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Mobile UX Design: The Beginner's Guide

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Beginner

How This Course Will Help Your Career

Mobile is everywhere—over 80% of the world’s population owns a smartphone. Half of the globe’s internet traffic comes from mobile. In fact, in Q2 of 2022, that number climbed to 58%. 

The user experience is different on mobile. A user’s comprehension drops by 50% when they move from desktop to mobile. To overcome this, your content, visual design, navigation, etc. needs to be twice as intuitive. 

Mobile is ubiquitous and inescapable, and it needs good user experience—that’s where you come in. 

Mobile UX design skills are now an essential part of any UX designer’s skill set. This course will provide you with the foundations of mobile UX so that you can break into this extensive market.

What You Will Learn

  • The key design considerations when designing for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. 

  • Different mobile design approaches, like adaptive and responsive design, and how to choose the best approach for your project. 

  • What context of use is and why it’s so important in the mobile environment.

  • A human-centered process for designing mobile experiences.

  • How to differentiate your mobile UX strategy.

  • The entire lifecycle of mobile UX design from research to launch.

  • A mobile-specific approach and heuristics to evaluate your mobile interfaces.

  • The importance of designing for inclusion and a framework to challenge your design decisions.

In the “Build Your Portfolio” project, you’ll find a series of practical exercises that will give you first-hand experience with the methods we cover. You will build on your project in each lesson so once you have completed the course you will have a thorough case study for your portfolio.

Mobile User Experience Design: Introduction, has been built on evidence-based research and practice. It is taught by the CEO of ExperienceDynamics.com, Frank Spillers, author, speaker and internationally respected Senior Usability practitioner.

Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate

Use your industry-recognized Course Certificate on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.

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Our courses and Course Certificates are trusted by these industry leaders:

Our clients: IBM, HP, Adobe, GE, Accenture, Allianz, Phillips, Deezer, Capgemin, Mcafee, SAP, Telenor, Cigna, British Parliament, State of New York

Is This Course Right for You?

This course is an introduction to mobile UX, so it’s suitable for both newcomers and experienced practitioners.

It’s not just those who are concerned with the design that can benefit from learning how to design mobile user experiences. We believe that in order for organizations to deliver the best user experiences and related business functions, they should have a strong understanding of the user experience and how it can be developed in a mobile environment. 

In particular, this course will benefit:

  • UX, UI and Web Designers—whether beginners or professionals—looking for industry-led expertise to supplement their knowledge and advance their careers.

  • Marketing Teams and Management looking to leverage the mobile environment for brand-building.

  • Web and App Developers looking to improve the usability of their products and to communicate better with designers and product managers.

  • UX Team Leaders and Product Managers looking to build a better product roadmap based on sound human-centered processes.

  • Operations Managers and/or anyone working with mobile experiences (web and app) and looking to improve the product performance for users and business stakeholders. 

Learn and Work with a Global Team of Designers

You’ll join a global community and work together to improve your skills and career opportunities. Connect with helpful peers and make friends with like-minded individuals as you push deeper into the exciting and booming industry of design.

Course Overview: What You'll Master

  • Each week, one lesson becomes available.
  • There's no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines.
  • Estimated learning time: 13 hours 17 mins spread over 7 weeks .

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 7 mins.

Lesson 1: Learn the Basics of Mobile User Experience

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 10 mins.

Lesson 2: How to Kick Start Your Mobile User Experience Design

Available anytime after Apr 07, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 23 mins.

Lesson 3: Understand the Mobile User Experience Design Process

Available anytime after Apr 14, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 47 mins.

Lesson 4: Use Heuristics to Validate Your Mobile UX Designs

Available anytime after Apr 21, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 49 mins.

Lesson 5: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up

Available anytime after Apr 28, 2025.

How Others Have Benefited

Sarah Reif

Sarah Reif, United States

“The examples were easy to follow and the mixed video/reading elements really complimented each other throughout. Frank did a really excellent job breaking down just how different the contexts of use are for mobile and how to adapt and think about those contexts when crafting mobile products.”

Rich McNabb

Rich McNabb, New Zealand

“Frank is a FANTASTIC instructor.”

Polina Pashkevich

Polina Pashkevich,

“Structured info and a lot of related materials for deeper learning.”

See other reviews

How It Works

  1. Take online courses by industry experts

    Lessons are self-paced so you'll never be late for class or miss a deadline.

  2. Get a Course Certificate

    Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to prove your skills.

  3. Advance your career

    Use your new skills in your existing job or to get a new job in UX design. Get help from our community.

Start Advancing Your Career Now

Join us to take “Mobile UX Design: The Beginner's Guide”. Take other courses at no additional cost. Make a concrete step forward in your career path today.

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Mobile UX Design: The Beginner's Guide
Closes in
05
hrs
12
mins
11
secs
37% booked

Mobile UX Design: The Beginner's Guide

1.2 - How to Optimize Your Designs for Smartphones vs Tablets

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  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:32

    Let's get into the differences between smartphones and tablets for a minute. You're familiar, I'm sure, with a phone and a tablet, but I just want to point out a couple of key distinctions. The other thing I wanted to point out is I'm not showing too many tablet examples in this course, because tablet is easier – the resolutions are much larger. And if you're on the mobile web, responsive design takes care of that.

  2. 00:00:32 --> 00:01:01

    The key, though, is to notice the difference. So, with smartphone we have *more distractions*, *smaller resolution*, *not always the primary access point*, that users are *multitasking*; they're in a *deep social and emotional context*. And that also includes *environmental factors* such as low lighting. And that they need to *know how to tap on objects*.

  3. 00:01:01 --> 00:01:30

    And notice that compared to a desktop, that you can click on things and you can have things like hovers; and on mobile, classically this is one of the big things when you start doing mobile design, is, 'Oh, you can't do that on mobile. Mobile doesn't support that.' Actually, mobile can support hovers with a CSS hover class. But just to say that those are kind of key distinctions for smartphone. And tablet itself is less fixed, so users are kind of sitting there;

  4. 00:01:30 --> 00:02:03

    in a way, easier to design for. If it's a mobile app, I guess that you're porting to a tablet as well – you know – as you usually do and then it's terrible if you don't, because if it's a mobile app and they just open it – and we're talking about an app now – and there's just a tiny little screen; it was optimized for mobile. So, you need to be respectful if you're doing a mobile app that you think natively in a mobile – in other words, you've got all that real estate and you want to lay things out nicely and have them feel and look appropriate to the tablet.

  5. 00:02:03 --> 00:02:25

    More kind of consumers using tablets at home, less used in business than, say, a mobile phone. Multi-user device, so tablets are often shared with other users in a family kind of situation or in a home. Of course, the resolution is larger. You still need the *tapability*, though, so that's the key.

Mobile UX Design: The Beginner's Guide

2.3 - Context of Use for Mobile

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  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:30

    So, you might as well go the extra mile and think about the *context of use*. Where's the user using it? What else is going on? What would be helpful to them? You know, and you gain these insights from user observations and research; going to those places and spaces, you know, being in that place – the airport, the hotel, where someone's trying to log in with their phone,

  2. 00:00:30 --> 00:01:02

    and going through that experience or having them do it and you observe them; maybe talking to them and seeing what their experiences have been with your domain. If you're designing something for a hospital, go to the hospital, go to the waiting room. If you're designing something for a waiting room experience, I talked to a friend who was designing something for a waiting room experience, and they were trying to gamify so that you know where you are and you're not pushed, so it's almost like a leaderboard – you're next up with the doctor. I was thinking: I was like, in a waiting room; what's in a waiting room?

  3. 00:01:02 --> 00:01:34

    Screaming kids, sick kids; you're sick maybe – maybe your arm's broken; sitting in a chair with other people, there's a social pressure in that situation. So, how could you lighten that up? You know – make it a little less tense. How can you make it a little bit more engaging, and therefore make it more pleasurable or more joyful to sort of wait for the doctor and know how long you have to wait? And that thinking is not impossible, but I had to go there in my mind;

  4. 00:01:34 --> 00:01:48

    I'll go to where the user is in my mind if I'm brainstorming. But usually I don't do this by brainstorming; I do this by going to places and spaces and observing and bringing that back to my design process, and that is the most important thing.

Mobile UX Design: The Beginner's Guide

3.2 - 5 Steps for Human-Centered Mobile Design

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  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:30

    In this five-step process to designing for mobile, I want to point out some of the aspects or steps that are so critical and tell you why they're so critical and explain a little bit about how they work. The first step, *assess*, is requirements, your internal priorities,

  2. 00:00:30 --> 00:01:05

    your business objectives. And so – that's for step one – the last step, step five, should be familiar as well, it's *sketch*. So, we'll also add sketch, review, refine and have that sort of iteration. But it's what happens in steps two, three and four that are really, really critical and make the difference in a mobile UX design that outperforms and differentiates and creates a very, very deep bond with users and in a way that what we call *user adoption*.

  3. 00:01:05 --> 00:01:36

    So, step two, *understand* user needs, and that means understand their context of use, problems they're trying to solve, their tasks, their goals, all the things that make up personas, and then make up journey maps. Once you do that very crucial user research step, it's step three where you *define* your value proposition and your emotional value. So, emotional value is what users get from the app so that you essentially support their tasks,

  4. 00:01:36 --> 00:02:01

    you support their goals, you support a social aspect of their experience. You help them by giving them features and functionality that they find useful. Maybe you surprise them pleasantly, delight them. Understand their cultural needs. Understand their safety needs. Whatever it might be, you define that value proposition,

  5. 00:02:01 --> 00:02:30

    but also emotional value, that chance to connect with a user in such a way that they feel at home with your app or mobile content. So, that's step three. Step four is where you take what you've learned from user needs and from defining your value proposition and your emotional value, and you then *create a UX strategy* that's like a blueprint for when you get to sketching in the next step.

  6. 00:02:30 --> 00:03:02

    So, a differentiated UX strategy is something that makes your app special and connects with your users in a special way. You can't just generate this internally. A lot of product folks have pressure in their jobs, product managers, to differentiate, and they typically rely on market research, focus groups, surveys, that kind of thing. That's market research. And so, what we're talking about is if you get into the behavior of your users,

  7. 00:03:02 --> 00:03:30

    if you really dig into their contextual experience and what surrounds it and what they do as they go through their day and their lives and how they live it – if you get into that, then you can understand their needs, define their value proposition and their emotional value in a way that helps you differentiate. So, it might be how you approach the design, what features you drop

  8. 00:03:30 --> 00:03:53

    or that you add. In other words, the priorities and the good decision-making is what all of UX is about. It's about good design decision-making, And this five-step process is based on a very powerful and proven approach that I've taken in my work over the years, and this is basically the way to do it.

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