Let’s begin.
What is UX Design?
UX design is the process of designing interfaces for digital products, services, and experiences.
The goal of UX design is to make the user’s experience with a product or service as enjoyable, easy, and efficient as possible.
UX design involves the study of human behavior, the gathering of user research data, the creation of wireframes and prototypes, the testing of designs, etc.
What are the best UX Design Resources?
- Classes
- Books
- Websites/Blogs
- Podcasts
- Software/Tools
Classes
UX Designer Nanodegree – Udacity
If you’re just getting started in UX design, I highly recommend taking this course. It is taught by professional designers and will give you a solid introduction to the field.
Interaction Design Foundation
IDF has a catalogue of basic to advanced design courses at a reasonable price. I’ve had membership for two years.
UC San Diego Interaction Design Specialization – Coursera
This specialisation course gives a brief introduction to interaction design and human centred design.
User Experience Research and Design Specialization – Coursera
This course is offered by the University of Michigan. This is a great course for those who want to gain experience and skill in UX Research and Design.
Google UX Design – Coursera
This is the newest and most highly reviewed design course on coursera. It is a series of seven courses that will equip you with the foundational skills.
Designlab’s UX Foundations course
Designlab is a platform that offers high quality design learning materials. Their course is an immersive course that will teach you the fundamentals of design.
Learn UX Design
Offered by learnui.design, this is an amazing course on user experience design covering the basics of user experience.
Human-Centered Design – IDEO
This introductory course from IDEO provides education on the basics of human-centred design to its application in solving real world challenges.
UI/UX Design Bootcamp – Springboard
The UX Career Track is a 6-month program that provides you with the training and job placement assistance. It teaches you the skills you need to be a successful designer in the industry today.
Design Sprint – Google Ventures
This is a short course for people new to design sprints who want to learn how to build a minimum viable product.
Adobe XD UI UX Design – Skillshare
In this course instructor Dan Scott walks through the basics of Adobe XD, teaching lessons that are easy to follow for beginners in UX.
User Experience Designer Learning Path
This is a short course on LinkedIn learning provides an overview of the different career paths that a user experience designer may pursue.
UX Design Program – CareerFoundry
This is the UX design bootcamp that comes with a job guarantee. They also have free short courses that you can take before enrolling to the bootcamp.
Interface Design Course – Shift Nudge
It is an expensive course but has good reviews. It will teach you the basics to advanced tactics of interface design. There are a lot of free resources on youtube.
Intro to the Design of Everyday Things – Udacity
This is a brief summary of the key concepts from Don Norman’s book The Design of Everyday Things.
Centre Centre UX Design Program
This is an offline UX course to become an industry-ready UX designer. Plus there are six internships to give you plenty of practice.
UX Basic Training – NN Group
A great UX design program from NN Group. This program will take you through the basic to advanced UX design concepts and tools.
The UX Portfolio Formula
Sarah Doody’s course will give you the knowledge to construct a UX design portfolio, and it will help you level up in your UX design skills.
Frontend Simplified
This course will not only teach you how to code, but also how to leverage it for design and collaboration.
Books
Don’t Make Me Think
This is a classic book by Steve Krug explaining web usability in a fun way.
Universal Principles of Design
It is a comprehensive book, cross-disciplinary encyclopaedia covering 125 items about successful design.
The Design of Everyday Things
This is another classic book about design, written by Don Norman. This book shows that good, usable design is possible.
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People
Packed with real science and research with practical examples, this is a handy book to help you make better design decisions.
Creative Confidence
This is from IDEO founders David and Tom Kelley, on unleashing the creativity within each of us.
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
Written by Nir Eyal, this book focuses on human behaviours and their relation with products.
The User Experience Team of One
Leah Buley gives an overview of the field of design and how to improve it.
The Elements of User Experience
A book by Jesse James Garrett exposes the essence of user experience for the web.
Just Enough Research
A great book by Erika Hall about a brief of user research methods.
Design Systems
Handbook for building robust, accessible interfaces for visual designers.
Solving Product Design Exercises
I used this book to practice for daily design problems.
A Project Guide to UX Design
Comprehensive book about learning and applying ux design methods.
Atomic Design
Brad Frost easy guide to methodology for creating design systems.
Websites/ Blogs
UX Collective
Popular site in design space about UX, Visual & Product Design.
UX Booth
Subscription based trusted by over 100,000 user experience professionals.
UX Magazine
It has been exploring, promoting, and discussing design and technology.
Muzli
Design inspiration for any designer.
UXmatters
Bit of everything about user experience.
Inside Design
InVision’s official blog that discusses design thinking.
Bootcamp
Bootcamp is a new product design publication from the team behind the UXdesign.cc.
Awwwards
This shows the best web design trends. They also have a great YouTube channel with expert designers talking.
Land Book
Collection of hand-picked website design examples.
Inspiration for user experience design and the visual interface.
Styleguides.io
Collection of real life Front-End Style Guides and Patterns.
Pttrns
Thousands of curated mobile design patterns.
Savee
Browse and save inspiration from designers around the world.
Squarespace
Every creative knows this easy and professional way to create a beautiful website and portfolio.
Wix
Another amazing website builder with over 500 customizable, eye-catching templates.
HTML5up
Curated list of responsive and customisable website templates.
Dribble
Find & showcase creative work and home to the curious designers.
LinkedIn is essential for designers to make important connections especially in the beginning of their career.
Upwork
Upwork is a platform designed to connect designers and other creatives with clients.
Behance
Free social media platform to showcase a variety of creative work owned by Adobe.
Fiverr
This allows designers to build a portfolio and offer their services online, without the pressure of needing to find a full-time job.
Toptal
Toptal provides you with a suite of tools to help you find the highest paying clients and build a thriving career as a UX designer.
Design Council
It has high quality articles about design thinking and user experience from industry experts.
Frontend Mentor
Improve your front-end skills by building real projects.
Material Design
Google’s simple design language for apps and interfaces.
Smashing magazine
High quality articles about design, tech and marketing.
52 Weeks of UX
A personal project by Saleh who is a product designer.
A List Apart
Explores the design and development focusing on web standards.
UX Movement
Dedicated publication to teach people how to design interfaces.
Podcasts
UX Podcast
A popular digital design podcast sharing insights about business and technology.
Design Details
A weekly conversation about the design process and culture.
Wireframe
This one reveals the stories behind how UX fits into our lives.
UXPod
It is one of the longest running design podcasts.
High Resolution — video series design
Podcasts about top-notch companies share how they communicate with design.
Google Design Podcast
Designers from different departments give perspective on the design process.
Software/Tools
Sketch
This is a Mac only digital design platform with collaborative design tools, prototyping and developer handoff.
Figma
Figma is a free, online UI tool which is becoming the standard among professional designers.
InVision
This is a popular rapid prototyping and visual collaboration tool used by many designers.
Adobe XD
It’s a tool to make clickable, interactive prototypes with lots of other features.
Axure
Axure RP is a UX tool that gives professionals the power to build realistic, functional prototypes.
Miro
A great tool for discovery and brainstorming through an infinite canvas, set of widgets, templates.
Framer
It is a free prototyping tool for creating functional interactive designs in minutes with smart features.
Balsamiq
This is a popular wireframing tool that allows you to make basic wireframes and nail down all the details of your site/interface before designing them.
Protopie
Code-free, super high-fidelity prototyping that allows you to validate your ideas faster.
Proto.io
Preview your project on the Proto.io Player app for iOS or Android for a native experience. Offline previews available.
Principle
Principle makes it easy to design animated and interactive user interfaces and motion design.
Phase
This is a tool that allows you to build interactive prototypes with drag and drop without writing any code.
Flinto
Flinto is a collection of design tools that allow you to create animated transitions and micro-interactions for your products.
Mockingbird
Mockingbird is an easy and fast way to make clickable wireframes and prototypes of your apps and websites.
Mockplus
Developed by the creators of Mockingbird, Mockplus is an all-in-one product design platform for prototyping, collaboration, and creating design systems.
Webflow
Webflow lets designers build CSS grid-powered layouts visually. Add CSS filters to anything.
Moqups
This is a design tool used for visualising and testing out your concept. You can design and then collaborate in real-time with your team.
Studio
The web design platform for designers to create responsive websites, landing pages, and apps.
Dovetail
It is a user research and collaboration tool you can transcribe a recording, discover patterns through features, and get insights out.
Whimsical
This is a tool for creating flowcharts, sticky notes, and mind maps.
UXPin
It is used for UI design and has ready-made building blocks that speeds up prototyping.
ABtesting.ai
This is a A/B testing tool that uses Artificial Intelligence to help you smartly choose which ads to target.
Maze
It is used for usability testing with features like bounce Rate, average duration, mis-click rate, etc.
Lookback
This is a platform for user testing and recording your sessions, which allows you to easily test and record your sessions.
Modulz
A code-based design tool for designing and prototyping with real components.
Alva
Build working prototypes with code and components.
Google Web Designer
A free suite of features to create interactive, responsive and animated ad creatives.
Marvel
Create interfaces and wireframes in minutes. And also Handoff them to developers.
Milanote
This is the tool for organizing creative projects with text editing and task management features.
Draw.io
A free-to-use online diagram app and editor eiyh rich flowchart features.
Overflow.io
This is a user flow diagramming tool tailored for designers.
Lucid Chart
A website mockup tool for fast and simple prototyping.
FlowMapp
A collection of UX tools like Sitemap, User Flow, Personas etc.
Rise
Tool for Responsive Design to check how your content looks across the devices.
Prott
Prott is a free rapid prototyping and radical collaboration tool.
OmniGraffle
This design tool includes canvases, templates, stencils, and grid guides.
Pidoco
An online tool to create wireframes fully interactive prototypes to simulate apps.
LaunchPad
This is a development kit that provides an easy to use platform to use while developing applications.
Koncept
It is used to create high-fidelity application prototypes using static designs and transitions.
Kite Compositor
An object inspector tool to prototype, animate, interaction.
Justinmind
This is a frequently used, Free prototyping tool for web & mobile apps.
Frontify
This tool is used to build a design system and create customised templates.
Fuse Open
An open-source cross-platform for integrated process of design and development.
Preely
A design tool to build interactive prototypes and remote user tests.
Zeplin
Makes it easy to hand off design source code to developers. Zeplin supports Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD.
UserTesting
Another Usability testing and research tools to test and improve designs.
UsabilityHub
Provides many useful design features like prototype tests, first click tests, design surveys.
Storybook
UI design tool to test design system appearance, functionality, and accessibility.
Crazy Egg
An online tool for analysing user behaviour with heatmaps and analytics.
Abstract
A Mac-only design tool to help designers with the design process.
Eyequant
This is a wireframing tool which uses machine learning to make design decisions.
Pendo
Analytical tool with simple interface to deliver targeted designs.
Magento
An Adobe product to build websites in minutes with ready-to-use templates and many other features.
Tailwind UI
Fully responsive. UI components. CSS frameworks.
Showit
Easy drag and drop interface to design for mobile and desktop screens.
Eleventy
A simpler static site generator with modules to use in front end stacks.
Designbetterbusiness.tools
This is a tool for designers that provides a list of every design tool they need.
Weebly
This is a website builder that has many templates. It’s easy to use, and it’s free.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are a lot of tools out there, and it can be challenging to choose which ones are worth using.
I’m sure there are many more that I have not come across.
I’d love to hear about any tools you’ve found that I haven’t included in the list below.
I’ll add them to the list as well.
Thank you for reading 🙂
Sources
https://www.getfeedback.com/resources/ux/12-of-the-best-online-ux-resources/
https://blog.prototypr.io/my-ux-resource-list-96ab9e36ac24
https://uxdesign.cc/designers-tech-stack-of-2020-1df2e1203638
https://uxtools.co/survey-2019/
https://uxplanet.org/the-7-best-ux-design-books-924efa6eacf9
https://www.coursera.org/articles/ux-design-books-blogs-podcasts
toptal.com/designers/ux/top-ux-tools
https://uxdesign.cc/my-top-5-ux-ui-podcasts-3011f51017c9