What resources do you use to learn UX?

#1

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.

  1. Luke Wroblewski
    Great mentor for mobile UX: look at his blog, presentations, books, tutorials on youtube, twitter account.

  2. Ebooks from UXPin
    Great source of free design books focused on usability. They also write a nice blog focusing on UX.

  3. 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.

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I need to develop my "good taste" to create websites
#2

@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.

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#3

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.

We also have some great articles on Free Code Camp’s Medium publication focused on UX and Design in general as well: https://medium.freecodecamp.com/tagged/ux

These include the excellent User Experience explained in 5 minutes for newbie front end developers

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#4

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.

From the bibles I recently started reading Mobile Design Pattern Gallery. It´s great because of the examples of patterns and anti’patterns. Another worth recommending position after reading Krug´s works. Have a look at the fragment here https://books.google.es/books/about/Mobile_Design_Pattern_Gallery_Color_Edit.html?id=5dwZmWLehicC&redir_esc=y

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#5

I would also recommend : https://studio.uxpin.com/ebooks/?_ga=1.109533248.453835931.1462799934 this. It’s UXPin but they offer some really good free UX e-books.

#6

You can also try this ressource at Coursera curriculum for free Coursera UX Specialization

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#7

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?

#8

Yeah, this is the exact list I mentioned earlier. They are great resource.

If you like them, you may also have a look at User Testing and their free e-books
https://www.usertesting.com/resources/ebooks?utm_source=Marketo&utm_medium=Landing+Page&utm_content=Header&utm_campaign=UX+Research+Methodology+eBook

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#9

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.

#10

UX Apprentice - I love this - you must check this out.

A free curriculum like the odin project or freecodecamp but for UX
https://www.springboard.com/learning-paths/user-experience-design/

31 day crash course on UX - a high quality course http://thehipperelement.com/post/75476711614/ux-crash-course-31-fundamentals

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#11

There are also these two. Thought they were worth sharing.

From a UX design faculty member http://jessicaivins.net/ux-resources-for-beginners/

An exhaustive but curated list of the best resources for design and code - webfieldmanual.com

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#12

@nidafarooqui thanks for sharing, Springboard is on my to do list now :slight_smile:

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#13

“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.

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#14

@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.

#15

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.

uxmastery.com
A very good blog for beginners in UX.
http://uxmastery.com/

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.

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#16

At UX mastery they have this great part called resources, http://uxmastery.com/resources/
Thanks for sharing @stewartmurrie!

I will also have a look at http://community.uxmastery.com/ there.

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#17

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.

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#18

@ewathedoer I really like everything here although it is a little overkill since her audience is people who want to become professional designers.

http://www.karenx.com/blog/how-to-become-a-designer-without-going-to-design-school/

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#19

Yes - Hack Design is definitely worth the time investment. You can wait for the emails to arrive or binge on the lessons :slight_smile:

#20

Another list of resources to the topic: http://www.rtfmanual.io/userexperience