Build user-centered products with UX research, wireframing, and prototyping in Figma to design intuitive, effective digital experiences.
Start learning Figma for UI/UX design. Gain a solid understanding of its capabilities, from creating files, to designing on a grid, working with text/photos/colors, creating components, building prototypes, exporting assets, sharing files, creating animations, and more.
Take your Figma skills to the next level with this advanced prototyping course. Learn to use variables, modes, and conditionals to add more realistic interactivity to your prototypes.
Learn Figma for UI/UX design. Gain a thorough understanding of Figma’s design and prototyping capabilities, from creating designs, turning the into interactive prototypes, sharing them with clients for feedback, and getting user feedback.
Discover the essence of UX Design. From UX vs. UI to usability testing and prototyping, delve into the intricacies of user experience design. Gain practical skills in research, wireframing, and more. Elevate your design game with this comprehensive course.
Learn the skills needed to launch a career in UI design in this advanced course. Gain expertise in UI fundamentals, wireframing, visual design concepts, and more. Build your portfolio through hands-on projects and personalized feedback.
Learn the skills to become a UX/UI Designer. This course covers design concepts, industry tools like Figma, and research methodologies. Get career-focused training, build a portfolio, and receive one-on-one mentoring and prepare for a career in UX/UI design.
Gain essential skills in UI design for websites and mobile apps, including composition, typography, color, and attention to interactivity. Develop a portfolio showcasing your design projects and earn a NY State-approved certificate in UI Design.
User Experience (UX) design refers to the process of designing user interfaces for digital products or webpages that account for user behaviors, accessibility, and ease of use. Since web applications and digital interfaces are interactive mediums, designers cannot always anticipate how users will interact with their designs. UX design involves research-focused skills that allow designers to build applications responsive to user feedback and take user behaviors into account.
As the web has come to transform the way audiences interact with companies in virtually every industry, it is more important than ever to have a polished and functional website available for customers and clients. Part of this focuses on creating solid core functionalities through back-end development, as well as refining a site’s visual identity through user interface (UI) design. However, website designers must also ensure that their designs are easy to access and pleasing for the average user. It does not matter how great a webpage or digital application looks if it is cumbersome or difficult to use. This is especially true in competitive digital marketplaces, where the opportunity cost for a user to switch over to a more comfortable and intuitive interface is incredibly low.
It is here that UX designers can make a major impact on the web design industry. By combining their expertise in web design with insights into audience behavior, UX designers ensure that users can take full advantage of a website’s features. In doing so, UX designers not only ensure the accessibility of websites but also help shape a user’s powerful first impression of a site and the products listed on it. As a result, UX design is a crucial career field that continues to be in high demand.
UX designers help companies, stakeholders, technology teams, and visual designers create products (websites, apps, etc.) that are functional and easily navigated. They work with companies to improve their products (or to design them properly from the beginning), test designs with users, and ensure that the navigation is intuitive, information is organized logically, features suit the needs of users, and that the product provides the user with an overall great experience. They do this by working with design prototypes and testing those prototypes in real-world situations. UX designers often work directly with consumers in market research or focus-group testing capacity, ensuring that they are making informed, knowledge recommendations to companies looking to perfect their products.
UX designers learn how to design for people and consider human needs. It is one thing to assume how you think a user will interact with your designs and another thing to have real-world evidence of how users interact with them. This testing process is called user-centered design. Even after the product launches, UX designers continue to review, collect user feedback, and make iterative changes to the design. The better the design, the easier and more satisfying it is to use, the better it will work for users, and the more revenue it should generate. What's good for users is often good for companies as well.
Let's take a more detailed look at what UX designers do:
Understanding users is very important for UX designers. You come with your own perspective, but others are different. Through various user research methods (interviews, observation, etc.), UX designers learn more about users' needs to make the best experience for a wide variety of people.
UX designers mock up initial design ideas as wireframes. These can be hand sketches or digital sketches and are meant to convey where content will be, how features will work, how users will flow through the website, app, etc., and any essential elements that need to be thought through. These wireframes can be turned into working prototypes and tested with users to see if the designs are effective.
Guessing users' needs or assuming everyone thinks as you do will not lead to a good experience for everyone. Testing a product with various users exposes elements designers may not consider. After coming up with a design, testing it with users helps designers evaluate the effectiveness of their designs. The process of usability testing requires testing a given service or product with representative users from a range of groups or audiences. Participants are asked to complete common tasks while observers listen, watch, and document how they interact with and respond to the product. If issues are found, they can be adjusted and retested. Usability testing provides UX designers with a useful way to gather quantitative and qualitative data so they know how satisfied users are with a product and how the product can be improved to make it even more usable for target audience members.
To perform usability testing, UX designers must create a viable test plan, find participants to interact with their product or service, document their experience, and analyze and report on their findings. One of the main benefits of usability testing is that it helps developers and designers spot any potential problems before the coding process commences. Addressing these problems earlier in the design process is much less expensive and disruptive than waiting till later on to do so. During usability testing, UX designers study whether participants can successfully complete given tasks and how long it may take them to do so. They explore how satisfied participants are when using a product or website and any possible changes that could be implemented to make their experience more positive. Once changes are implemented in the website or product, it’s then reevaluated to see if usability objectives are satisfied. If you’re invested in making sure that digital applications are as accessible as they can possibly be, UX design is the field for you.
Based on user research, testing, and other techniques, UX designers identify areas that need improvement. They communicate their findings to the company with recommendations for how to fix or overcome any found issues. It is vital that companies receive this kind of actionable feedback before they launch a product. UX designers must ensure that this feedback is sound and based on observable patterns of user behavior.
UX designers may use a variety of apps. There's no single app that everyone uses, but UX designers commonly use Sketch (which is Mac only), Adobe XD, Figma, Axure, and InVision, to name a few of the most popular ones. Figma is the most commonly used application for designing wireframe prototypes, Sketch and XD are still in common use. The following paragraphs will take a closer look at each of these tools and their applications for webpage design:
Sketch is a vector graphics app that is popular among web designers, UI designers, and UX designers for creating web elements like icons and concept pages. This tool is relied on for personal and professional use and offers a robust assortment of boolean operations and vector editing tools. Sketch documents are saved in the.sketch file format, which is supported by other design-related applications like Illustrator or Photoshop. Users can also opt to save Sketch files in formats like TIFFs, JPGs, or PNGs. No free Sketch plan is available. However, those who already have a business or standard Sketch plan can invite an unlimited number of viewers to the Workspace for no cost, where they can then view your design and offer comments, as well as download various assets or inspect files.
Adobe XD is a page layout and UI/UX design application with which users can work with a range of tools to create wireframe mock-ups of user interfaces. XD helps them manipulate elements like images, scrolling text, buttons, or menus, and then convert mock-ups into prototypes. Testers who receive the prototypes experiment with them and offer feedback. XD is commonly used for collaborative projects in which multiple designers are involved with idea iteration. XD users can also use this software to create basic designs, shapes, and applications that can be added to webpage design. All designs that are made into working prototypes in this app can be tested in real time and updated immediately.
Figma is an application used for both UX and UI design. Similar to XD, Figma is a popular product for collaborative projects in which team members work together to create and revise working prototypes. This browser-based application can be easily accessed from any device and used to design real-time web layouts. Figma offers users a range of tools to incorporate interactive elements into their designs. Figma is available for purchase as an enterprise or professional version. A free Figma tier is also available, though this provides users with limited functionalities and capabilities.
Axure has tools for developing detailed prototypes with many features. Because this tool has been around much longer than other wireframing and prototyping tools, it is considered the grandfather of most newer UX and UI design products. Axure has capabilities that handle micro-interactions in prototypes that can greatly improve users’ experience during the testing process. This fully integrated app is useful because it takes away the need for other design tools. Once an Axure user creates a wireframe, sitemap, storyboard, customer journey map, or user flow, they then stay inside Axure and progress into more complex prototypes. Most Axure users consider this tool easy to learn and use. Even those without a programming background can work with its built-in widgets to build dynamic interactions.
InVision was developed by designers for use by designers. This tool for workflow and collaboration provides users with the essential elements needed to easily create interactive mock-ups for designs and wireframes. InVisionapp is a design platform on the cloud used by both small and large organizations to design and manage prototypes. It allows users to test, experiment with concepts and templates, and discuss their thoughts on a digital dashboard. This tool helps developers easily transform design mockups into interactive prototypes. Those who wish to share their designs can do so using this app, which allows team members or clients to see accurate representations of designs. Some of InVisionapp’s main features are its digital whiteboards, wireframing capabilities, feedback management options, third-party integrations, and drag-and-drop collaboration tools.
To help students learn more about the differences between these tools, Noble Desktop provides students with a free article outlining the differences between Fimga, XD, and Sketch. Many UX designers will also be tasked with light UI design work and are therefore encouraged to learn how to use digital design applications like Photoshop and Illustrator.
While UX designers are likely to use computer-aided design tools, this is one of the least application-dependent fields in web design. Many UX designers primarily spend their time testing pre-built design prototypes, conducting usability focus groups, or even working alongside data science specialists in a research capacity. This makes UX design a great field to enter if you are interested in scientific analysis, research, or other market testing approaches to design.
The UX (user experience) is how something works and feels in a user's hands. The UI (user interface) is how something looks. Both kinds of design are important because the ideal outcome is a product that works great and looks good. Some designers work on UX and UI, while others focus on only one aspect. UX and UI designers often work in teams, with UX designers starting the process and later bringing in the UI designers to make the wireframes (initial designs) look visually stunning. Companies that value design will incorporate both UX and UI designers.
Given the importance of designing accessible and navigable websites, professionals with UX design skills will surely find their talents in high demand nationwide. By combining these skills with programming expertise and industry-specific knowledge, UX designers are able to specialize in designing websites in the industry of their choice while also fostering skills that can apply to a wider array of design careers.
As a career, UX design is a growing field, and these creative and analytical skills are in high demand. UX designers enjoy wide-ranging opportunities from agency work to corporate. Some UX designers make a living doing freelance work or running their design agency.
According to recent job and salary listings, designers looking for straightforward UX design-related careers have many options nationwide. Recent Glassdoor listings indicate that UX design positions pay an average of $108,000 per year for qualified individuals. These positions are not the only jobs UX design professionals may be qualified for, either; with the addition of programming expertise and visual design knowledge, professionals can also qualify for front-end web development positions, which can pay anywhere from $80,000 to $135,000 per year. This makes acquiring UX design skills both a versatile and valuable addition to any web design professional’s resume.
Some UX designers work on individual design projects. They are responsible for taking the prototypes of a practical web application and conducting user behavior analysis to make informed recommendations about the usability, accessibility, and functionality of that prototype. These designers tend to work either in a contractor capacity or they are employed by a large firm as part of an in-house UX design team. They tend to be fairly well compensated, as companies rely on them to ensure their finished products are well-received by consumers.
Other UX researchers take a more generalist approach to testing and understanding user behavior and principles of good UX design. While many work on specific design projects, others take a broader approach to learning about user behavior. UX researchers tend to perform broad studies of consumer behavior rather than specific testing of single interfaces to learn general principles about good user experience design that can be applied to individual interfaces and applications.
The following sections will briefly explore some UX design courses currently available in-person and online for those interested in acquiring this in-demand skill set.
Given UX design’s popularity as a field today, several courses are available to help learners start their design careers. However, it can be dizzying between in-person classes and virtual courses trying to weigh all the different options. To help, Noble Desktop has created a tool that allows users to search and compare UX Design classes, both in their area and live online. This way, learners can be sure they have considered all their options before committing.
Some students may find that they succeed best in the traditional format of an in-person class. These courses provide students with hands-on experience in a dedicated classroom space. Many students discover that having a live instructor in the classroom to assist in their training is an invaluable boon to help them learn, especially in a field that requires as much iterative testing and feedback as UX design. The drawback to these courses is that students can attend classes only in a physical location, which can be limiting for students who don’t live in major cities or lack reliable transportation.
While the availability of these classes varies by region, providers like General Assembly and Ledet Training offer in-person UX design classes in several major cities. While Ledet Training’s courses mostly focus on Adobe XD, a prototyping software used heavily by UX design professionals, General Assembly offers single-day courses and multi-week bootcamps such as the UX Design Bootcamp, designed to provide UX design training at various commitment levels.
While many UX design courses are available today, both in-person and online, only a select few provide the comprehensive training needed to get beginners truly career-ready. These courses, commonly referred to as UX design bootcamps, often feature dozens or hundreds of hours of intensive, job skills-focused instruction. While the time commitment needed for these courses is quite high, the payoff is more than worth it; graduating from a bootcamp can even replace an equivalent college degree on a job-seeker’s resume.
Learners looking to jump-start their UX design career should consider how a UX design bootcamp can contribute to their educational journey. These bootcamps vary in length, from several dozen hours to months-long courses. For instance, Noble Desktop offers a UX Design Bootcamp that includes a Job Skill Guarantee, while providers like Thinkful and DevMountain offer courses ranging from 10 weeks to six months.
While some learners may prefer the structure of an in-person course, many others might find this learning format restrictive. Busy learners juggling career and family commitments may not have the time to complete all their classes in-person. For these students, virtual courses offer fantastic value while still providing the same high-quality instruction participants expect. Since learners in virtual courses can attend lessons or complete assignments from home, this learning format is perfect for students prioritizing flexibility on their educational journey. Many of these classes are still taught by live instructors, meaning that students won’t be sacrificing the quality of instruction for the flexibility of choosing where they learn UX design.
Noble Desktop has provided industry-leading tech education to thousands of online and in-person learners for over three decades. Today, Noble is proud to offer virtual UX design courses perfect for professionals looking to break into the field. This programming highlights the UX & UI Design Certificate program, which covers visual and UX design principles and technical training in the programs and techniques individuals need to succeed in the field. Students learn essential UI design principles, including tools like Figma, to create interactive wireframe prototypes. Then, they study essential UX design principles and techniques to test those wireframe designs in real-world situations. This course is perfect for individuals seeking a front-end web development career, as UX and UI design go hand in hand in various career roles. Since this is a career-focused program, students can take advantage of one-on-one career mentorship sessions to prepare for the job market. Since this is a career-focused program, every lesson will be geared toward giving students hands-on experience. The course’s capstone is a portfolio-building bootcamp in which students prepare their design portfolio to share with prospective clients and employers.
Digital Workshop Center also offers a live online UX Design Certificate program to provide students with the tools they need to succeed as professional UX designers. This course teaches important UX design principles such as key terminology, target audience identification, and using important tools like Figma and Photoshop. It aims to provide students with career-focused skills that they can take onto the job market. It also offers career services, including one-on-one career mentorship. Students also have the opportunity to receive micro-internship training from DWC partners.
To learn more about your options for live in-person or online UX design courses in your area, consider taking advantage of the Classes Near Me tool provided by Noble Desktop.
In addition to live online UX design coursework, you can also opt to learn this skill through asynchronous study. Unlike in-person and live online UX design classes, which meet in real-time, on-demand coursework is pre-recorded by an instructor and placed online at an earlier time. It provides you with the flexibility of not only deciding when and where you want to complete lessons but also your own learning speed. Students can opt to devote a long holiday weekend to extensively studying several UX design skills or spend fifteen minutes at lunch each week acquiring Figma training. Therefore, on-demand content is a good learning option for those with full personal or professional schedules that may make it impossible to attend regularly scheduled classes. Additionally, this training format affords learners the ability to pause, rewind, or rewatch content as often as they want to fully learn Figma.
Self-paced UX design coursework, like on-demand classes, YouTube videos, and online tutorials, is generally a much more affordable learning option than live content. Some is even available for free. However, since no instructor is available, those who opt to learn UX design through asynchronous content must be self-motivated learners able to learn this skill without the support of a teacher or cohort of students. Since you will have to find answers to questions on your own, this can make it hard to fully master UX design in this format. This is why some students opt to begin their UX design learning path with on-demand content, but progress into more structured coursework like live bootcamps to acquire advanced design skills.
You can use Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me tool to find on-demand UX design coursework most suited to your learning needs. On-demand UX design training is available from several educators around the country. Interested learners can explore Figma through Udemty’s UX/UI Design with Figma. This self-paced course is intended to prepare students to work with popular design tools like Figma for creating web and mobile design. All learners have access to more than four hours of on-demand video content and two downloadable resources. For those seeking more intensive self-paced training, Springboard’s UX Design Bootcamp offers six months of introductory-level UX design training that provides students with real-world UX design knowledge. Those enrolled learn the ins and outs of the design process, core user-centered design skills, and how to work with Sketch, Adobe XD, and other popular design tools. Coursework is offered in a part-time format, allowing students to progress at their own pace. All learners also have access to career coaching, one-on-one mentoring, and a four-week externship. Udemy also offers UI & Web Design Using Adobe Illustrator CC for those seeking instruction on how to work with Adobe Illustrator. Learners receive four hours of hands-on video content that covers skills like creating wireframes, responsive websites, and site maps.
Learning UX design can be an involved process, one that requires practice, patients, and time. The difficulty you may experience learning the skills needed to be a UX Designer depends on your prior knowledge of design and whether you have experience with development. If you come from a design-heavy background, you likely already know core skills that can help you learn UX design such as how to work with imagery, color, typography, and illustrations. However, design training isn’t all you’ll need to acquire to be a successful UX Designer; you also must be able to perform technical skills like user testing, programming, and research, which can require a different training focus and toolset.
If you already have a background in development, you may find that learning UX design will organically extend from the knowledge base you already possess. Web design plays a significant role in the UX design process since UX design requires knowledge of a range of platforms beyond browsers. Succeeding in UX design requires applying skills in content strategy, visual design, usability and accessibility, business, and information architecture. You also must know how to steer the direction of projects as they progress and share any findings along the way with internal or external stakeholders to the organization. The more you really understand the product you’re creating and how users interact with it, the more successful you’ll be as a UX Designer. You must also be well-versed in data collection, presentation, and storytelling to succeed in this career path. Since the skills needed to work in UX design are fairly advanced and broad in scope, some acquire a bachelor’s or master’s degree in design or a design-adjacent field as part of their training. Others opt for skills classes, bootcamps, or other types of instruction to master one or more UX design skills or tools. As you learn, having access to UX design tools and resources can be extremely helpful, especially for those who are new to this subject matter. You must also make sure to stay current with trends and any updates in the software you use since technology continues to evolve.
The time it takes to become fully proficient in UX design also varies from learner to learner. The process requires dedication, commitment, and follow-through, even for those who studied a design-related career in college or graduate school. Generally speaking, this time range can vary from as little as two months for those enrolled in a UX design bootcamp to six or more years for those acquiring this skill through self-directed learning or graduate-level coursework.
A recent Nielsen Norman Group study found that 82% of UX/UI designers possess a college degree in a field like computer science, art, graphic design, IT, industrial design, anthropology, or psychology. Bachelor’s study takes most people four full years to complete and generally requires full-time study. However, since college can be costly and require years of time, some learners opt for a different approach to learning UX design. Some individuals prefer acquiring UX design training through independent study using resources like YouTube videos, free online tutorials, and self-paced coursework. Some platforms even provide free or low-cost video courses for beginners interested in acquiring UX design training. LinkedIn, for example, offers a 30-day free trial for those interested in coursework. Coursera provides both free and for-pay UX design classes. Career Foundry’s free UX Design Short Course offers 90 minutes of self-paced content for those interested in finding if UX design is right for them, and The Gymnasium UX Fundamentals is offered for students wishing to acquire UX design basics.
Those who opt to enroll in a UX design bootcamp or certificate program have access to live instruction that can span 30 or more hours, depending on the focus of the program. This condensed learning format prepares students to complete their UX design studies in just a few months and immediately draw from their acquired experience when applying for jobs.
If you’re studying UX design, you may want to learn complementary skills to help make you a more competitive job candidate and a more well-rounded Designer. The following sections will explore several skills and tools you can study alongside UX design to help take your skills to the next level.
Although not all UX designers are required to write code, knowledge of application development and programming languages like CSS, HTML, and JavaScript can be extremely useful. These skills can give you a more realistic understanding of what is possible in the design process. Application development can also make you a more marketable candidate since your skill set covers some of the tasks developers often complete. You can even decide to move into UI development or UX engineering roles with basic coding skills.
The design process starts with defining the product, which requires development teams to work alongside stakeholders to articulate business goals and any expectations for the product that will be created. To do so, business skills can come in handy. Some UX designers, therefore, benefit from acquiring training in basic business lingo. When making a case for a specific design, it’s useful to do so with a language that reflects a company’s market position, short-term and long-term goals, and any limitations that may keep them from achieving their vision. This information then has to be imparted to stakeholders in a clear and deliberate manner. UX designers also must seek support for their designs from individuals like project managers and investors. To do so, they may rely on selling ability to present the selling value of their work. Value proposition mapping is also useful for UX designers. This requires UX designers to work with the information gathered from stakeholder feedback to describe how they see the product they’re creating delivering value.
Agile methodology is a series of practices for project management that are often used in software development. The Agile approach involves iteratively building a project. Agile UX design combines UX best practices with Agile software development. This approach is often used in the field of engineering, in particular for software development. It provides a way for those involved with a UX design project to quickly progress from product development to completion. In Agile UX, designers remain in constant communication with others in development or engineering teams in the project so that useful products can be developed at every stage of the design process. Because the product being created likely will require frequent updates once it’s released, it’s essential to be prepared to quickly implement necessary changes or updates soon after it’s released. If, for example, users don’t respond to a specific product feature, the design team needs to address this concern as quickly as possible so sales are not affected. Agile UX combines agile development’s iterative principles with user-centered design so products are created and improved upon in very little time.
Information architecture (IA) is the process of finding better ways to structure or organize a product’s content to maximize its usability. Successful IA is executed to help users easily complete a specific task or locate the information they need. UX designers with a background in IA can improve how navigable a product is and how easy it is to discover information or reduce its cognitive load on the user. Those who work with IA often begin by learning IA patterns that are common to websites. Some also create a sitemap of an app or website they enjoy to pinpoint the elements that it includes that lend themselves to successful IA. UX designers are interested in learning IA focus on hierarchy and navigation to understand the existing structure of a product’s content and how users work with it. They also have skills with labeling and taxonomy, so they can classify or organize content that’s similar to other content using classifiers like categories or sections. Additionally, designers interested in IA need to focus on what content is available, where it’s located, and its accuracy and utility. The more a UX Designer focuses on IA, the more accessible information will be to users of all types.