User-centered frontend developers are in demand. Where do you learn best practices? What resources do you use to learn basic and more advanced aspects of UX and design that meets high standards of usability and accessibility? Which free courses, blogs, ebooks would you recommend?
Let me start with the first few that I use. I hope you will add your favorites to this list with a short info about each.
Luke Wroblewski
Great mentor for mobile UX: look at his blog, presentations, books, tutorials on youtube, twitter account.
Ebooks from UXPin
Great source of free design books focused on usability. They also write a nice blog focusing on UX.
UX planet (by Nick Babich) and similar Medium publications
Nick writes great articles on basics of usable software. He is great at examples and his explanations are great to follow.
There are lists like this https://medium.com/interactive-mind/the-only-ux-reading-list-ever-d420edb3f4ff#.xkm2w3haq
They are easy to find but I’d love to hear what you like and use being first of all a frontend developer not a designer. I am looking for smart courses and bibles like Don’t Make Me Think. I am looking for experience shared from the perspective of user-centered frontend developers who have to also find time to develop in code, not only in design.
@ewathedoer I have used a variety of resources just-in-time, such as ux.stackexchange.com, where I’ve asked some questions and also found other helpful answers.
When I ask most UX Designers which book they fuond to be most helpful, many of them respond Don’t Make Me Think.
I read this entire book in a single afternoon, and I must say that it was worth the time investment. It’s filled with great insights.
I am also subscribed to UX Planet on Medium. They have great articles every week, and I enjoy reading them on my phone while I’m away from my computer.
Yes, ux.stackexchange.com is great for getting quick insights. I am also using this when it comes to design. It´s simply like stackoverflow or quora for questions, so for sure worth recommending for those who haven´t been there yet. There is huge probability that your design concern was already discussed there.
When it comes to smart quick guides I also like podcasts on design like UIE series with Jared Spool, or UXpod with Gerry Gaffney. Having great guests they discuss great exampes and share amazing experience bank.
I like Scott Klemmer and the curriculum seems to cover the basics. Thanks for sharing @valpryz .
Maybe I will take it when it repeats, now it’s a bit too short time for me to fit it in between other already planned tasks. Do you know if they repeat this course? Sometimes they do do in with Coursera courses.
What about the price? Do you think it’s worth? Do you have any comparison with the similar set on the market?
You may also find NN articles and reports interesting, they focus a lot on usability and actual study conducted which is a great source for conclusions and looking for a specific issues while designing. Have a look at https://www.nngroup.com/
Let’s add this resource to the UX resource list because they are quite useful when it comes to what users actually do. Sure, there is no need to read them all, but they are great to dig deeper into chosen aspects.
“Don’t Make Me Think” was definitely my favorite as well.
@ewathedoer One other resource I found super helpful was the All You Can Learn video series. It has hundreds of videos that cover all aspects of user-centered thinking. You should be able to get a 14 day free trial, that’s what I did when I started with it. The presentations are from experts, but they do a really good job of bringing it down to earth.
@kevinmanual I was watching a few tutorials from there that I met for free, they were really of a great quality. I didn’t know that they also offer trials to check them out. Thanks for sharing the news and adding the resource to the list.
Here are some resources (not necessarily free) I highly recommend.
The User Experience Team of One Leah Buley, 2013 Rosenfeld Media
A brilliant handbook on both the theory and practice of UX design, aimed at those who don’t have the time or resources to do it.
The Non-Designer’s Design Book Robin Williams, 2014 Peachpit Press
A very accessible & practical introduction to graphic design. Not web-specific, but the same fundamentals will apply.
design+code
A nice walkthrough of both designing and building an iOS app.
Hack Design has some good lessons, which are essentially groups of links to other resources/articles. Here is the first one in User Experience Section.
