Best Free UI Design Resources & Tutorials

Many professionals are eager to learn UI design but hesitate because of the perceived up-front costs. While UI design has a small upfront cost, UI Designers tend to use several different graphic design programs, many of which can be expensive to purchase and license. However, a surprising amount of free resources exist to help beginners get the hang of this exciting program.

Read on to learn more about the different types of free resources and tutorials available to help you learn UI design.

What is UI Design?

UI design is the field of graphic design concerned with how digital applications look and how they communicate information to users. UI designers ensure that a digital application looks appealing and communicates effectively with its audience. UI Designers will create digital assets using graphic design programs and then build layouts and prototypes of those layouts to share for collaboration and testing. UI design pairs closely with UX design. UI designs concern themselves with how the digital application looks, whereas UX Designers concern themselves with how the digital application feels. These two fields work closely enough together that often, one designer will do both.

Visual and graphic design skills are vital to the field of UI design. UI Designers will need to learn how to utilize a variety of different graphic design programs, and they will need to understand theories and philosophies of composition. Images and graphics communicate a large amount of information in a small space, and it is the job of UI Designers to ensure that the information a digital application communicates aligns with the desired message that a client seeks to send. This will mean that UI design focuses heavily on any project's small details, assuring that all design elements come together to communicate ideas effectively. UI design is thus concerned with both the big picture design of a digital application and the visual design of the various individual components that are used to build the appearance of that digital application.

Read more about what UI design is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with UI Design?

Training in UI design will help creatives build vibrant and instantly memorable web designs and user interfaces for digital applications. UI Designers can blend text, images, and graphics to create functional and evocative designs using the various design programs. Unlike traditional graphic design projects, UI design projects will let creatives maximize the affordances of the digital canvas they are given, and UI Designers will be able to create digital layouts that communicate effectively and quickly. With so much modern communication happening over the internet, learning UI design is a powerful tool for expressing the interests of oneself and one’s organization.

UI design is also a useful skill for creatives who aren’t necessarily planning to build a career out of their graphic design training but still want to optimize their digital presence or their organization. Given the number of web applications designed to ease the process of web development, individuals can start designing and building digital applications for themselves or their organizations without only a little bit of UI design training. This is a bonus for small businesses, up-and-coming charities or nonprofits, advocacy organizations, and any other interest group that may want to build a web presence but is hesitant to hire professional Web Designers.

Finally, learning UI design can give existing creatives an entirely new medium to express their ideas. While web design is concerned with the functional elements of a digital application, learning UI design will allow artists and designers to build unique installations and projects that would otherwise be impossible to construct in a physical space. While most people receiving UI design training will do so with professionalization, learning how to build assets and art pieces online can give artists a new space to experiment with their creative ideas.

Free Tutorials

Noble offers several free introductory courses through its website and official YouTube page. Noble offers a free Intro to UI Design course and a free Intro to Figma course. These courses will cover the basic elements of design philosophy and the basic functions of one of the market's most common UI design tools. These courses can help students become more comfortable with the ideas and programs they will practice during more advanced training courses.

In addition, Noble offers many pre-recorded courses covering web design and development concepts and graphic design concepts on their YouTube page. These video recordings will help students understand tools like Photoshop and Illustrator or design platforms like WordPress. These training options are ideal for students looking to get a taste of the various flavors of graphic design and who aren’t yet confident that UI design is right for them.

Free courses are also available through other professional training services, such as GeneralAssembly, Udemy, and Coursera. Additionally, for individual applications and tools, first-party developers like Adobe and Figma provide users with tutorials and videos instructing new users how to take advantage of their applications.

Free Resources

The first thing a UI design student will need to do is acquire an application for building prototype applications. The three major applications are Figma, Adobe XD, and Sketch. Each of these programs offers a free trial for new users. Adobe XD offers the shortest free trial and is the most expensive program to license, but it also has the most advanced prototyping capabilities. Figma offers users an unlimited free version of their software with slight limitations. Sketch has a longer free trial and is the cheapest program, but it has the fewest prototyping features.

In addition, Adobe offers a free trial of many of its other graphic design tools like Photoshop and Illustrator. These free trials are often paired with brief introductory lessons to help users become familiar with the software.

Key Insights

• While UI design skills don’t have an upfront cost, UI Designers use many tools that users will need to license or purchase to start designing digital applications.
• The only essential tool is a user experience design tool, like Figma, Adobe XD, or Sketch. These programs all offer free trial periods to help users learn the program before they commit to licensing their software.
• Many UI Designers will also use tools like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. Some free alternatives exist, and students should do some research before selecting a program.
• Noble offers students many free training courses to help them begin the process of learning the basics of UI design.
• Once a student has exhausted their free training options, Noble offers comprehensive, professional UI design training to help students take their skills to the next level.

Learn UI Design with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Once students have committed to learning UI design, they can receive hands-on training in one of the many UI design classes offered through Noble Desktop. These courses, available both in-person at Noble’s Manhattan campus and online, provide students with career-focused skills training in an industry-recognized educational environment. Students will benefit from working with live instructors who can answer their questions, provide feedback, and help them overcome any learning challenges they encounter. Even online, Noble’s classes boast small class sizes so that students can receive individual attention from their instructors. Plus, Noble offers free retake options, meaning that a student can re-enroll in a completed course within one year to receive additional training, review material, or just get a bit more hands-on UI design experience.

Students looking to learn the basics of UI design may wish to consider enrolling in Noble’s UI Design Bootcamp. This course will provide students with hands-on experience, using practical examples, designing the appearance of web pages and mobile applications. Students will receive training in the basic theories of composition and design and one-on-one feedback from expert instructors on the make-up of their UI design projects. This course is ideal for students hoping to learn the ins and outs of how to apply their existing knowledge of visual design tools to the process of building digital applications. Students who wish to enroll in this course should have a working knowledge of the user experience design tool Figma. Students looking for this training can enroll in Noble’s Figma Bootcamp.

Noble offers a UI Design Certificate program for students who want a more career-focused learning experience that will teach students all of the important fundamental skills they will need to enter the workforce as UI design specialists. Students will learn theories of composition and design and how to apply those theories of design to web pages and digital applications. In addition, students will learn how to use design tools like Figma, Adobe Photoshop, and Illustrator. This course caps off with a series of lessons concerning how to build a design portfolio to take onto the job market. With portfolio design training, one-on-one career mentorship, and the reception of an industry-recognized skills certificate, this course is ideal for students looking to build new careers in UI design.