UX Design for Beginners - The Essentials of UX + Usability

The very first question which everyone asks me is "Whats the difference in UI Design and UX Design? So this lecture is going to guide you all about the end products of both of these designs

Second question when you are new to UX Design is "Can I become a User Experience Designer?" and the answer is yes you can.

You will learn the different roles of UX Designers like

• User Investigators
• Information architecture experts
• Usability Experts
• Interaction Design Experts

and what are their duties and jobs

How to get most out of this course

Major parts of any UX Design is Interaction Design, understanding User psychology and use all your findings to repeat and refine your product

All the resources and PDF notes for UX Design Course

If you wonder about what is Human Centered Design then in this lecture you will learn about the basics of Human Centered Design or sometimes called User Centered Design

You will learn the basic principles behind Agile and Lean UX and how they are different from conventional UX process.

In this lecture, you will learn why Double Diamond model of design is and how we can use this model to find the problem and solve it using design. This model was proposed by Don Norman

Finding any problem Users are facing is a big challenge and you just need to have one skill to pin point problems and that is "Root cause analysis"

If you are designing an Apps screen or working on a prototype, these 7 stages of action are going to happen on each screen and within each task by the user so you better learn and apply it

A simple 5 second test to assess the usability of any Website or Mobile App you can do at your home or in Cafe or with your friends.

This quiz is about the things you have learned so far

Affordances, signifiers and anti-affordance are the most basic concept of User Experience Design. If you can't find the button of any device to use it, will you be able to even turn it on

I will show you a lot of examples of affordances and Signifiers in Physical products like electronic devices and also Digital products like Apps and Softwares

In this lesson, you will learn the difference in signifiers and affordances with the help of an Iphone 5, an iMac and a medicine bottle

Mapping means how you can allocate the natural layout of controls in any Interface. It could be an ATM machine buttons or it could be your kitchen Oven. Natural mapping helps enhance the UX of any product. Check out all the examples inside this lesson

We comprehend things by using all the knowledge in our head or by reading device usage manuals. So this conceptual models and mental models concept is really important if you want to design an intuitive product

We forget simple things very quickly. Today I forgot 3 times and took the wrong turn in my car twice. So this is linked to your Working memory and attention span. This is a limited resource of any User so use it wisely

See the real world practical examples of Working memory and attention span

If you create a totally new icons for your app then users might not recognize them because they haven't seen them before. This concept of Recognition rather than recall is a basic thing in User Experience and Usability. I have seen a lot of senior designers using it in totally wrong way all the time

Let me show you some Good and Bad usage of Recognition rather than recall concept

You should align your App and its functions with your User Expectations. Here you will learn how these expectation are actually formed

In this lecture, you are going to learn how user expectation are formed by seeing the live example of a Toy phone and an Iphone 5

Some really good and bad examples of User Expectations that have ruined the User Experience of a lot of eCommerce websites

Like our attention span, our focal vision is also limited so i will show you how to design for the limits of Peripheral vision

Let me show you the good and bad example usage of Peripheral vision and focal vision and how it improves the UX of websites and Apps

Along with user needs and requirements, you also need to take into consideration the context of use. Whats the environment where your user uses your App? Do he uses it at night or in the morning in Sunlight. This will change the whole design if you get it right

In this lecture, you will see me in action showing you two similar products with different context of use and that is why their designs are totally different

Stakeholders are the second important part of UX Design. They have their own goals and aims for the product. As a UX Designer, you need to align the User and Stakeholders Goals as close as you can

You will learn the basics of information architecture and information hierarchy in this lesson with me

In this lesson, I will show you more than 10 examples and best practices of website navigation and Information architecture

Human Behavior plays an integral part in UX Design. You must have knowledge of how humans behave, what is built into their nature by default and how they make decisions or look for information

Most of the decisions we make are by our Unconscious mind. Human Behavior plays an integral part in UX Design. You must have knowledge of how humans behave, what is built into their nature by default and how they make decisions or look for information

Do your website or App needs a redesign? Before going into redesign, see how a simple change can effect your users and they might stop using your product or App

Our goals can make us blind to everything that is not our goal. This can drastically improve your Product if you know what the user goals are and what they are aiming for while using your product

Practical examples of Human Behavior, decision paralysis, goals and what happened with Yahoo and Digg when they redesigned their websites

What are F and Z patterns? How users scan content on your website or App and what affects conversion rate. So a lot of examples of how we read, scan and use digital products

First impressions and Discoverability are going to play a vital role in defining what your App or product is all about. If your users can't figure out what your Website does in the first 5 seconds, there is a serious UX problem with your website.

If some Video game or an App is too difficult to learn, how long will you try to play it if you can't learn the controls and game play in the first few minutes.

In this lecture, you will learn the Learn-ability concept of UX and Usability and the ways to enhance the learnability of your product

Most of the devices or Apps you use informs you with Visual or Audio Feedback. You will learn how much important is feedback in the Design of any product and how you can use it to improve the UX of your App or Website

A lot of examples of Visual or Audio Feedback. I will show you latest voice controlled devices and how they use Feedback to inform user

Feedback must be related to some object. If it leaves the context or outside of the context, it has no meaning. I will share with you the problem I see in Walmart Feedback and why it is not effective

Your App or Website should look, feel and function the same across all different devices like Laptop, PC, Tablet and Smart Phone. You will see the example of WhatsApp and how they are breaking this rule of consistency and why

Constraints are limitations we put to enhance the UX of any device or Digital product. I will show you examples from Physical and Digital products so you can understand the concept of Constraints and how they can even increase the revenue of your products

Users are always going to make mistakes. Here you will learn the difference in a Slip and a mistake and how to avoid them in the first place to improve the UX of your Apps or Websites

When an error occurs, users get frustrated. You need to help them correct the error and also try to stop it from happening in the first place. I will show you a lot of good and bad examples to design for errors and enhance the experience of user

The human need for control can be traced back to our earliest roots. I will show you how we can use this Human behavior to our advantage and we always need to empower our users to satisfy them

We humans can't consume or handle large amount of information but we love bite sized chunks of information. That is why Grouping and chunking can make more sense of your interface and controls to your users 

Humans are limited in capacity. We can't operate or use any device or machine for too long. We have physical and mental limits. You need to learn and keep these limits in mind when designing a Mobile App, Website or a digital or physical product

Our human brains recognize things easily if they have encountered a similar pattern in the past. So if you deviate a lot from this pattern user's brain follows, then you are making it difficult for the user to use your product.

Don't re-invent the wheel if you want to improve User Experience

Don't burden your users with difficult calculations or let them memorize long passwords.

Solve these problems yourselves to have good User experience

Users don't wait for more than 5 seconds to load an App or Website so here in this lecture, you will learn how Speed effects User Satisfaction and how to use delays in the proper way

Most of the users are not doing to change the Default settings of your App or Product so use them wisely. Your Smart defaults should cover most of your users base and let the power of suggestion work like a charm

You need to guide and train your user at each step to let them achieve their goals and complete their tasks. In this lecture, i will show you ways to train and guide user with a lot of examples

Users don't like hurdles in the path of their goals so if you put a lot of them, they will quit using your App or Product. I will show you examples how number of form fields can lower user signups and it can turn your user away from your product

Error codes like ex00909371 occurred cant be understood by your users so you need to use the natural language as much as you can and also the way to rectify that error to improve UX of your Apps and Softwares

Natural language forms are in trend these days and proven to improve conversion rates by 5 folds. In this lesson i will show you Natural language or Conversational forms

Timing of notifications and errors plays an important role in comprehending in timely manner what happened

You will learn in this lesson about Google Analytics and other tools like Hotjar and how to use them to reveal more information about your users. Also i will show you how you can record video of users using your App or Website

Big companies like Amazon and Google are using data to predict and create suggestion based on the past behavior of the user. I will show you examples of Data Driven or Anticipatory Design which could be the thing of the future in User Experience Design

All the additional reads and links to different stats websites and IDEO Design kit. Use this google document to get all the resources i promised

This is the solution to the assignment I gave you above, do watch it. Few students might have missed it so here is my solution to UX problems

So now what

Discount coupons to all my other courses about UI, UX and Freelancing