- Course overview
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- What is user experience design?
- The UX design process
- Case studies
- Resources to get started with UX
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Resources to get started with UX
Design thinking exercises
TED talk given by Tom Wujec, the creator of the Make Toast Exercise.
Gamestorming is a set of co-creation tools used by innovators around the world. You can use many of these exercises to foster creativity and collaboration with your team.
5 great ideas to get ideas flowing with groups. Highly recommend the “Yes, BUT vs. Yes, AND”, the “100 Uses” and the “Draw a Vase” activities.
10 creativity challenges to exercise your creative confidence
A medium article from James Le with 10 creativity exercises that you can do by yourself or in a group. The Thirty Circles exercise is a great way to start a brainstorming session.
Design toolkits
User Experience for the Life Sciences (UXLS) Toolkit
A free toolkit developed by a community of User Experience (UX) practitioners from the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and software industries. The UX for Life Sciences Toolkit enables businesses and organisations to adopt UX principles and methods as they develop scientific software and services.
UK Government Digital Services Manual
A free guide from the Government Digital Service team that helps government teams create and run digital services that meet the UK Government’s Digital Service Standard.
A free toolkit for those just getting started with service design. Many of the resources are free to download PDFs that you can use at various stages of the design process.
A collection of communication tools and materials used throughout the design process for complex systems.
Design articles, blogs, and videos
The biggest and most authoritative library of open-source UX Design resources. I would highly recommend that you read The Principles of Service Design Thinking – Building Better Services as it provides readers with an excellent overview of how to create services using design thinking.
Video: UK Design Council on what service design is
A short 3-minute video on what service design is and how great services have been crucial to the success of various organisations and business.
UXPin Blog / UX Planet / Nielsen Norman Group Blog
Three very well known blogs with a large number of articles that discuss everything from how to do user research to design ideas to how to test your service remotely. UXPin’s The practical guide to empathy maps: 10-minute user personas post inspired the empathy map exercise.
Laws of UX is a collection of design principles that you can consider when (re)-designing a user interface.
A collection of 35 of the most common UX myths and research/findings that debunk each one.
Designing features using Job Stories
An excellent article on how using the Jobs To Be Done framework can help overcome the issue of personas that make incorrect assumptions.
The True ROI of UX: Convincing the Executive Suite and The True ROI of UX: B2B Redesign Case Studies
Two excellent articles that discuss strategies for convincing senior stakeholders about the value of UX to both internal and external users.
Free resources for research and design activities
Free platform that can be used to run surveys or process feedback forms.
Trello allows you to create “boards” with individual cards that can be used to track work or ideas. Can be used individually or for teams.
Zapier helps you automate some of the most mundane tasks – like updating an email list – and with a focus on interoperability, they make it easy to use multiple systems.
Scheduling interviews with users can take up a considerable amount of time. Make it easier by setting up Calendly and allowing users to select a day/time to meet with you at a mutually-convenient time – without the need for endless back-and-forth emails.
OptimalWorkshop offers a range of platforms that are useful for the empathy and insights phases of the design process. I would recommend checking out the first-click testing and card sorting features as those don’t require extensive investments of time or resources to complete.
Miro is a collaborative online whiteboard system that is perfect for remote meetings and collaboration. It has a range of templates that you can use to solve specific design or project management challenges. The free tier allows for up to 3 editable boards that can be shared with anybody.
InVision allows you to upload static mockups and create a clickable prototype with a link that you can share with users to solicit feedback on proposed designs.
BrowserStack is a platform that allows you to test your website or bioinformatics service using a more than 2000+ devices and browsers. Open source software qualifies for 5 licenses with full access to all BrowserStack functionality.
Both The Noun Project and FlatIcon have over a million icons that can be used for research and design projects.
Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash are all repositories with thousands of royalty-free images that you can use for a variety of research and design projects.