You'll learn how to consistently improve your design skills by continuously getting inspired by the offline & the digital world around you, and by building a habit around collecting design inspiration, analyzing UI designs and practicing our design craft.
I'll explain how to collect and analyze designs and practice designing user flows, layouts and UI elements: I will show you some effective techniques, my favorite resources, and I'm going to give you many-many practice activities. As a result, you'll have an approach or framework for train your designer eye on a daily basis.
Main topics
Read more
You'll learn how to consistently improve your design skills by continuously getting inspired by the offline & the digital world around you, and by building a habit around collecting design inspiration, analyzing UI designs and practicing our design craft.
I'll explain how to collect and analyze designs and practice designing user flows, layouts and UI elements: I will show you some effective techniques, my favorite resources, and I'm going to give you many-many practice activities. As a result, you'll have an approach or framework for train your designer eye on a daily basis.
Main topics
You'll learn how to consistently improve your design skills by continuously getting inspired by the offline & the digital world around you, and by building a habit around collecting design inspiration, analyzing UI designs and practicing our design craft.
I'll explain how to collect and analyze designs and practice designing user flows, layouts and UI elements: I will show you some effective techniques, my favorite resources, and I'm going to give you many-many practice activities. As a result, you'll have an approach or framework for train your designer eye on a daily basis.
Main topics
getting inspired by the offline & the digital world around you
collecting design inspiration
analyzing UI designs
practicing and experimenting
conducting UX audits (coming soon)
This course is for your if
you read a lot about design theory, but there is a gap between your theoretical understanding and practice, or
you completed a design bootcamp (or you are in the process of completing one) but you don't have a plan for developing your designer eye on a consistent basis, or you just simply
need a systematic approach to develop your skills
So if
You are in the process of getting into design or
You are a designer or researcher who wants to work on UI or visual design skills
You are a student who needs some guidance
You just simply want to train your designer eye,
I’m confident that you’ll greatly benefit from this course.
This course is NOT
This is not a comprehensive design curriculum, review what is included in the course before purchasing it.
I won't teach you how to use a certain design tool (e.g. Figma or Sketch). However, you'll find most of the practice activities inside a Figma file, so it is easier to complete the assignments if you have a Figma account (it is free).
The course is not about an end-to-end UX/UI design process.
My goal
I'm a design mentor and teacher with 10+ years of professional experience, and throughout my years I've noticed that many designers don't know how to develop their design (UX, UI and visual design) skills effectively. They attend a bootcamp or some online courses, then they don't really know how they can improve their design skillset.
I wish I had known these tactics and approaches when I was a beginner designer.
If you are searching for a comprehensive, A to Z design course, then this is not the one you are after. However, my suggestion is that you should still apply this as a complementary course (e.g. if you are in the process of completing a design bootcamp), I promise that you will find a lot of gems inside it.
My goal is to constantly improve the course material, the first update is going to be a new section about UX Audits.
What's inside
Syllabus
Introduction to the course
In this course intro lecture, I talk about these:
Who the course is for
My goal with the course
UI design is 95% learnable (and it is enough)
What I mean by a "designer eye"
My framework for training your designer eye
Read more
Syllabus
In this course intro lecture, I talk about these:
Who the course is for
My goal with the course
UI design is 95% learnable (and it is enough)
What I mean by a "designer eye"
My framework for training your designer eye
Before diving in, this short lecture explains how to apply the course Figma file:
This is where I set up all the practice activities for you
I also add a playground where you can collect inspirational design and experiment (e.g. with creating shadows, gradients etc.)
In this section we’ll focus on the world around us, the offline experiences.
To summarize my advice, you should also get inspired by the world around you.
Using your designer eye should become your natural way of being. Something you don’t have to think about or you don’t have to turn on.
I'll give you the example of noticing the great package design of Oatly.
It is a good exercise to look around and find examples for good and bad design. In this lecture, I explain how you should do this, and I also give you examples.
You can learn a lot by observing how controls of a physical object work.
Natural mapping means that you use spatial correspondence when you connect the control and the resulting function.
Digital products and services are places, too.
Where am I and what can I do here? This is what the user asks when she first uses a digital product.
In this lecture, I’m going to show you various inspiration sources
For instance, I love playing games, and I always pay attention to design decisions when I play a board game.
I’ll present Aeropark as an example for getting inspired by visiting a physical space. Aeropark is an open air aviation museum located next to the Budapest International Airport.
To sum up, look around, observe the world around you to get inspired, and document your process, you’ll never know when you’ll need that specific piece of inspiration.
In the following sections (starting with this one), we are going to zoom in to digital products and services, and in this section I'm going to talk about collecting design inspiration, like what you should collect, what are the main cases of collecting inspiration, what my advice is in terms of the workflow and how to add sketching to the mix.
So what should you collect and how should you collect it?
You should learn about existing design solutions and develop a design pattern knowledge. Btw. to put it simply, design pattern is a common solution to a problem in product design.
In this lecture, I tell you whaat you should collect more specifically (e.g. user flows, animations)
There are at least 3 cases of collecting design inspiration and training your designer eye.
one is a regular training, e.g. 30 minutes at the beginning of each day, so we can say it is a habit
it can happen spontaneously, too, e.g. you capture some interesting steps of a registration flow
it can be a research for specific needs, e.g. during a UI design or graphic design project or for an article.
This lecture is about the 2nd and 3rd case of collecting inspiration: the spontaneous and the specific need case.
In this lecture, I talk a bit about the different tools and also about the importance of findability.
In this lecture I would like to show you some more inspiration sources from the digital world around us.
One great way of collecting design inspiration is sketching out the part you like. I explain the benefits of this approach in this lecture.
To close this section about collecting design inspiration, I would like to remind you that doing research is very important.
In this third section we are going to move on to the next level: how to analyze the UI designs you find interesting?
Switching from your user mindset to your designer mindset is key.
In this lecture, I talk about asking why, and I illustrate it by a lot of real life examples.
Up until this point we looked at some UIs and observed some things, but of course you can do this in a systematic way, too.
I’d like to show you some techniques for analyzing layouts and content structures.
Blockframing is like lightweight wireframeing, you draw blocks and other basic shapes to indicate the main parts of a page or screen, like the main content areas, elements of the navigation system and the main user actions.
A good training for your designer eye: analyze something that’s language you don’t understand.
One great practice for training your designer eye is to do a little design crit session on your own.
Before analyzing some Wise screens, here are some of my favorite resources in the topic of analyzing UIs.
Let’s take a look at a real-life example of analyzing UI design.
It’s a great practice to analyze a well-documented design, since after your own analysis and thinking about the design intentions on your own, you can check out the actual design intent.
Let’s say our job is to design an empty state for the Transactions screen of our neobank mobile app. How would you go about it?
Naturally, I won’t show you the whole design process, only the collecting and analyzing design inspiration aspect.
In this first lecture of the section I give you a short intro and a little advice.
One great way of practicing UI design and paying attention to every little detail is doing some copywork, meaning that you take a design you like, and you recreate it.
To continue using Wise as an example from the previous section, I’ll show you how you can do some copywork easily, and then how can you tweak it an experiment with it.
Here are some more examples for experimenting and making some tweaks on a UI.
My next topic in this section is about using deliberate constraints while you experiment and practice.
In this lecture I show you some more techniques for experimenting.
In this final lesson of this section, I’ll talk about the importance of practicing and I’ll give you one more hands-on practice activity.
This lecture is about the intended topics of the UX audit section of the How to train your designer eye course.
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Reviews summary
Systematic approach to training designer eye
Offers hands-on exercises for applying concepts.
Offers concrete methods for analysis and practice.
Provides a structured framework for daily improvement.
Best for those bridging theory/practice or refining UI.
Activities
Review Design Principles
Show steps
Reviewing fundamental design principles will provide a solid foundation for analyzing and creating effective UI designs.
Show steps
-
Identify key design principles relevant to UI/UX.
-
Find online resources explaining each principle.
-
Take notes on how these principles apply to digital interfaces.
Review 'The Design of Everyday Things'
Show steps
Reading this book will help you develop a critical eye for design flaws and appreciate well-designed interfaces.
View
Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human...
on Amazon
Show steps
-
Read the book, focusing on the core principles of usability.
-
Identify examples of good and bad design in your daily life.
-
Relate the book's concepts to UI design examples.
Create a UI Design Inspiration Board
Show steps
Creating an inspiration board will help you actively collect and categorize UI designs, fostering a habit of observation and analysis.
Show steps
-
Choose a platform (Pinterest, Figma, etc.).
-
Collect UI designs that you find visually appealing or effective.
-
Categorize designs by style, element, or purpose.
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Add notes explaining why you find each design inspiring.
Four other activities
Expand to see all activities and additional details
Show all seven activities
UI Copywork Challenge
Show steps
Practicing UI copywork will improve your attention to detail and understanding of design execution.
Show steps
-
Select a UI design to replicate.
-
Recreate the design using a design tool (Figma, Sketch, etc.).
-
Pay close attention to spacing, typography, and color.
-
Compare your version to the original and identify areas for improvement.
Review 'Refactoring UI'
Show steps
This book provides practical tips and techniques for improving the visual design of user interfaces.
View
Melania
on Amazon
Show steps
-
Read the book, focusing on the practical tips and techniques.
-
Apply the book's advice to your own UI designs.
-
Experiment with different design approaches based on the book's recommendations.
Analyze a Mobile App's User Flow
Show steps
Analyzing user flows will help you understand how users interact with an app and identify potential areas for improvement.
Show steps
-
Choose a mobile app with a clear user flow.
-
Map out the steps a user takes to complete a specific task.
-
Identify potential pain points or areas of friction.
-
Suggest improvements to the user flow.
Redesign an Existing Website's Homepage
Show steps
Redesigning a website's homepage will allow you to apply your design skills to a real-world problem and showcase your creativity.
Show steps
-
Choose a website with a poorly designed homepage.
-
Identify the website's target audience and goals.
-
Create wireframes and mockups for the redesigned homepage.
-
Present your redesign and explain your design decisions.
Review Design Principles
Show steps
Reviewing fundamental design principles will provide a solid foundation for analyzing and creating effective UI designs.
Show steps
- Identify key design principles relevant to UI/UX.
- Find online resources explaining each principle.
- Take notes on how these principles apply to digital interfaces.
Review 'The Design of Everyday Things'
Show steps
Reading this book will help you develop a critical eye for design flaws and appreciate well-designed interfaces.
View
Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human...
on Amazon
Show steps
- Read the book, focusing on the core principles of usability.
- Identify examples of good and bad design in your daily life.
- Relate the book's concepts to UI design examples.
Create a UI Design Inspiration Board
Show steps
Creating an inspiration board will help you actively collect and categorize UI designs, fostering a habit of observation and analysis.
Show steps
- Choose a platform (Pinterest, Figma, etc.).
- Collect UI designs that you find visually appealing or effective.
- Categorize designs by style, element, or purpose.
- Add notes explaining why you find each design inspiring.
UI Copywork Challenge
Show steps
Practicing UI copywork will improve your attention to detail and understanding of design execution.
Show steps
- Select a UI design to replicate.
- Recreate the design using a design tool (Figma, Sketch, etc.).
- Pay close attention to spacing, typography, and color.
- Compare your version to the original and identify areas for improvement.
Review 'Refactoring UI'
Show steps
This book provides practical tips and techniques for improving the visual design of user interfaces.
View
Melania
on Amazon
Show steps
- Read the book, focusing on the practical tips and techniques.
- Apply the book's advice to your own UI designs.
- Experiment with different design approaches based on the book's recommendations.
Analyze a Mobile App's User Flow
Show steps
Analyzing user flows will help you understand how users interact with an app and identify potential areas for improvement.
Show steps
- Choose a mobile app with a clear user flow.
- Map out the steps a user takes to complete a specific task.
- Identify potential pain points or areas of friction.
- Suggest improvements to the user flow.
Redesign an Existing Website's Homepage
Show steps
Redesigning a website's homepage will allow you to apply your design skills to a real-world problem and showcase your creativity.
Show steps
- Choose a website with a poorly designed homepage.
- Identify the website's target audience and goals.
- Create wireframes and mockups for the redesigned homepage.
- Present your redesign and explain your design decisions.
Career center
User Interface Designer
Product Designer
Interaction Designer
Visual Designer
Web Designer
Mobile App Designer
User Experience Designer
Motion Graphics Designer
Art Director
User Experience Architect
Design Researcher
Information Architect
Marketing Designer
Instructional Designer
Brand Designer
Reading list
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