UX Design Foundations - From Newbie to Confident UXer!

Explore the design thinking process and the three flavors of user research—discovery, validation, and user testing—integrating research at every touchpoint in this iterative process to build for real users.

Explore how usability research methodologies filter the usability of our solutions, distinguishing generative research for new products from evaluative research for existing ones, and follow discovery, testing, and validation cycles.

Explore usability heuristics from Nielsen and Norman, including visibility of system status, match with the real world, consistency, and recognition over recall, and apply heuristics evaluation to any experience.

Explore the usability heuristic of matching the system with the physical world by using icons and colors that map to real-world objects, like a bell for notifications.

Offer users control and freedom by enabling actions like saving drafts, discarding changes, returning later, and editing or re-editing, fostering a human-centered experience.

Explore how consistency and standards create a unified look and feel across apps, so users transfer expectations from Uber to Uber Eats and from Word to Excel to PowerPoint.

Show users where they are with visible navigational elements that reveal their location in the interface, emphasizing the visibility of the system within the information architecture.

Implement error prevention by requiring users to rewrite passwords and blocking copy-paste during account creation to ensure accuracy. Validate emails and phone numbers to reduce input mistakes.

Reduce cognitive load by presenting clear, remembered actions that minimize memory strain. Offer quick options like reorder to let users complete tasks without recalling past choices.

Wrap up the key usability heuristics by highlighting the most common ones to keep in mind when building or evaluating products through evaluative research.

Quantify user behavior through data and analytics in quantitative research, measuring clicks, conversions, exits, scrolling, and feedback with tools like Google Analytics and Pendo to reveal what users do.

Analyze the market to compare current offerings and competitor features, and use analytics tools like Google Analytics and Pendo to track metrics such as time on site and user flow.

Conduct usability testing by having users perform tasks with scenarios using online or in-person prototypes like Figma, test often and early, and identify where the app experience fails.

Learn to run A/B testing by comparing two design versions, test with real users, analyze analytics, and pick the best performing variant for landing pages, e-commerce, and embedded experiences.

Learn how surveys in UX design foundations collect users' experiences, use scale questions to obtain numerical data, and include multiple choice and checkbox options to balance qualitative and quantitative insights.

Practice qualitative user research to build empathy by observing behaviors and emotions, talking to people, and reading nonverbal cues; apply it at any project stage to evaluate an existing application.

Master user interviews as a core qualitative method, using interview guides, follow-up questions, and contextual inquiries to observe people in natural settings and support ethnographic research.

Focus groups use group discussions moderated rather than interviewed, with risk of groupthink and collectivist culture bias; a skilled moderator fosters open discussion and idea exchange.

Dive into a user research project using design thinking, starting with a problem statement, reframing, point of view statements, and interview guides. Analyze, synthesize, and ideate through field research.

Design thinking blends a mindset and an approach to user research. Think like a designer to create products and tools that make people's lives easier and less frustrating.

Frame the problem as a people challenge: how might we retain and grow women at ABC software company by improving their authentic engagement and career support through user research.

Learn how to discover user needs through design thinking, user interviews, observation, lo-fi and hi-fi prototyping, testing, and iteration to drive market adoption.

Deliver practical note-taking tips for interviews without a note taker, emphasizing recording, noting significant data, quotes, surprises, and turning notes into one-idea sticky notes with tools like Figjam and Miro.

Prepare your interview guide and conduct user interviews solo or with a team, interviewing 2–3 people for 30–45 minutes, and adapt questions for managers, individual contributors, women, or men.

Master insights interviews by prompting stories, asking for more detail, and summarizing to confirm understanding. Emphasize thinking out loud, valuing experiences and opinions, and upholding confidentiality.

Analyze data points on stickies in Miro or Figjam, with one observation each, then define and reframe the problem about why women aren’t growing or expressing authentic selves.

Analyze data to uncover deeper insights, using tagging and color coding to interpret pain points, challenges, delights, and solution ideas, and link your role to goals.

Synthesize data by clustering post-its into themes, whether digital or real life, then assign meaningful titles to themes, highlighting communication and translation between design and development for faster prototyping.

Analyze and synthesize interview data to transform insights into clusters during the defining phase, then share outcomes and reflections.

Create a basic persona from interview themes using templates, naming it to reflect group needs, motivations, and problems. Select the top problem to solve for the next ux research step.

Turn your persona insights into a brainstorming session by ideating steps, visualizing the user sees, does, and feels, and sketching the experience with storyboards using simple tools.

Create fictional personas that capture the key characteristics, needs, goals, and behaviors of a target user group to maintain empathy, serve as a reference, summarize interviews, and guide decisions.

Learn how user walkthroughs gather initial feedback on concepts in the early design phase, using discussion guides and pilot studies to validate ideas before prototyping.

Validate early ideas by testing alternatives with users, verify assumptions, map concepts to the problem, discard undesired ideas, and interview 2 to 3 end users from your network.

Learn open, ego-free user validation through walkthroughs that reveal real problems, and test storyboards or flows with think-aloud feedback to guide evidence-based design decisions.

Prepare for your validation interview by greeting the user, presenting context, and walking them through your storyboard, while asking for alternatives and feedback and conducting 2–3 interviews for 30–45 minutes.

Test and iterate by incorporating feedback, making executive decisions on what to implement, and adjusting your solution to align with end-user needs discovered through interviews.

Pitch your solution to real people and test its viability. Tell a story that connects with the audience and end-user persona.

Craft a compelling research insights story by defining the what, who, and how of the problem, then reveal the persona's current state and how the solution delivers the happy ending.

Practice delivering a concise under four-minute pitch that shows how your solution helps the end user. Record an unlisted video for feedback and tailor the pitch to investors or stakeholders.

Compare story and role‑play in research storytelling, noting that role play with others can be more powerful. Demonstrate its impact using Synthesia AI voices, especially for startups.

Master rubrics for research insights presentations by evaluating empathy, utility, and innovation; understand targets and problems; present convincing user needs and social concepts for career growth and retention.

The lecture walks through a real-life end user research process, from discovery to data synthesis, forming point of view statements to guide UX improvements for a documentation site.

Master wireframing from paper to digital using Miro and Figma, before high-fidelity design; explore a persona, storyboard, and SAP Scenes kit to shape the solution.

Sign in to Figma with Google or email, open a design file in the editor, and master move and scale, V and K modes, on the infinite canvas.

Explore the figma space by starting a design file or figjam board, import from sketch or adobe xd, and identify design files by the blue icon within the team–project–files hierarchy.

Explore the Figma community to accelerate your design process by using free and paid templates for real inspiration, copying and duplicating files, and saving local copies to drafts.

Explore Figjam, Figma's collaborative whiteboard, with templates for user research, process flows, personas, and team workshops, highlighting its distinct use from traditional Figma design files.

Learn to use design systems in Figma by importing a components library, enabling plug-and-play UI design, and drag-and-drop assembly.

Discover how to locate a design system in Figma, identify components and their master copies, and create a local design system file with draggable components and button variants.

Learn to use a design system in Figma by dragging components from a master library into your design pages, guided by assets and the purple master area.