User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide v1

100% booked

Beginner

Closed for enrollment

How This Course Will Help Your Career

User experience, or UX, has been a buzzword since about 2005. Chances are, you’ve heard of the term, or even have it on your portfolio. But your understanding of what the term “user experience” means might be wrong—or, more accurately, insufficient.

“[User experience] is used by people to say ‘I’m a user experience designer, I design websites’, or ‘I design apps.’ And they have no clue as to what they’re doing, and they think the experience is that simple device, the website, or the app, or who knows what. No! It’s everything—it’s the way you experience the world, it’s the way you experience your life, it’s the way you experience the service. Or, yeah, an app or a computer system. But it’s a system that’s everything.”
— Don Norman, pioneer and inventor of the term “user experience”¹

Most people fail to see the whole picture of “user experience.” And when you can’t see the forest for the trees, you’re missing a lot of factors that help to create an optimal user experience. That’s why having a comprehensive understanding of the entire umbrella of “user experience” is critical, backed with solid theory—especially since customer intelligence agency Walker predicts that experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020².

Through this course, you will gain a thorough understanding of the various design principles that come together to create a user’s experience of using a product or service. Through this, you’ll learn how to design a product or service properly, one that will avoid any design pitfalls that blight your competitors’ offerings.

What you will learn

Areas of study categorized under the umbrella of “user experience”
The separately conceived yet converging design principles established over the last four decades
Some of the psychology underlying these principles
Key concepts within the subject
A number of the cognitive processes underlying human-computer interaction
The role of visual perception in the viewing experience
Examples of good and bad design to help you avoid common mistakes
The importance of usability over aesthetics

Who should take this course

This is a beginner-level course suitable for newcomers and experienced practitioners alike:

UX designers looking to boost their work experience with evidence-based theoretical knowledge
Project managers who want to build user-centered products that stand out from the competition
Software engineers interested in understanding important design concepts such as usability and human-computer interaction
Entrepreneurs who want to gain a deep understanding of “user experience” in order to ship the best products
Marketers looking to gain a holistic view of what constitutes a user’s experience with a product or brand
Newcomers to design who are considering making a switch to UX design

Courses in the Interaction Design Foundation are designed to contain comprehensive, evidence-based content, while ensuring that the learning curve is never too steep. All participants will have the opportunity to share ideas, seek help with tests, and enjoy the social aspects afforded by our open and friendly forum.

Learn and work with a global team of designers

When you take part in this course, you will join a global multidisciplinary team working on the course and the exercises at the same time as you. You will work together to improve your skills and understanding. Your course group will be made up of an incredibly diverse group of professionals, all of whom have the same objective—to become successful designers. It’s your chance to learn, grow, and network with your peers across the planet.

¹ Don Norman: The term “UX”, YouTube

² Customers 2020, Walker

Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate

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

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

Practical Info

Price: Free for Members

Take as many courses as you want for a flat fee.
Self-Paced Online Course with No Deadlines

Never miss a class or a deadline.
Permanent Access to Course Material

Access your course material for the entire duration of your membership.
Online Lessons with Optional Meetups

Take your online courses from anywhere. Join optional meetups in your city.
92 hours 24 mins over 11 weeks (Estimated)

No time limit to finish a course, take as much time as you need.
Grading by Experts, Not Machines

Experts grade your answers—that's why our Course Certificates are credible.
Learn on Any Device

Learn at the office, on your sofa and on the go.

Lessons in This Course

Each week, one lesson becomes available.
There's no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines.
Estimated learning time: 92 hours 24 mins spread over 11 weeks .

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 37 mins.

0.1: A Beginner's Guide to User Experience (7 mins)
0.2: An introduction to courses from the Interaction Design Foundation (37 mins)
0.3: Let Our Community Help You (1 min)
0.4: Meet your peers online in our discussion forums (6 mins)
0.5: Global Skills, Local Jobs: Build Your Network in Your Area (1 min)
0.6: The Timeless Nature of IxDF Courses (21 mins)
0.7: How to Earn Your Course Certificate (16 mins)
0.8: Mandatory vs. Optional Lesson Items (7 mins)
0.9: A Mix Between Video-Based and Text-Based Lesson Content (6 mins)

Lesson 1: User Experience: An Introduction and Key Concepts

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 17 hours 25 mins.

1.1: The Subject of User Experience (1 hour 46 mins)
1.2: What Is Usability? (1 hour 18 mins)
1.3: What the #$%@ is UX Design? (20 mins)
1.4: Interactive Experience (6 mins)
1.5: The Principle of 'Visibility' (37 mins)
1.6: The Principle of 'Findability' (37 mins)
1.7: The Principle of 'Learnability' (1 hour 8 mins)
1.8: Following the Information Scent (47 mins)
1.9: Affordances (41 mins)
1.10: Mapping (34 mins)
1.11: Constraints (33 mins)
1.12: Feedback (1 hour 7 mins)
1.13: Hick's Law (37 mins)
1.14: Fitts's Law (36 mins)
1.15: A Summary of UX Concepts (6 hours 8 mins)
1.16: User Experience - Marc's introduction to User Experience and Experience Design (33 mins)
1.17: Design Principles (6 mins)

Lesson 2: User Interface Design Guidelines

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 13 hours 21 mins.

2.1: Shneiderman’s Eight Golden Rules Will Help You Design Better Interfaces (51 mins)
2.2: User Interface Design Guidelines: 10 Rules of Thumb (52 mins)
2.3: Principle of Consistency and Standards in User Interface Design (52 mins)
2.4: Visibility of System Status (37 mins)
2.5: Match System to Real-World (37 mins)
2.6: User Control and Freedom (36 mins)
2.7: Error Prevention (33 mins)
2.8: Recognition Vs. Recall (33 mins)
2.9: Flexibility and Efficiency of Use (37 mins)
2.10: Aesthetic and Minimalist Design (36 mins)
2.11: Aesthetic and Minimalist Design - More Needed Than Ever (32 mins)
2.12: Offer Informative Feedback (32 mins)
2.13: Help and Documentation (32 mins)
2.14: 'Permit Easy Reversal of Actions' (35 mins)
2.15: Provide Informative Feedback (36 mins)
2.16: Reduce Short-Term Memory Load (33 mins)
2.17: Support Internal Locus of Control (40 mins)
2.18: The Psychological Basis for UI Design Rules (2 hours 31 mins)
2.19: The Ten User Experience Design Principles A La Wordpress (5 mins)
2.20: Designing the User Experience (5 mins)
2.21: UI Design Failures (6 mins)

Lesson 3: The Gestalt Principles of Perceptual Organisation

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 9 hours 49 mins.

3.1: A Valuable List of Gestalt Principles (11 mins)
3.2: 'Law of Pragnanz' (39 mins)
3.3: Applying the Laws (37 mins)
3.4: 'Law of Similarity' (37 mins)
3.5: 'Law of Proximity' (38 mins)
3.6: Law of Familiarity/Meaningfulness (41 mins)
3.7: 'Law of Common Fate' (7 mins)
3.8: 'New' Grouping Laws (33 mins)
3.9: Gestalt Principles: 'New' Grouping Laws (40 mins)
3.10: The Law Of Element Connectedness (37 mins)
3.11: 'Law of Synchrony' (33 mins)
3.12: 'Law of Common Region' and The Origin of The Gestalt Laws (1 hour 36 mins)
3.13: Figure/Ground Organisation (40 mins)
3.14: 'Figure/Ground': Gestalt Psychology (38 mins)
3.15: Figure/Ground Organisation: An example of Figure/Ground (32 mins)
3.16: Design Considerations (34 mins)
3.17: Gestalt Principles in Practice (7 mins)

Lesson 4: Visual Perception and Colour Vision

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 13 hours 36 mins.

4.1: Understanding Human Vision (42 mins)
4.2: The Fovea and Design (8 mins)
4.3: Anatomy and Function of the Eye (9 mins)
4.4: Colour Vision (40 mins)
4.5: Vision and Design: Using Colour (1 hour 9 mins)
4.6: Theories of Human Colour Perception (37 mins)
4.7: Colour Blindness (44 mins)
4.8: Photoreceptors fovea (1 hour 0 mins)
4.9: Object Perception (45 mins)
4.10: Visual Perception: Vision and Design (1 hour 13 mins)
4.11: Vision and Design: Using Images (40 mins)
4.12: Context and other influences (1 hour 44 mins)
4.13: Vision and Attention (50 mins)
4.14: Vanishing Head Illusion (32 mins)
4.15: Vision and Design (40 mins)
4.16: Visual Perception: Icon Design (1 hour 4 mins)
4.17: 25 Excellent Websites Using Bold Vibrant Colours (32 mins)
4.18: Color Vision 1: Color Basics (31 mins)
4.19: Visual Design: Positive and Negative Experience (6 mins)

Lesson 5: Usability Considerations

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 14 hours 55 mins.

5.1: Simply Simplify (31 mins)
5.2: Simplicity in Design (34 mins)
5.3: Simplify Task Structure (7 mins)
5.4: Simplify Navigation (38 mins)
5.5: Consistency (40 mins)
5.6: Avoid 'Tech-Speak' and Negative Affect (39 mins)
5.7: Don Norman: The Three Ways That Good Design Makes You Happy (56 mins)
5.8: User Experience - Marc's Advice on Designing with Experience in Mind (1 hour 35 mins)
5.9: User Experience - Marc's Main Guidelines and Ethical Considerations (1 hour 8 mins)
5.10: External Cognition (38 mins)
5.11: 'Chunking' (8 mins)
5.12: Drawing Users' Attention (39 mins)
5.13: Banner Blindness (35 mins)
5.14: Serial Position Effect (9 mins)
5.15: Customization Tools (36 mins)
5.16: Shortcuts and Memory (12 mins)
5.17: Retain Goal-Relevant Information (34 mins)
5.18: Security (35 mins)
5.19: Preventing Errors (33 mins)
5.20: Protect the Areas at Most Risk (31 mins)
5.21: Slow Loading Text: Designing Interfaces (23 mins)
5.22: Slow Loading Images: Designing Interfaces (37 mins)
5.23: Important Superficial Decisions (10 mins)
5.24: Context of Use (32 mins)
5.25: Focus On Users (32 mins)
5.26: Usability Considerations (31 mins)
5.27: Using Sound (7 mins)
5.28: Why Does User Experience Matter? (5 mins)
5.29: The Value of Experience Design (5 mins)
5.30: The UX Design Process (5 mins)
5.31: Discussion Exercise (6 mins)

Lesson 6: User Error: Who is to blame?

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours 40 mins.

6.1: British Midlands Flight 92 (14 mins)
6.2: Who is to blame? (1 hour 10 mins)
6.3: The USS Vincennes (43 mins)
6.4: The Air Inter Flight 148 Crash (38 mins)
6.5: The Space Shuttle Columbia (35 mins)
6.6: The Herald of Free Enterprise (7 mins)
6.7: The Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster (33 mins)
6.8: Air France Flight 447 (38 mins)
6.9: User Errors: What went Wrong? (7 mins)

Lesson 7: Usability Testing and Evaluation

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 8 hours 30 mins.

7.1: Usability Evaluation (4 hours 55 mins)
7.2: Recommended reading (2 mins)
7.3: The Importance of Usability Testing (7 mins)
7.4: 15 methods for ensuring user acceptance and business success (3 hours 19 mins)
7.5: A-Z Guide to Optimization (5 mins)
7.6: The movement toward mobile devices (5 mins)

Lesson 8: Inspection Methods: Practice and Application

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 1 min.

8.1: Heuristic Evaluation: Usability Inspection Methods (40 mins)
8.2: Cognitive Walkthrough: Usability Inspection Methods (39 mins)
8.3: User Experience - Future directions of User Experience and Experience Design (1 hour 8 mins)
8.4: When to use Which UX Methods (5 mins)
8.5: Customer Journey Maps — Walking a Mile in Your Customer’s Shoes (16 mins)
8.6: Quick Start Guide to UX Design (5 mins)
8.7: Is it time to Rethink your Website? (5 mins)
8.8: Carrying Out a Heuristic Evaluation of a Product (7 mins)

Lesson 9: Usability Testing: Practical Application

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 5 hours 30 mins.

9.1: Practical Issues: User-Centred Design (36 mins)
9.2: What are the user's needs? (1 hour 7 mins)
9.3: What are the alternative designs? (38 mins)
9.4: How do I choose an alternative design? (35 mins)
9.5: Integrating UCD and Other Life-Cycle Models (2 hours 16 mins)
9.6: Usability Testing (1 min)
9.7: Are you a UX Statistic? (5 mins)
9.8: A Guide to UX Careers (5 mins)
9.9: How to become a User Experience Designer (5 mins)
9.10: Community-based learning and networking (6 mins)

Lesson 10: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up

To be scheduled.

10.1: Course Evaluation (1 min)

How Others Have Benefited

Veena Sankaranarayanan, Australia

“I learnt a good deal from various lesson items and design examples. I also appreciate how repeating key topics helped me memorise them and kept me well involved. Thank you.”

Evgeni Manov, Bulgaria

“The quality of information provided surprised me!! Good job IDF!! Keep moving forward!”

Donato Colatorti, Italy

“I'm very happy to have concluded this course. I learnt lot of interesting things... so thank you!”

See other reviews

How It Works

Take online courses by industry experts

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

Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to prove your skills.
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 “User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide v1”. Take other courses at no additional cost. Make a concrete step forward in your career path today.

Advance my career now

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you provide mostly beginner or more advanced courses?

You’ll find courses for all levels—whether you're an aspiring designer, an experienced designer, or a professional looking to implement design principles in your work.

Best-rated beginner design courses, a great place to start or a good refresher for seasoned designers:

Best-rated advanced design courses:

I missed the enrollment, and now the course has closed. What can I do?

Don't worry if you miss the course. We will re-run it shortly. We open and close enrollment to control the classroom size.

Why? Networking is a large part of your learning journey, so we want just the right number of people inside the courses. That’s also why we display the "XX% booked" on our course icons.

If it’s very important that you enroll now, please let us know by emailing us at hello@interaction-design.org.

Can I take more than one course at a time?

With a Professional membership, you can take as many courses as you’d like, at no extra cost. For example, if there are over 40 active courses, you can enroll in all of them at the same time and move from one to another freely.

With a Student membership, you can take a maximum of two courses at the same time. You can still take as many courses as you like—free of extra charges. You’d just have to finish (or drop them) so that you don’t have more than two ongoing courses at any one time.

Once you’re enrolled, you can take all the time you need to complete a given course.

Will I receive my Course Certificate?

You’ll get a digital industry-recognized course certificate at no extra cost every time you complete a course with a score of 70% or more.

Certificates never expire and can be saved as a .jpg file, so they’re easy to share. There’s no limit to how many certificates you can earn during your membership.

You can see an example of a Course Certificate at the bottom of the Course Catalogue.

There’s no specified time by which certificates must be awarded. Instead, they’re given to you as and when you’ve answered all quiz questions. This applies even if the questions are answered long after the official end date of the course.

How long does it take to complete a course?

Course lengths vary to fit your schedule. You can squeeze in short sessions daily or dive deep in longer bursts—whatever fits your busy life.

The course outline provides a rough estimate of how much time you would spend learning before enrolling.

Once enrolled in a course, you’ll gain access to a new lesson each week. You’re free to complete the lessons without any deadlines or end dates.

If you need to unlock lesson content sooner, please let us know by emailing us at hello@interaction-design.org.

When will my answers be marked/graded, and how will they be graded?

Your answers will be graded by our experts and course instructors (not by machines) approximately two weeks after you submit your work.

We mark/grade in so-called "sprints." This is much more efficient than doing little batches every day. It's part of our lean/agile work philosophy and is one of the factors that keeps our membership prices so low.

I’m falling behind the course schedule and new lessons are starting before I’ve completed the previous lesson(s). Will I be locked out of these unfinished lessons?

No, you’ll not be locked out of any lesson or course.

You’ll have access to all course materials throughout your membership. There’s no pressure to keep at the same pace as the lesson release dates.

Sticking to a schedule has its benefits. When you follow along with other members, you can reap the benefits of our online community, ask questions, and exchange ideas. This has the potential to accelerate your learning.

I scored less than 70% in a course, so I didn't qualify for a certificate. Can I try again?

Yes! Everyone's learning journey looks different, and we encourage you to continue learning and improving your progress.

To retake a course, just follow these steps:

NB: Before you start, please note that when you drop a course, you’ll lose your progress and any answers you submit. Screenshot or save answers you'd like to reuse.

1. Go to your profile and click on the course you'd like to retake.

2. Underneath your progress bar at the top of your screen, you'll see “UX Courses” with an arrow (>) pointing to the course landing page.

3. Click through to the landing page and scroll to the bottom.

4. Tap the red button that says, “Drop my course now.”

5. Head back to our UX Courses page and re-enroll yourself in the course.

You're all set to try again!

In some cases, we can open lessons for members who are retaking a course so that they don't have to wait for familiar lessons to unlock each week. If you'd like us to do this, please let us know at hello@interaction-design.org.

User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide v1

How This Course Will Help Your Career

What you will learn

Who should take this course

Learn and work with a global team of designers

Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate

Lessons in This Course

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

Lesson 1: User Experience: An Introduction and Key Concepts

Lesson 2: User Interface Design Guidelines

Lesson 3: The Gestalt Principles of Perceptual Organisation

Lesson 4: Visual Perception and Colour Vision

Lesson 5: Usability Considerations

Lesson 6: User Error: Who is to blame?

Lesson 7: Usability Testing and Evaluation

Lesson 8: Inspection Methods: Practice and Application

Lesson 9: Usability Testing: Practical Application

Lesson 10: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up

How Others Have Benefited

Veena Sankaranarayanan, Australia

Evgeni Manov, Bulgaria

Donato Colatorti, Italy

How It Works

Start Advancing Your Career Now

Frequently Asked Questions

Popular related searches

Filters

Privacy Settings

Security

Enhanced Functionality

Referral Program

Error Reporting

Analytics Storage

Google

Advertising Storage

Personalization Storage

Advertising Personalization

User Data

Meta Pixel

Meta CAPI

LinkedIn Insights

LinkedIn CAPI

Google Ads Tag