If you’re an aspiring UI/UX designer, or even an experienced designer looking for tools and resources to add to your arsenal, keep reading. In this article, I’m sharing with you 9 free resources for digital product designers. We have a vast amount of information at our fingertips and can learn almost anything for free. I sorted through tons of resources and handpicked the ones that stood out. Did I mention it’s all free? Let’s go!
UX Writing Hub’s Microcopy & UX Writing mini-course
First up we have a UX microcopy course. This mini-course is part of their full 8-week training program. The UX Writing Hub offers this short course with 7 modules, completely online. It includes an overview, teaches you how to do research, provides content style guides and so much more. They stress the importance of good product design and the impact it has on our lives. The course itself is minimalistic, nothing too fancy, but is a great stepping stone if you’re at square 1. Sign up and get going with this course in under 2 minutes!
Product Design by Google
Udacity partnered with Google to provide this excellent free course on Product Design. This course is an excellent way to get your footing in the world of Product Design. There are 4 main lessons: Ideation & Validation, UI/UX, Design Sprint, and Key Metrics. Videos, quizzes and case studies are the kinds of learning material you can expect in this course. The course is marked as an “intermediate” level and takes approximately 2 months to complete. At the end of the course, you will have learned how to complete a Google Design Sprint to design, prototype and test your ideas. Also, you will receive a “Nanodegree” certificate upon completing the course! This is a must-do if you’re a beginner-on-a-budget.
UserActive – Articles
UserActive has some great articles that compile a bunch of free resources for SaaS and Product Design. Their article on Product Design Podcasts is a great place to look for top podcasts that cover a plethora of topics with industry leaders. Podcasts are an excellent place to start learning and to gain insight from people who have been in your position before and have made a career in Product Design. Additionally, they have other articles accompanied by videos that cover specific design topics, such as designing awesome dashboards, UI style guides, and feature activation. This is a great place to look no matter your skill level.
InVision
InVision provides a lot of great resources. In particular, we suggest the Principles of Product Design Handbook, by Aarron Walter the VP of design education at InVision. It covers all the bases, from customer research, sketching, to prototype use for feedback. Additionally, it touches on how to take a step back from your work to build partnerships and how doing so will transform your design process.
UserOnboard
Samuel Hulick, an expert UX & Strategy Consultant has a compilation of tools, tips, and tricks to help product designers. In this library of useful items, you can find teardowns, essays, and the UserOnboard podcast.
Intro to the Design of Everyday Things
If you’re involved in any sort of design, you should know who Don Norman is. He is the author of The Design of Everyday Things. This course is led by the man himself, Don Norman, as well as Kristian Simsarian and Chelsey Glasson. It is a summary of key ideas and concepts from Norman’s book. This is a course for anyone and everyone -designer or not- to enjoy and learn about design.
Microcopy FB Group
Starting out in any industry is hard, so having a community of peers and others in the same field as you can be a huge help. This Facebook group is especially for microcopy and UX writers. You can learn so much about the art of language design in this group. This is the biggest online microcopy and UX writing community, so if this is a skill you’re interested in it’s a good group to join.
Career in UX Course
Maybe you’re at the point where you feel you’ve got a good grasp on how to do the actual work… but how do you start and make a career out of being a UX designer? This course will give you actionable advice and relevant tips on how to take off in the industry. Find out what soft skills are useful, tips on building your portfolio, deciphering job roles, and the skills you’re likely to use the most on the job.
Figma Learn Design Course
This short course will help you jumpstart your design learning with 12 lessons. This course starts from square one, explaining what graphic design is and covering other topics like accessibility and inclusion, storytelling and typography. It is short and sweet, with most of the lessons taking around 5-10 minutes to read through. This is a wonderful place to start if you’re not yet at the point of committing to a week-long or month-long course.
Final words
This concludes the list of 9 free resources for new digital product designers. We enjoyed creating this list for you and hope you find it useful. Don’t forget to check back here regularly for more great content!
