experience strategy.
The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition
Don Norman
The foundational text on human-centered design, explaining why some products delight and others frustrate through the principles of affordances, signifiers, and feedback.
UX Crash Course - Getting Started in User Experience Design
Jesse Showalter
User experience design (UX, UXD) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction with a product by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction with the product.
UX Design vs UI Design - What's The Difference? (2023)
CareerFoundry
What’s the difference between UX and UI design? What will you be doing as a user experience designer, or a user interface designer? In this video, we delve into these two in-demand design roles, sharing key definitions, responsibilities, similarities and differences.
UX matters because it meets real user needs, and people stay with products that work for them. That loyalty is what makes UX a business argument and not just a design preference.
Goals
Goal
Description
Understand
Understand what makes an experience feel good rather than merely functional.
Learn
Learn what your users need and what they are trying to achieve.
Write
Write a plan for improving the user experience of a product.
Discuss
Make the case for UX design to someone who is not a designer.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
The UX Book: Process and Guidelines for Ensuring a Quality User Experience
Rex Hartson & Pardha Pyla
The UX Book: Process and Guidelines for Ensuring a Quality User Experience aims to help readers learn how to create and refine interaction designs that ensure a quality user experience (UX).
In today’s industry of rapidly growing interfaces, UX design has become increasingly important. The UX team at Rocket55 are here to explain what “User Experience” is all about.
User-centered design (UCD) puts the needs, wants, and limitations of real users at the center of every decision. In practice that means involving users at each stage rather than checking with them at the end.
Goals
Goal
Description
Understand
Understand how involving users early changes what you build.
Learn
Learn to design around users by studying them, not guessing.
Plan
Map out a user-centered process for a project of your own.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Fundamentals of User-Centered Design
Brian Still, Kate Crane
This book explains in-depth on what that UCD to usability and User Experience (UX) principles and best practices
User-centered design: A developer's guide to building user-friendly applications
Travis Lowdermilk
You’ll learn valuable strategies for conducting each stage of the design process, from interviewing likely users and discovering your application’s purpose to creating a rich user experience with sound design principles.
The User-centered design (UCD) process outlines the phases throughout a design and development life-cycle all while focusing on gaining a deep understanding of the user.
User-centered design is an approach to design that puts users' needs front and center and follows an iterative design process that focuses on user feedback.
How to Conduct User-Centered Design [Step-by-Step Guide]
CareerFoundry
User-centered design is an approach to design that puts users' needs front and center and follows an iterative design process that focuses on user feedback.
What is UCD, and what is the difference between UX, CX and UI design. How do they influence the design and development of your digital product or service and ultimately impact your sales funnel.
What is human-centered design, and why is the "human" aspect so crucial to the design process? Learn how to run and promote a truly human-centered design process.
User interface (UI) design is the craft of building the screens people actually touch: layout, controls, type, and color. Looks matter here, but the real goal is making the product obvious to use.
What is UI Design?
UI design covers everything a user sees and acts on: buttons, forms, icons, spacing, and states. Good UI makes the next action obvious without the user having to think about it.
Goals
Goal
Description
Understand
Understand the building blocks of an interface: layout, controls, type, and color.
Learn
Learn how to turn a requirement into a screen that works.
Plan
Plan the steps from first sketch to finished interface.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Designing Interfaces
Jenifer Tidwell
Learn how to design interfaces that are usable, useful, and desirable.
User interface design (UI) is the process of designing interfaces in software or computerized devices with the focus on looks or style. The goal of this design is to maximize the ease of use for the people using the product.
User interface (UI) design is the process designers use to build interfaces in software or computerized devices, focusing on looks or style. Designers aim to create interfaces which users find easy to use and pleasurable.
What is user interface (UI) design, and how is it different from UX? What is the UI design process? Learn everything you need to know about UI design here.
What Is UI Design? Definition, Tips, Best Practices
Coursera
UI stands for user interface. It is the point of contact between humans and computers. Any technology you interact with as a user is part of the user interface.
User interface (UI) design is an incredibly broad, multidisciplinary, and creative field. Good UI design is increasingly recognized as an essential tool to increase user engagement and create products that are both useful and visually pleasing.
User interfaces (UIs) are what allow us to interact with and navigate through our favorite programs and devices. Every time you click a button on a website or swipe to a different screen, you're engaging with UI.
User Interface (UI) Design Principles Series Introduction
Brendan Colarusso
In this video, I explain how I came to my list of 12 UI Principles that we will be going over in depth in this series over the next few weeks. Check out the resources below to start learning about these principles.
What is user interface (UI) design, and how is it different from UX? What is the UI design process? Learn everything you need to know about UI design here.
Take your first steps in the world of User Interface (UI) design with this beginner-friendly tutorial. From understanding the basics of UI design to creating wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity mockups, we'll guide you through the process.
In this design thinking tutorial, we will be looking at what is design thinking, why design thing is important, steps of design thinking, empathy mapping, five phases and four pillars of design thinking and agile methodology with design thinking.
Best practices are the shortcuts other designers already paid for: consistency, clear hierarchy, forgiving defaults, and visible feedback. Learn the rule and the reason behind it, so you know when breaking it is the right call.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the common UI conventions and the reasoning behind them.
Understand
Understand how each convention changes the user's experience.
Practice
Apply them in your own projects, and notice where they conflict.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
The Essential Guide to User Interface Design
Wilbert O. Galitz
This book explains in-depth on what that UI design is and how to design a user interface.
User Interface (UI) Design focuses on anticipating what users might need to do and ensuring that the interface has elements that are easy to access, understand, and use to facilitate those actions.
10 Fundamental UI Design Principles You Need to Know
Renee Fleck
Most users only notice the UI design of an app or software when something goes wrong. For this reason, we can say that good UI design is almost invisible, leaving the user free to get down to work without interruption.
27 UI/UX Design Principles and Best Practices 2021
729solutions
Great design goes a long way. The experience visitors have with your website sets the stage for their relationship with your product, your company, and your brand.
The most progressive and interesting designers steer clear of visually stale design solutions and ditch restrictive rules by learning UI design best practices and avoiding common design mistakes. 🔊
UX/UI BEST PRACTICES FOR WEB DESIGN: Free Web Design Course
Flux Academy
This is what you need to know about UX UI design to quickly improve as a beginner. The best tip I can give you is to not make people think. Don't be original, be obvious. Don't be witty, be crystal clear.
Designing for mobile means designing for small screens, thumbs, and constant interruption. Touch targets, one-handed reach, and slow connections all constrain what works, so a mobile layout is rarely a shrunken desktop one.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the constraints of small screens and touch input.
Understand
Understand how those constraints change your layout decisions.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Mobile Design Pattern Gallery: UI Patterns for Smartphone App
Theresa Neil
When you’re under pressure to produce a well-designed, easy-to-navigate mobile app, there’s no time to reinvent the wheel—and no need to.
Usability Matters: Mobile-first UX for developers and other accidental designers
Matt Lacey
Usability Matters: Mobile-first UX for developers and other accidental designers gives you practical advice and guidance on how to create attractive, elegant, and useful user interfaces for native and web-based mobile apps..
How to Design a Mobile App User Interface Like a Pro
CareerFoundry
If you want to design a great, functional mobile app interface, you’re in the right place. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the key principles of mobile app design.
Here are many things to consider when designing for mobile. We’re sure that this detailed guide will help you get rid of that headache when building apps.
Mobile user experience (UX) design refers to the design of positive experiences during the use of mobile devices and wearables, and applications or services running on such devices. — Interaction Design Foundation
Mobile design can be a tricky subject, with many things to consider when creating a mobile app. To simplify the task, I’ve prepared some highly practical tips on what you should and what you shouldn’t do when designing mobile apps.
How to design a mobile app tutorial - a step by step guide
Malewicz
Here's another part of our design super-basics free course. Today I'll show you a step by step guide on how to start your first mobile app project. This is perfect for beginners and junior designers who want to have a good template to begin their projects with.
We're here with another edition of the UI/UX Workshop where I revamp 3 user-submitted designs. For this edition, I've chosen 3 mobile UI's just to show that the process is all the same regardless of design dimensions
Design tools are where the work actually happens: wireframes, mockups, prototypes, and developer handoff. This section helps you pick one and get productive in it.
The tool matters less than fluency in one of them. Compare the options below, pick the one used by the teams you want to join, and go deep rather than wide.
Design Tools Overview
Design tools are where the work happens: wireframes, mockups, prototypes, and developer handoff. Compare the options and pick one to go deep on.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn which tools designers actually use, and what each is for.
Understand
Understand the core concepts: frames, components, and styles.
Practice
Rebuild an existing screen in the tool you chose.
Tools
Title
Description
Link
Free
Figma
Figma is a vector graphics editor and prototyping tool which is primarily web-based.
New to Figma? Get started with "Figma for beginners" tutorials
Figma
f you’re brand new to Figma or design tools, check out this playlist for a quick tour of key features as we take you through a rough approximation of the design process, and design a mobile app together.
Figma UI Design Tutorial: Get Started in Just 24 Minutes!
AJ&Smart
Do you want to learn Figma but don’t know where to start? Well, if you follow this step-by-step tutorial, it will only take you 24 minutes to learn all the basics you need to know to start designing apps and websites in Figma.
Today, we're going to step back into the world of UI/UX design and cover one of the most popular UI/UX design and prototyping tools: Adobe Experience Design (Adobe XD). You're going to learn all major features of this powerful app in crash course format, all while doing so by creating a UI for a fictional business.
Learn Adobe XD, earn certificates with paid and free online courses from Coursera, Treehouse, YouTube and other top learning platforms around the world. Read reviews to decide if a class is right for you.
Sketch is an application which has already won the hearts of UI and UX designers around the world, even though just about anybody can learn how to use it.
The principles of visual design include contrast, balance, emphasis, movement, white space, proportion, hierarchy, repetition, rhythm, pattern, unity, and variety. Used together, they make a screen readable at a glance instead of merely decorated.
Typography
Typography is the craft of arranging type so written language is legible, readable, and pleasant to read. In practice that means choosing typefaces and sizes, then tuning line length, leading, tracking, and kerning until the text stops fighting the reader.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn typeface anatomy, scale, leading, and measure.
Understand
Understand how type choices change legibility and readability.
Practice
Build a type scale that gives a page clear hierarchy.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
The New Web Typography: Create a Visual Hierarchy with Responsive Web Design
Stephen Boss & Jason Cranford Teague
The New Web Typography: Create a Visual Hierarchy with Responsive Web Design shows you how to implement web-safe fonts to create visually appealing and multi-browser-friendly websites while encouraging you to develop designs that express your own unique typographic voice.
Discover the incredible power of fonts - how they influence your decisions, alter your perceptions, stir your emotions and change how you understand the world around you.
Designing with Type: The Essential Guide to Typography
James Craig
The classic Designing with Type has been completely redesigned, with an updated format and full color throughout. New information and new images make this perennial best-seller an even more valuable tool for anyone interested in learning about typography.
Breaking Down the Principles of Design (with Infographic)
Toptal
Understanding the principles of design and how they interact is vital for both new and expert designers. Implementing them purposefully is key to creating visually appealing, functional designs.
Good typography is one of the cornerstones of good design. In The Ultimate Guide to Typography, you'll learn everything from the most basic elements of typography and common mistakes through to more complex topics like combining and choosing fonts for your projects.
In this course, you'll learn all you need to know about creating good typography as a UX Designer: how to choose a typeface; what to look for when laying out type, how to create typographic hierarchy, laying out type, and creating responsive typography.
Color theory explains how colors relate to one another and how those relationships read on screen. For interface work it is what lets you build a palette that carries meaning — state, hierarchy, brand — rather than one that just looks nice.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how to create a harmonious color scheme.
Understand
Understand how hue, saturation, and value work together.
Apply
Apply a palette to a real interface, including text and states.
Create
Create a color scheme that stays readable at accessible contrast.
Experiment
Try the same design in several palettes and compare.
Inspire
Use color to set the mood you want a product to have.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
The Elements of Color
Johannes Itten
The Elements of Color is a classic book on color theory. It is a must-have for anyone interested in learning about color theory.
In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist’s palette, Victoria Finlay explores the history of color, from the first cave paintings to the latest scientific research.
You’ll find this book to be an interesting read. A fascinating book for UI and UX designers who are interested in the history of colors from an unusual perspective.
Color: A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Colors
Betty Edwards
Mastering the art of mixing colors is a skill that every artist should have. This book will help you to learn how to mix colors and create beautiful color schemes.
Conceived as a handbook and teaching aid for artists, instructors, and students, this influential book presents Albers’s singular explanation of complex color theory principles.
Best Practices for Graphic Designers, Color Works: Right Ways of Applying Color in Branding
Eddie Opara & John Cantwell
This is the go-to guide for designers as it outlines and details the essential color design skills needed to create successful, meaningful and memorable brand
Color theory is the collection of rules and guidelines which designers use to communicate with users through appealing color schemes in visual interfaces.
An Introduction to Color Theory and Color Palettes
CareerFoundry
Have you ever seen a color that has immediately reminded you of a particular brand? Maybe you’ve struggled to feel relaxed in a room that has a clashing color scheme, or returned an item of clothing you got as a gift because the color wasn’t quite right.
Color Theory for Designers – A Crash Course (with Infographic)
Toptal
Color: It’s stunningly beautiful and maddeningly deceptive. Use this color theory field guide (with an infographic) to make lightning-quick color choices with unwavering confidence.
The article focused on the basics of color theory and color combinations in design: learn more about color wheel, RGB, CMYK and models of color harmony.
What is color theory? Why do your colors look awful? How do you use color? And why is it so difficult? In this episode, Greg Gunn will teach you the basics of how color works and provide some easy tips and tricks for using it.
Super Practical Guide to Color Theory, Color Models and Perfect Color Palettes - UI Design
DesignerUp
Maybe you’ve followed all the color harmony and color theory tutorials to a tee and generated a complementary color palette, but you notice that the colors don’t seem to match very well, perhaps they look harsh or a bit muddy and unprofessional and you don’t really know why.
How do you apply color in mobile UI design projects? Here's a little tip, the 60-30-10 color rule(it's more like a guideline) will help you to get a good start to applying color in a mature and seamless way.
Layout and composition are how you arrange elements on a screen: what goes where, how much space it gets, and what the eye reaches first. Grids, alignment, and spacing do most of that work, which is why they are worth learning properly.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how grids, alignment, and spacing structure a screen.
Understand
Understand how layout directs where the eye goes first.
Apply
Apply a grid to a design you have already made.
Practice
Practice with auto-layout and constraints until layouts survive resizing.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Design School: Layout: A Practical Guide for Students and Designers
Richard Poulin
It provides a comprehensive introduction to creating and changing layouts: a crucially important skill that underpins practically every aspect of graphic design.
Modular Design Frameworks : A Projects-based Guide for UI/UX Designers
James Cabrera
Learn the basic principles of modular design, and then put them into action to create sites that are easy to use, look great, and can be adapted within the context of your business needs.
The rules of composition allow you to place the content in the most logical and appealing form. If you think that composition is something from the art world that has nothing to do with UX/UI, you’re terribly wrong.
In many ways, layout and composition are the building blocks of design. They give your work structure and make it easier to navigate, from the margins on the sides to the content in between.
Composition and its rules in the design of interfaces
UX Planet
Composition — is interaction of interface elements with a goal to convey the meaning of this very interface. To give user an opportunity to easily understand the interface, it is necessary to use the rules of composition.
Master LAYOUT & COMPOSITION Design - Why Layout Is SO IMPORTANT
Satori Graphics
Do you want to learn how to master layout and composition design, improving your graphic design workflow and designs? In todays composition and layout design tutorial, learn why layout is so important, and why you need to focus on it regarding your graphic designs.
Create an auto layout, style guide, typography, and color palette for a design you created above.
Intermediate Level
This level assumes you are comfortable with the beginner material and ready to work with real users. It covers user research, information architecture, prototyping, design thinking, and designing with AI.
Intermediate Level - Curriculum
User Research
User research is how you replace assumptions about your users with evidence. Done early, it tells you which problem is worth solving before you spend weeks solving the wrong one.
Introduction to User Research
This section covers why research matters, the difference between qualitative and quantitative methods, and how to run a study without a budget.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the main research methods and when each one fits.
Understand
Understand what research can answer and what it cannot.
Apply
Apply what you learned here to a design you are working on.
Practice
Run a short study on a product you already use.
Reflect
Turn what you found into concrete changes to the product.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Think Like a UX Researcher: How to Observe Users, Influence Design, and Shape Business Strategy
David Travis & Philip Hodgson
Think Like a UX Researcher will challenge your preconceptions about user experience (UX) research and encourage you to think beyond the obvious. You’ll discover how to plan and conduct UX research, analyze data, persuade teams to take action on the results and build a career in UX.
Quantifying the User Experience. Practical Statistics for User Research
Jeff Sauro & James R Lewis
The book presents a practical guide on how to use statistics to solve common quantitative problems that arise in user research. It addresses questions such as: How do I know if my results are statistically significant? How do I know if my results are reliable? How do I know if my results are valid?
Observing the User Experience, Second Edition: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research
Elizabeth Goodman & Mike Kuniavsky & Andrea Moed
Observing the User Experience is a practical guide to conducting user research in the field. It provides a step-by-step approach to planning and conducting user research, and includes a wealth of examples and case studies.
User Research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through interviews, surveys, usability evaluations and other feedback methods.
As we know, UX research is all about gathering insights that can be used to inform the design process. Different research methods will uncover different insights.
User research is the methodic study of target users—including their needs and pain points—so designers have the sharpest possible insights to work with to create a product or service that meets those needs.
The goal of UX research is to prioritize the user and help bridge the gap between what a business thinks the user needs and what the user actually needs, before an expensive and time-consuming product is made.
UX Research - Get Started With Qualitative User Research (2023)
CareerFoundry
User research is a vital part of the UX design process. It influences design solutions and the entire product development process! In this video we’ll give you an intro to user research and show you how to conduct amazing user interviews!
Userbrain shows you what's working for your product — and what's not. A simple tool that lets you create a user test in minutes and get results in just a few hours.
A persona is a composite character built from real research data, not from imagination. Its job is to keep a team designing for one specific person instead of a vague everyone.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn what belongs in a persona and what to leave out.
Understand
Understand the goals and frustrations behind each persona.
Design
Design a feature aimed at one persona rather than at everyone.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Personas - User Focused Design
Lene Nielsen
Personas, a user centered design methodology covers topics from interaction design within IT, through to issues surrounding product design, communication, and marketing.
Personas are fictional characters that represent your target users. They are based on real data and are used to help you design better products and services.
What Are User Personas and Why Are They Important?
Adobe
User personas are archetypical users whose goals and characteristics represent the needs of a larger group of users. Usually, a persona is a composite of several real users.
As you break into a career in UX, user personas are one tool you’ll certainly want to have available as you gather user research and find design solutions to solve problems and create more human-friendly products and experiences.
You can create the best service with the most modern technology, but if you do not understand the user’s preferences and desires, our efforts towards creating the best service are easily lost.
Personas help product teams with exactly that: to understand, empathize with, and design for their target users, thereby putting faces to people they are designing for.
What are personas and why are they so crucial to the design process? Explore the different types of personas, as well as how to create and make use of them, in this topic definition video from UX expert William Hudson.
User Forge provides a lot of freedom to add your own criteria than other persona generators in the market. It is a collaborative tool with an excellent UI which makes the process of generating personas much easier.
User Personas represent real, living and breathing people who will engage with your product. While individuals featured on a persona are technically hypothetical, the information on the document should not be hypothetical.
A journey map lays out the steps someone takes to reach a goal, along with what they feel at each one. Mapping it end to end is how the gaps between screens become visible.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn to map a journey from first contact through to the goal.
Understand
Understand how sitemaps, user flows, and journey maps differ.
Implement
Map the journey for a product you are designing.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Creating Value through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams
James Kalbach
Customers who have inconsistent, broken experiences with products and services are understandably frustrated.
User journey map is a powerful asset that's used to understand how people use our products. It is an essential tool for building websites, applications, and services.
A user journey map (also known as a customer journey map) is a diagram that visually illustrates the user flow through your site, starting with initial contact or discovery, and continuing through the process of engagement into long-term loyalty and advocacy.
Journey mapping is a process that provides a holistic view of the customer experience by uncovering moments of both frustration and delight along the way.
‘How do people actually use our product?’ is a fundamental question that every product creator must answer. In order to answer this question, product designers need to understand the essence of the whole experience from the user’s perspective.
What are User Flows in User Experience (UX) Design?
Camren Browne
The concept of flow in UX design was first coined by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He deemed it a highly focused mental state where the user is fully immersed in what they are doing and the task they aim to accomplish.
Sometimes UX design requires the perspective of a kid, full of curiosity, to find new heights. By creating a UX sitemap, you’ll be able to take an early glance at your website or application from the tree tops. Let’s look at the what, when, how, and why of UX sitemaps.
The 5 components of a journey map and the benefits of using this qualitative method as part of a UX design process to discover, document, and share the bigger picture of what users want.
In this video, I teach you the basics of customer journey mapping, followed by a tutorial. This is one of the most powerful techniques you can use to dramatically improve the customer experience and the performance of your business.
A practical guide of how to do user story mapping. In this lesson we'll be covering how you can get the stories from your product backlog ready for software development.
Today, we're stepping into the world of UX design and we're going to tackle a common task: creating a user flow diagram. In this video, I'll address the what, why and how of ux design flows. I will also create my own user flow for the upcoming relaunch of DesignCourse.com so that you can see a user flow constructed in a real-world context.
User testing puts a real person in front of your design and watches where they struggle. Heuristic evaluation is the cheaper stand-in: an expert checks the interface against known usability rules when you cannot recruit users.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how to conduct user testing and heuristic evaluation.
Understand
Understand when to use each method and what each one misses.
Practice
Test a design with five people and write up what broke.
Apply
Apply the ten usability heuristics to a product you use daily.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Handbook of Usability Testing: Howto Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests
Jeffrey Rubin & Dana Chisnell & Jared Spool
This book is a comprehensive guide to usability testing, from planning and designing tests to analyzing and reporting results. It provides a thorough overview of the field, including the latest research and best practices.
Step-by-step guidance on all important methods now in use, including the heuristic evaluation method, the pluralistic walkthrough method, the cognitive walkthrough method, and more. The first comprehensive, book-length work in the field of usability evaluation. Designed to get you quickly up and running with a full complement of UI strategies, tools, and techniques.
User testing, aka usability testing, user research, UX testing… everyone’s talking about it, all the best companies are doing it, but what exactly is user testing? And why are your peers banging on about it so much?
6 Simple Steps to Conduct User Testing Successfully
Adam Fard
User testing, or usability testing, is a key component in designing, finalizing and launching a great digital product. It’s about detecting usability issues at any stage of the product development cycle with the aim of improving the overall user experience.
Heuristic evaluation is a usability inspection method for finding problems in a design. It is a method of usability inspection that helps to find usability problems in a design.
Usability testing is a method of evaluating a product by testing it on users. It is a common practice designed to find usability problems early in the development cycle.
Usability testing is a powerful tool for evaluating a website's functionality and making sure people can navigate it efficiently. In this section, we explore different usability testing methods, when you should use them, and why.
Heuristic evaluation is a process where experts use rules of thumb to measure the usability of user interfaces in independent walkthroughs and report issues.
The A to Z of UX — H is for Heuristics: 9 steps to carry out a heuristic evaluation
Darren Wilson
Heuristics are a well established and accepted list of UX principles used to assess how well a user interface has been designed for its intended purpose.
What is user testing? User testing is a technique used in user-centered design to evaluate a proposed solution or product by testing it with real or potential users.
In this video, you'll learn how to uncover secrets of user testing in just 5 minutes! User testing is an essential part of the user experience design process, and this video will teach you how to use it to your advantage.
In this video, you'll learn how to conduct usability testing with Maze. Usability testing is a method of evaluating a product by testing it on users. It is a common practice designed to find usability problems early in the development cycle.
Usability Testing Tips & Tools: Powerful UX Research Method
ProjectUX
ProjectUX creator and UX Researcher Rob Andrews breaks down the process of usability testing with some specific tips and tools to help you with this powerful UX method of user research.
The 10 basic principles for designing a good user experience: these have remained true for decades, since they were introduced for heuristic evaluation of user interfaces.
Information architecture is how you structure content so people can find it. Interaction design is how you shape what happens when they act on it, and together the two decide whether a product feels navigable or confusing.
Information Architecture
An information architecture is the blueprint of a product: its pages, its content, and how they nest and link. Get it wrong and no amount of visual polish will make things findable.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn to structure content with sitemaps and clear labels.
Understand
Understand why findability decides whether features get used.
Apply
Restructure an app's navigation and check it with a card sort.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Information Architecture and UX Design: The Integration of Information Spaces
Wei Ding, Xia Lin & Michael Zarro
Information Architecture is about organizing and simplifying information, designing and integrating information spaces/systems, and creating ways for people to find and interact with information content.
Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond is the first book to provide a comprehensive, practical, and accessible introduction to the field of information architecture.
Information architecture (IA) is far more challenging—and necessary—than ever. With the glut of information available today, anything your organization wants to share should be easy to find, navigate, and understand
Information Architecture Guide for UX Architects & Designers
Nick Babich
If you want to build a great house, the person to call is an architect. We all know this, but architecture applies not only to traditional buildings but also to the information space.
The World Wide Web contains a tremendous amount of information which is hard to imagine unstructured because a human brain wouldn’t be able to perceive any single thing.
Information Architecture Design: A Step-By-Step Guide
Nick Babich
Information architecture is a discipline that focuses on organizing information within digital products clearly and logically. It helps users answer the question, “Where can I find the information I’m looking for?”
In this video, you'll find a comprehensive introduction to information architecture. Learn exactly what information architecture is and why it's so important, and discover an easy-to-follow process for defining the information architecture of your website.
What Is Information Architecture? (UX Design Guide)
CareerFoundry
In this video, Maureen will give you an introduction to information architecture, as well as detailing the three key components to good information architecture: the user, the content, and the context.
In this video, you'll learn about information architecture (IA), a discipline that focuses on organizing information within digital products clearly and logically.
Information Architecture & Sketching for UI/UX Projects
Maddy Beard
I go through my process for determining important touch-points, putting together the information architecture for the app, and starting to sketch the important flows.
Interaction design (IxD) is about what happens between a user and a product: the trigger, the response, and the state the system lands in. It asks what a control should do, how fast, and what tells the user it worked.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how triggers, feedback, and system states fit together.
Understand
Understand why feedback timing changes how a product feels.
Apply
Design the states and transitions for one interactive component.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
Alan Cooper
The essential interaction design guide, fully revised and updated for the mobile age About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design, Fourth Edition is the latest update to the book that shaped and evolved the landscape of interaction design.
Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences (Voices That Matter)
Stephen P. Anderson
What happens when you’ve built a great website or app, but no one seems to care? How do you get people to stick around long enough to see how your service might be of value?
Interaction design is an important component within the giant umbrella of user experience (UX) design. In this article, we’ll explain what interaction design is, some useful models of interaction design, as well as briefly describe what an interaction designer usually does.
Interaction design is a specialized discipline within UX design. Where UX looks at the entire user experience and how everything ties together to create a cohesive experience, interaction design focuses on the interactions between the user and the product.
Interaction design (IxD) is a connection between a product and the user. The role of interaction design is to give users information concisely and efficiently to help them accomplish their goals.
In this video, you'll learn about the basics of interaction design. You'll learn about the different types of interaction design, the different types of interaction design roles, and the different types of interaction design tools.
There’s a lot of common area between the two fields, and both of the design disciplines strives to improve overall User Experience with a product/service.
In this video, you'll learn about the basics of interaction design. You'll learn about the different types of interaction design, and how to design for tasks.
Microinteractions are the small moments a product handles well or badly: a toggle switching, a field validating, a like registering. Each one has a trigger, a rule, and feedback, and together they are what make a product feel responsive.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the four parts: trigger, rule, feedback, and loop.
Understand
Understand how small feedback details build user confidence.
Apply
Add a microinteraction to a component you already built.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Microinteractions: Full Color Edition: Designing with Details
Dan Saffer
Microinteractions is a book about the details of interaction design. It’s about the small, seemingly insignificant moments that make up the experience of using a product.
Designing Interface Animation: Improving the User Experience
Val Head
Designing Interface Animation is a practical guide to creating animation for user interfaces. It covers the entire process of creating animation, from the initial concept to the final implementation.
Microinteractions are single interactive moments in a product that enhance the workflow and make a product more enjoyable. This article highlights key parts of microinteractions and patterns.
Microinteractions convey system status, support error prevention, and communicate brand. They are initiated by a trigger, are single-purpose, and can make the experience engaging.
How Micro Interactions have become an essential part of great products.
Prayag Gangadharan
The world of User Experience design is growing fast, everyone wants their user to have the best experience. There are many ways to improve the user experience, including defining personas, well-structured information architecture and thoughtful written content.
Micro-interactions: why, when and how to use them to improve the user experience
Vamsi Batchu
Micro-interactions are events which have one main task — a single purpose — and they’re found all over your device and within apps. Their purpose is to delight the user; to create a moment that is engaging, welcoming and, dare we say it — human.
How to create complex micro interactions in Figma!
Kimo
In one of my previous videos, I showed some examples of micro-interactions with smooth and complex animations. in this video, I will remake one of them to show how you can do it in Figma.
In this video, you'll learn about the basics of interaction design. You'll learn about the different types of interaction design, and how to design for tasks.
A prototype is a cheap, fast stand-in for the real product, built to test an assumption before anyone writes code. This section covers the whole range, from paper sketches to clickable high-fidelity builds.
Introduction to Prototyping
Prototyping turns an idea into something people can click, poke, and complain about. That is the point: feedback on a rough prototype costs far less than feedback on a shipped feature.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn what to prototype at low fidelity and what needs high.
Understand
Understand which assumptions a prototype can actually test.
Apply
Build both a low-fidelity and a high-fidelity version of one flow.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Designing UX: Prototyping: Because Modern Design is Never Static
Ben Coleman, Dan Goodwin
It's well known that identifying and fixing problems in design is easier and cheaper if it can be done earlier in the process of design and build. That's because as the fidelity of the project we're working on increases, the effort involved in making changes increases.
Prototyping is an essential part of any UX design process. It allows designers to quickly and easily create a working model of their design that can be tested and iterated upon.
Perfect Your UX Design Process: A Guide to Prototype Design
Judit Casacuberta
The process of prototyping—from creating simple wireframes to testing fully functional mockups—is one of the most potent and powerful set of skills any designer can master. It’s also fraught with peril in workplaces where the process is skipped in lieu of just “designing a prototype” as a simple deliverable to give to the next department to build.
In this video, we will cover the basics of prototyping in Figma, including how to create a prototype, how to add interactions, and how to share your prototype.
A wireframe is the skeleton of a screen: structure, hierarchy, and content blocks, with no color or styling to argue about. Keeping it deliberately rough is what makes people comment on the layout rather than the shade of blue.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn to sketch structure before committing to visuals.
Understand
Understand why staying low-fidelity gets you better feedback.
Apply
Wireframe a full flow before you open a color picker.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Wireframing essentials : An Introduction to User Experience Design
Hamm & Matthew J
Whether you are looking to become a professional UX Designer, or just need to get the job done, the principles and processes discussed in this book will help you understand how to craft reliably effective and successful design solutions.
Wireframing is a way to design a website service at the structural level. A wireframe is commonly used to layout content and functionality on a page which takes into account user needs and user journeys.
A wireframe is a schematic or blueprint that is useful for helping you, your programmers and designers think and communicate about the structure of the software or website you're building.
Low-fidelity prototyping is a fundamental phase in the web design process. Ideas and concepts are presented using simple lines and shapes (e.g. boxes for content blocks, circles for photos, etc.), without concern for aesthetics or detailed content.
In this video Alvin talks about the difference between Lo-fi vs. High-fi wireframes, when to best use them respectively and also some examples of what they might look like.
In this video, we will cover the basics of prototyping in Figma, including how to create a prototype, how to add interactions, and how to share your prototype.
Build Wireframes and Low-Fidelity Prototypes is the third course in a certificate program that will equip you with the skills you need to apply to entry-level jobs in user experience (UX) design. In this course, you’ll continue to design a mobile app for your professional UX portfolio.
A high-fidelity prototype looks and behaves close enough to the real thing that testers forget it is a prototype. That realism is what makes it useful for usability testing, and what makes it expensive to change.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn to wire up real interactions, states, and transitions.
Understand
Understand when the extra fidelity is worth the extra time.
Apply
Turn one of your wireframes into a clickable prototype.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Prototyping for Designers: Developing the Best Digital and Physical Products
Kathryn McElroy
Prototyping and user testing is the best way to create successful products, but many designers skip this important step and use gut instinct instead.
High-fidelity prototyping: What, When, Why and How?
Eleonora Ibragimova
As part of the user experience design series at MOBGEN, we have recently covered the benefits of low-fidelity prototyping within design process of digital products.
A prototype is the work product of the prototyping phase of the interface design process. Since it is a simulation of the end product, it is used for user testing to identify pain points and improvements earlier in the design process.
Low-fidelity vs. High-fidelity Design Prototypes (and when to use which)
Ravneet Singh
User Experience (UX) is an essential element of software design, and it’s something software companies work to understand before spending precious resources writing code. Prototyping makes this possible.
What are High Fidelity Prototypes?Types and Examples.
Club UX
Often mistaken as the Final Product, High Fidelity Prototypes are closer to the finished product. They are highly functional and engaging but takes longer to be built and Costly.
High-Fidelity Prototyping Demand is GROWING! (Don’t Miss Out)
Mizko
ProtoPie is the easiest prototyping tool for all digital products. Turn your interaction design ideas into high-fidelity prototypes for mobile, desktop, web, all the way to IoT. Import your designs from Figma and create dynamic prototypes beyond what Figma can do.
In this Figma Mobile App Design Tutorial, you are going to learn how to design a Modern Mobile App in Figma. Figma is a free UI Design tool used creating Mobile App UI and UX.
Design thinking is an iterative, non-linear process for problems that are badly defined: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test. You have already met most of these phases separately, and this section shows how they connect into one loop.
Design Thinking Process
The five phases are Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. They form a loop rather than a checklist, because what you learn in testing routinely sends you back to redefine the problem.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the five phases and how they loop back on each other.
Understand
Understand why the process suits ill-defined problems.
Apply
Run a full design thinking cycle on one small problem.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Basics Design: Design Thinking
Gavin Ambrose, Paul Harris
Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
Design Thinking: New Product Development Essentials from the PDMA
Michael G. Luchs & Scott Swan & Abbie Griffin
Design Thinking is the Product Development and Management Association's (PDMA) guide to better problem solving and decision-making in product development and beyond.
Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test.
The design thinking process is a five-step process that helps you to solve problems and create innovative solutions. It is a human-centered approach to problem solving that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
A Complete Guide to the Design Thinking Process in 5 Steps
CareerFoundry
The Design Thinking process can be divided into five key steps: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. The 5 steps in the Design Thinking process are: EmpathizeDefineIdeatePrototypeTest
In life we’re always bumping into new problems, and while we have the desire to solve them, it’s often hard to find the right solution or even know where to start. That’s where “design thinking” comes in.
Design Thinking Full Course - Design Thinking Process
Simplilearn
In this design thinking tutorial, we will be looking at what is design thinking, why design thing is important, steps of design thinking, empathy mapping, five phases and four pillars of design thinking and agile methodology with design thinking. It is extremely helpful in solving problems that are ill-defined or unknown. Design Thinking is an iterative method that helps resolve user issues or redefines problems in alternative strategies and solutions.
In this video, I will be going over the advanced design process. This is a process that I have developed over the years and it has helped me to create some of my best work.
We will be going over the UX design process in this video. We will be going over the first three steps of the UX design process: Empathize, Define, and Ideate.
The Design Thinking Process (Explained By An Expert)
CareerFoundry
In this video, we explore the wonderful world of Design Thinking. Design Thinking is both an ideology and a process; it's all about solving complex problems in a user-centric way. Design Thinking was created as a way of taking the processes and approaches that designers use and applying them to problems that designers don't typically approach — for example: organizational design, business or marketing issues within a company.
A critique is structured feedback on a design, not a vote on whether people like it. Run well, it surfaces problems while they are still cheap to fix and teaches everyone in the room something.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how to run a critique session that stays useful
Understand
Understand why framing feedback around goals beats trading opinions
Receive
Receive feedback with an open mind (no ego 😁)
Apply
Make changes to your own designs based on feedback
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Discussing Design: Improving Communication and Collaboration through Critique
Adam Connor, Aaron Irizarry
Real critique has become a lost skill among collaborative teams today. Critique is intended to help teams strengthen their designs, products, and services, rather than be used to assert authority or push agendas under the guise of "feedback."
Design Critiques: Encourage a Positive Culture to Improve Products
Sarah Gibbons
Open feedback is essential for a collaborative UX process. However, sharing unfinished work is naturally uncomfortable and often generates tension. The right facilitation process can foster an efficient, honest feedback loop.
What is a Design Critique and How Can it Improve Your Designs?
UXPin
Collecting feedback is an integral part of a product designer’s work – one which allows them to make sure that the product they’re designing is both intuitive and adds value to users’ lives.
When you’re working on a team, there are a lot of opportunities for collaboration. But this also means there are opportunities for mixed messages, differing opinions, and multiple rounds of edits along the way.
If you have ever taken a design or art class, you may already be familiar with design critiques. But as you grow as a designer, how do you know what to look out for when giving and receiving a design critique? In this article, we’ll share our tips.
Get a detailed look at giving and receiving feedback as you learn about design critique sessions. Watch part of a mock design critique session in action and see how you can turn feedback into concrete actions.
Task One: Conduct a user research session with a friend or family member
Task Two: Using the information you gathered from your user research session, create a user persona and apply Design Thinking to solve a problem for your user
Task Three: Create an information architecture diagram, journey map, and user flow diagram
Task Four: Create a low-fidelity prototype using Figma/Adobe XD
Task Five: Conduct a design critique session with a friend or family member
Task Six: Make changes to your prototype based on the feedback you received during your design critique session
Task Seven: Create a high-fidelity prototype using Figma/Adobe XD
Task One: Identify the user experience problems with the current design
Task Two: Analyze these problems and identify the root causes
Task Three: Perform a competitive analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current design
Task Four: Create a user journey map to identify the user's pain points and opportunities for improvement
Task Five: Develop an information architecture that organizes the app's content in a logical and user-friendly way, and apply the principles of interaction design to create intuitive and engaging user interactions, such as animations and feedback
Task Six: Create a low-fidelity prototype using Figma/Adobe XD
Task Seven: Identify opportunities for micro-interactions that enhance the user experience, such as providing feedback on completed workouts or congratulating the user on reaching their goals
Task Eight: Conduct a design critique session with a friend or family member
Task Nine: Iterate on the design based on user feedback and refine the create the high-fidelity prototype using Figma/Adobe XD
Task Ten: Create a presentation that explains the design process and the design decisions you made
Designing with AI
Artificial intelligence changed what a designer is responsible for. You are no longer designing a system that behaves the same way every time — you are designing a relationship with a system that guesses, sometimes guesses wrong, and changes as it learns. This section covers both halves of that job: designing products that use AI honestly, and using AI in your own practice without outsourcing your judgment.
Foundations of AI for Designers
Before you can design with a material, you have to know how it behaves. This covers what machine learning actually does, where its outputs come from, and the vocabulary you need to scope work with engineers.
Goals
Goal
Description
Understand
Understand what machine learning models can and cannot do
Differentiate
Tell genuine AI capability apart from marketing claims
Communicate
Use the right vocabulary when scoping AI work with engineers
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
UX for AI: A Framework for Designing AI-Driven Products
Greg Nudelman & Daria Kempka
A practical framework drawn from 35 real commercial AI projects, covering how AI products differ from conventional software and what that means for your process.
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference
Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapoor
Two Princeton researchers separate AI that works from AI that is sold as working. The judgment this book teaches is the foundation for everything else in this section.
The canonical free guidebook for designing AI products, with worksheets you can run as exercises. Written in the classifier era, so read it for method rather than for LLM specifics.
Most AI failures are expectation failures. Users assume the system knows more than it does, or trust it less than they should. Your job is to calibrate that before the first interaction, not after the first mistake.
Goals
Goal
Description
Calibrate
Set accurate expectations of capability before first use
Onboard
Design first-run experiences that teach the system's limits
Frame
Choose language and affordances that avoid over-promising
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Designing Human-Centric AI Experiences: Applied UX Design for Artificial Intelligence
Akshay Kore
Applied UX patterns for AI products, covering onboarding, expectation setting, and how to communicate confidence to users.
The 18 guidelines are the most-cited set in the field, organized by when they apply across an interaction. Dated in places, but the lineage every AI designer should know.
Users decide whether to trust an AI system long before they can verify it. Explanations, citations and confidence signals are the interface for that decision, and the research on what actually works is more surprising than you would expect.
Goals
Goal
Description
Explain
Communicate why the system produced a given output
Ground
Design citation and source patterns that users can verify
Measure
Understand what genuinely builds trust versus what merely feels reassuring
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Sentient Design: Crafting Intelligent Interfaces with AI
Josh Clark & Veronika Kindred
Treats AI as a design material and builds a vocabulary for interfaces that perceive context, interpret intent, and act with agency.
Designing for Errors, Uncertainty and Hallucination
Conventional error design assumes the system knows it failed. AI systems are frequently confident and wrong at the same time, which breaks every error pattern you already know. This is the hardest problem in the section.
Goals
Goal
Description
Anticipate
Design for confidently wrong output, not just failure states
Recover
Give users a path back when the system is wrong
Degrade
Build experiences that fail gracefully rather than collapsing
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Conversations with Things: UX Design for Chat and Voice
Diana Deibel & Rebecca Evanhoe
The practical method for conversation design, with the best treatment available of error recovery and repair in conversational systems.
An agent acts on the user's behalf, which means the design problem shifts from "what does it show" to "what is it allowed to do, and how does the user stay in control". Permission, oversight and reversibility become interface concerns.
Goals
Goal
Description
Scope
Define what an agent may do without asking
Supervise
Design oversight that does not become rubber-stamping
Reverse
Make agent actions auditable and undoable
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Designing Agentive Technology: AI That Works for People
Christopher Noessel
The foundational text on software that acts on a user's behalf. Written before the current hype cycle, which is exactly why it holds up.
Disclosure stopped being an ethical preference and became law. Since 2 August 2026, the EU AI Act requires AI-generated content to be machine-readably marked. This subsection covers both the ethics and the statute.
Goals
Goal
Description
Disclose
Label AI-generated content in line with legal requirements
Assess
Identify who a system could harm before it ships
Advocate
Make the case for responsible choices inside a product team
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Weapons of Math Destruction
Cathy O'Neil
The standard introduction to algorithmic harm at scale, and why opaque scoring systems damage the people least able to contest them.
The other half of the job: using AI in your own practice. These tools compress prototyping and research synthesis dramatically, and they will happily produce confident nonsense. Knowing when to trust the output is the actual skill.
Goals
Goal
Description
Accelerate
Use AI to move from idea to testable prototype faster
Synthesize
Apply AI to research analysis without outsourcing your judgment
Evaluate
Assess AI output critically instead of accepting it
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Creative Prototyping with Generative AI
Patrick Parra Pennefather
Generative tools placed inside a real prototyping workflow, with an honest account of where they help and where they waste time.
This section covers advanced topics such as design systems, design thinking, and virtual and augmented reality. By the end, you should have the skills and the confidence to apply for your dream design job 🎉💲.
Note: This section is for those who are looking to take their design skills to the next level. If you are just starting out, I recommend you start with the Beginner and Intermediate sections.
Expert Level - Curriculum
Advanced Design Techniques
This section covers designing for accessibility, designing for internationalization, and building design systems.
Designing for Accessibility
Accessible design means building for the needs of everyone who might use your product: your target users, people outside that demographic, and people with disabilities. This section covers the basics.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the basics of designing for accessibility.
Understand
Understand why accessible design benefits every user, not only some.
Apply
Apply what you learn to your own design projects.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Practical Approaches For Designing Accessible Websites
Smashing Magazine
We design with viewports in mind, keep track of loading times, and hunt down even the smallest browser bugs — all to create the best possible user experience. But despite all these efforts to constantly improve our products, there’s still one aspect that, unfortunately, comes up short quite often: accessibility.
Designing for Accessibility: A Business Guide to Countering Design Exclusion
Simeon Keates
A step by step guide, this book covers how to design products that offer the right combination of functionality, usability, and accessibility for all consumers
Inclusive Design for a Digital World: Designing with Accessibility in Mind
Regine M. Gilbert
What is inclusive design? It is simple. It means that your product has been created with the intention of being accessible to as many different users as possible. For a long time, the concept of accessibility has been limited in terms of only defining physical spaces
A web for everyone: designing accessible user experiences
Horton, Sarah, Quesenbery, Whitney
If you are in charge of the user experience, development, or strategy for a web site, A Web for Everyone will help you make your site accessible without sacrificing design or innovation. Rooted in universal design principles, this book provides solutions: practical advice and examples of how to create sites that everyone can use.
Design for Inclusivity: A Practical Guide to Accessible, Innovative and User-centred Design (Design for Social Responsibility)
Roger Coleman, John Clarkson, Hua Dong, Julia Cassim
Inclusive design not only ensures that products, services, interfaces and environments are easier to use for those with special needs or limitations, but in doing so also makes them better for everyone.
Refactoring UI is a book about designing better user interfaces. Learn how to design awesome UIs by yourself using specific tactics explained from a developer's point-of-view.
“Imagine if 90% of the websites or mobile apps you use today locked you out. Everyone else continues to experience the convenience of mobile banking, the connectedness of social media, and the freedom of online shopping, but, for you, they’re inaccessible. For the 57 million people with disabilities in the United States, this is their everyday experience.”
People come with all different types of abilities and disabilities. By designing with accessibility in mind, you can open up a world of opportunities for users of all abilities to engage with your work.
Imagine you were left-handed (and if you are, reflect on your left-handedness). You are part of a 10% minority in the world. Adjusting to certain tasks takes longer — but help in the form of left-handed stationery, sports equipment, etc. is available easily.
Accessibility in UX Design: Guidelines and Key Principles
Ramotion
Learn about the importance of accessibility in UX design. Understand the key principles involved in making designs more accessible to the target audience.
7 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about Accessibility
Jesse Hausler
Accessibility enables people with disabilities to perceive, understand, navigate, interact with, and contribute to the web. Imagine a world where developers know everything there is to know about accessibility.
Join Nissa in this webinar to learn how easy it is to implement simple strategies to ensure that your designs reach every person in your audience. Understand how people with different disabilities engage with your work. Learn how easy it is to make sure that everybody is included. Once you know it's not so hard to implement.
In this video, we will be talking about how to design for accessibility. We will be talking about the color contrast accessibility, clickable area accessibility and common content accessibility
This recorded webinar provides a brief introduction to designing for accessibility: the importance of accessible design and high-impact practices digital content creators can apply to create accessible documents, images, audio, video, and web content.
Internationalization (i18n) is the practice of designing a product so it can be adapted easily for audiences that differ in culture, region, or language. Getting it right early is what makes localization straightforward later.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn about the importance of internationalization in UX design.
Understand
Understand the key principles that make a design easy to localize.
Apply
Apply what you learn to your own projects.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Usability and Internationalization of Information Technology
Nuray Aykin
Contributors from the US, Europe, and Asia provide a theoretical foundation and practical examples and guidelines for designing information technology for different cultures, languages, and economic standings, describing methods that can be used to ensure their usability across cultural boundaries.
The path for developing an internationally usable product with a human-machine interface is described in this textbook, from theory to conception and from design to practical implementation.
In this article, we will be talking about how to design for internationalization. We will be talking about the color contrast internationalization, clickable area internationalization and common content internationalization.
So let’s say it turns out that you’ll need to localize the product / service you’re working on to certain countries. What are the main design aspects? This sketch summarizes some of the main things you need to pay attention to.
UX Localization: How to Adapt User Experience for International Users
Phrase
That a visually stunning app won't be a hit if it can’t provide a stellar user experience (UX) is old news. It’s the whole reason UX design appeared on the tech map in the first place. What’s relatively new, though, is UX localization—the art of catering UX across borders.
Internationalization and Localization – Key Differences in App Design
UXPin
Internationalization is crucial for startups and companies with global aspirations. If organizations want to succeed in an international market and compete locally, they must create relatable, locally relevant product experiences.
UX design helps companies to deliver the best solutions for their business while being respectful of users, not only with regards to their needs but also to their mindset and culture.
What Is Internationalization (I18N) - Localization Basics
Localization Academy
Are you new to the localization industry? Learn the localization basics in these short whiteboard sessions. In this video, find out what is Internationalization (I18N).
Florence Okoye tells us why empathy is good, but not enough, in the world of design. In an era of deep minds and deep learning, Florence believes it's time we start to design deeper and empower each other in the process.
51. Design - Designing for Internationalization - User Interface Design
Frederic Desbiens
This episode: With Frederic Desbiens in this week's episode of the ADF Architecture TV series you will learn about the issues you need to take into account when designing user interfaces for internationalization.
50. Design - Designing for Internationalization - Understanding Internationalization
Frederic Desbiens
This episode: In this week's episode of the ADF Architecture TV series Frederic Desbiens explores the basic concepts of internationalization (i18n) and explains why it involves much more than simply translating the user interface.
A design system is a collection of reusable components, guided by clear standards, that can be assembled together to build any number of applications. It’s a visual language that synthesizes UI patterns, interactions, motion, and scale into a unified experience.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn about the importance of design systems in UX design.
Understand
Understand the standards and patterns that hold a design system together.
Create
Create your own design system.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Practical UI Patterns for Design Systems
Diana MacDonald
Understanding UI patterns is invaluable to anyone creating websites for the first time. It helps you make connections between which tools are right for which jobs, understand the processes, and think deeply about the context of a problem.
Laying the Foundations is a comprehensive guide to creating, documenting, and maintaining design systems, and how to design websites and products systematically. It's an ideal book for web designers and product designers (of all levels) and especially design teams.
Modular Web Design: Creating Reusable Components for User Experience Design and Documentation
Nathan A. Curtis
User experience design teams often suffer from a decentralized, blank canvas approach to creating and documenting a design solution for each new project. As teams repeatedly reinvent screen designs, inconsistency results, and IT teams scramble to pick up the pieces.
A design system is a set of standards to manage design at scale by reducing redundancy while creating a shared language and visual consistency across different pages and channels.
A design system is a library of reusable components and guidelines that people within a company can combine into interfaces and interactions. What goes into a design system and how it is implemented can vary quite a bit from company to company, depending on the size and maturity of the design practice and the needs of the product team.
What is a Design System? Design Systems 101 for Designers
DesignCourse
Today, we'll take a deep dive into the world of design systems and figure out exactly what they are. We'll take a look at a few definitions and several examples of actual design systems in the real world. By the end, you should have a solid understanding of what a design system actually is, and then (shortly) I will show you how to create one.
Learn how to build a design system in Figma. By the end of this course you will become a master of building design systems in Figma and understanding master components.
Create your style guide, type scale, and brand color scheme and turn them into shared styles, grids, and typography to kick off designing a design system from scratch.
Style Guides, Pattern Libraries, and Design systems are all anyone is talking about lately, and for good reason. They all share a similar goal of creating a more consistent design process that increases productivity and also effectiveness. Some people don’t know the difference, so let's break them all down.
5 Best Design Systems and How to Learn (and Steal) From Them
DesignerUp
Design systems (like Material Design, and Lightning Design) are all the rage and while most articles talk about what a design system is and best practices for creating them, at DesignerUp we've been framing them as a teaching tool and design tutorial with our product design students to help them better understand, explore and learn the philosophies, best practices and principles of UI design, UX and Product Design.
Design System Checklist - A checklist for your design system. Visit
Inspiration
Design Systems
Description
Link
Airbnb Design System
Airbnb's design system is a collection of reusable components, guided by clear standards, that can be assembled together to build any number of applications.
The Atlassian Design System is a collection of reusable UI components, guidelines and resources for product designers and developers to create exceptional experiences.
The IBM Design Language is a living, breathing expression of IBM. It is a toolkit of principles, guidance, and code that serves as the foundation for IBM’s digital user experiences.
The Fluent Design System is a collection of design principles, tools, and resources that help teams create high-quality, engaging experiences for Windows, Windows Phone, and the web.
Polaris is Shopify’s design system. It’s a collection of reusable components, guidelines, and resources that help teams build exceptional online stores.
Lightning Design System is the design system for Salesforce Lightning Experience. It is a collection of reusable components, guided by clear standards, that can be assembled together to build any number of applications.
Apple Design Resources for iOS include Sketch, Photoshop, and Adobe XD templates, along with comprehensive UI resources that depict the full range of controls, views, and glyphs available to developers using the iOS SDK.
Carbon is IBM’s open-source design system for products and experiences. With the IBM Design Language as its foundation, the system consists of working code, design tools and resources, human interface guidelines, and a vibrant community of contributors.
This section covers the technologies changing how people interact with products: voice user interfaces, augmented and virtual reality, and artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Voice User Interface Design
A voice user interface handles the interaction between a person and a voice-controlled device. Designing one means thinking in conversation rather than in screens.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn how to design for voice user interfaces.
Understand
Understand how conversation design differs from screen design.
Practice
Practice voice user interface design.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
Designing Voice User Interfaces: Principles of Conversational Experiences
Cathy Pearl
Voice user interfaces (VUIs) are becoming all the rage today. But how do you build one that people can actually converse with? Whether you’re designing a mobile app, a toy, or a device such as a home assistant, this practical book guides you through basic VUI design principles, helps you choose the right speech recognition engine, and shows you how to measure your VUI’s performance and improve upon it.
Voice User Interface Design: Moving from GUI to Mixed Modal Interaction
Ritwik Dasgupta
Design and implement voice user interfaces. This guide to VUI helps you make decisions as you deal with the challenges of moving from a GUI world to mixed-modal interactions with GUI and VUI.
Conversational UX Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Natural Conversation Framework
Robert J. Moore & Raphael Arar
As voice interfaces and virtual assistants have moved out of the industry research labs and into the pockets, desktops and living rooms of the general public, a demand for a new kind of user experience (UX) design is emerging.
When we stop for a moment and think about how popular voice-controlled devices and virtual assistants have become, it is only necessary to look deeper into the VUI design and learn more.
Voice user interfaces (VUIs) allow the user to interact with a system through voice or speech commands. Virtual assistants, such as Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa, are examples of VUIs.
Everything You Want To Know About Creating Voice User Interfaces
Nick Babich & Gleb Kuznetsov
reating voice user interfaces requires a lot of design expertise in various areas such as conversation design, interaction design, visual and motion design. This article covers the most critical aspects of designing for voice user interfaces — designing the conversation and designing visual interfaces.
Just about every product features a voice user interface (VUI), from phones, wearables, and speakers to your car and even the fridge. According to Statista, the number of voice assistant devices will exceed 8.4 billion units by 2024-more than the world’s population.
Discover why conversational UIs and voice apps are surging in popularity and learn how to design voice user interfaces (VUIs) for both mobile and smart home speakers.
As a voice user experience designer, I’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies to help improve their speech applications. In this article, I want to share my experience on what are some of the things you should think about when designing for voice.
The Voice Design Process For Voice User Interfaces (VUIs)
CareerFoundry
If you’ve found yourself wondering where to begin the Voice Design Process, you’ve come to the right place! Since voice interface design is so rapidly evolving, there aren’t many resources out there for a clear process or path to designing voice interactions.
Houndify combines the smartest voice AI with engineering expertise to help brands build conversational voice assistants. From proprietary components to a customizable and scalable voice AI platform, we have the tools to build a highly accurate and responsive voice user interface.
Curious about the future of conversational interfaces? Join Cathy Pearl, Head of Conversation Design Outreach at Google and author of Designing Voice User Interfaces, as she demystifies this rapidly-growing field and provides best practices for building engaging and effective conversational systems.
Virtual reality (VR) replaces the real world with a simulated one; augmented reality (AR) overlays digital objects on top of it. Both are used across industries, including gaming, education, and healthcare. This section covers the basics of designing for each.
Goals
Goal
Description
Learn
Learn the basics of VR and AR design.
Understand
Understand the differences between VR and AR design.
Practice
Practice VR and AR design with tutorials and exercises.
Apply
Apply VR and AR design to your own projects.
Books
Title
Author
Description
Buy
Mirror
3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice
Doug A. Bowman, Ernst Kruijff, Ivan Poupyrev Joseph J. LaViola
Many people already have seen 3D UIs in computer-aided design, radiation therapy, surgical simulation, data visualization, and virtual-reality entertainment. The next generation of computer games, mobile devices, and desktop applications also will feature 3D interaction.
Virtual and augmented reality are the next big thing in computing. They’re the next step in the evolution of the computer, and they’re going to change the way we interact with computers and the world around us.
Learning Virtual Reality: Developing Immersive Experiences and Applications for Desktop, Web, and Mobile
Tony Parisi
Get an introduction to the technologies, tools, and techniques for programming virtual reality on the latest generation of desktop and mobile VR hardware. With this hands-on guide, you’ll learn essential development and production concepts, including UI design, stereo rendering, 3D input, and programming VR applications for native desktop, mobile and the web.
Bradley Austin Davis & Karen Bryla & Phillips Alexander Benton
SummaryOculus Rift in Action introduces the powerful Oculus Rift headset and teaches you how to integrate its many features into 3D games and other virtual reality experiences.
A Design Model and Methodology for Developing Virtual Reality Interfaces
Vildan Tanriverdi and Robert J.K. Jacob
Compared to conventional interfaces, Virtual reality (VR) interfaces contain a richer variety and more complex types of objects, behaviors, interactions and communications.
Virtual reality is no longer in the realm of science fiction. Immersive technology desperately needs skilled designers to jump in, get involved, take risks, and create something new. Leap into VR/AR!
Introduction - The Design of Virtual and Augmented Reality
Aliheston
Good virtual and augmented reality adapts to the diversity of humans as multifaceted, intersectional, and complex beings. We as designers have the opportunity (and responsibility) to create experiences that are inclusive, accessible, and equitable.
The hierarchy of needs in virtual reality development
Beau Cronin
There’s a certain anxiety in the VR community that surfaces in many conference panels and interviews with industry leaders: plenty of veterans are worried that this latest flowering of the technology will end with the same commercial disappointment that we saw in previous decades.
I am a product designer at Google, and I joined the company through Sparrow, a French startup that got acquired on July 20, 2012. Since then, I worked with the Gmail team to build from scratch a flagship product that became Inbox by Gmail. It shipped on October 22, 2014.
The Nintendo “Virtual Boy” was released in the United States in 1995 and discontinued in 1996 — making it the white whale of gaming tech in our little home town. My youngest brother spotted one at a garage sale and traded the sweat of his summer labor for a glimpse into the future.
5 Lessons I Learned From Designing the VRUI of Beloola
Vincient Munoz
The future of social media is in Virtual Reality, no doubt about that. But we’re not there yet. It will take a couple of months or even years for the masses to be able to get their first VR HMDs, which makes enough time for us to switch from 3D Web to Web VR — and actually we are already doing pretty good stuff in VR.
The rise of a new medium: virtual reality (VR). And with this comes a new set of challenges that give UX designers the opportunity to build a new grammar and symbology.
Designing VR UI in Figma and testing it with no code
Albertmauri
UI has been in constant evolution since 1973 when Xerox Palo Alto Research Center created the first UI as we know it nowadays. Read more about the evolution of UI in this article “UI Evolution: From Computers To Virtual Reality Headsets”.
Virtual reality provides new opportunities for user interactions with computer applications. The process of designing a comprehensive interaction paradigm will require a significant amount of consideration and development.
Josh Carpenter (@joshcarpenter) is a UX Designer with Mozilla, currently focusing on virtual reality and the open web. He has worked previously in architectural visualization, building automation, motion graphics and digital services, the common thread always being a fascination with the intersectio
Don't Make Me Think
— free to read or download from the publisher or author. Nothing to pay.
