Considering a career in UI design? This comprehensive guide explores the exciting world of UI design, the various methods of learning the craft, and how you can utilize your skills in the booming digital industry.

How to Learn UI Design

UI design is a rapidly growing digital design field concerned with building the appearance of digital applications like web pages, user interfaces, and mobile applications. UI Designers will apply composition and visual design theories to digital applications to produce evocative interfaces that communicate effectively. The number of options for learning UI Design might be overwhelming at first glance. There are books, video tutorials, classes, and more to choose from; it all depends on your learning style and personal preferences. 

Here, we’ll discuss the various methods of learning UI Design so you can decide how you’d like to get started.

What is UI Design?

UI design is the field of graphic design concerned with how digital applications look and how they communicate information to users. UI designers ensure that a digital application looks appealing and communicates effectively with its audience. UI Designers will create digital assets using graphic design programs and then build layouts and prototypes of those layouts to share for collaboration and testing. UI design pairs closely with UX design. UI designs concern themselves with how the digital application looks, whereas UX Designers concern themselves with how the digital application feels. These two fields work closely enough together that often, one designer will do both.

Visual and graphic design skills are vital to the field of UI design. UI Designers will need to learn how to utilize a variety of different graphic design programs, and they will need to understand theories and philosophies of composition. Images and graphics communicate a large amount of information in a small space, and it is the job of UI Designers to ensure that the information a digital application communicates aligns with the desired message that a client seeks to send. This will mean that UI design focuses heavily on any project's small details, assuring that all design elements come together to communicate ideas effectively. UI design is thus concerned with both the big picture design of a digital application and the visual design of the various individual components that are used to build the appearance of that digital application.

Read more about what UI design is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with UI Design?

Training in UI design will help creatives build vibrant and instantly memorable web designs and user interfaces for digital applications. UI Designers can blend text, images, and graphics to create functional and evocative designs using the various design programs. Unlike traditional graphic design projects, UI design projects will let creatives maximize the affordances of the digital canvas they are given, and UI Designers will be able to create digital layouts that communicate effectively and quickly. With so much modern communication happening over the internet, learning UI design is a powerful tool for expressing the interests of oneself and one’s organization.

UI design is also a useful skill for creatives who aren’t necessarily planning to build a career out of their graphic design training but still want to optimize their digital presence or their organization. Given the number of web applications designed to ease the process of web development, individuals can start designing and building digital applications for themselves or their organizations without only a little bit of UI design training. This is a bonus for small businesses, up-and-coming charities or nonprofits, advocacy organizations, and any other interest group that may want to build a web presence but is hesitant to hire professional Web Designers.

Finally, learning UI design can give existing creatives an entirely new medium to express their ideas. While web design is concerned with the functional elements of a digital application, learning UI design will allow artists and designers to build unique installations and projects that would otherwise be impossible to construct in a physical space. While most people receiving UI design training will do so with professionalization, learning how to build assets and art pieces online can give artists a new space to experiment with their creative ideas.

In-Person UI Design Training

One of the most enticing student training options is learning UI design through an in-person training course. These courses provide students with a slew of advantages, most notably being taught by experienced instructors who help guide them through their training, answering questions, and providing feedback on their designs. The drawback to these courses is that they will only be available at the on-site locations of their specific service provider, which will often be isolated to one or two major American cities.

Noble Desktop offers in-person UI design courses at its Manhattan campus. These courses are ideal for students who can make the commute and who want to receive hands-on UI design experience overseen by experts in their field. Students not located within commuting distance from Manhattan may consider live instruction options offered by other service providers, such as The School of Visual Concepts in Seattle or General Assembly in Chicago.

Live Online UI Design Training

For students unable to attend an in-person class, either because they are not located near a training center or simply aren’t located near the training center they would most like to attend, live online training options can be a comparable alternative. These courses maintain many benefits of in-person learning options, particularly those afforded by a live instructor available to answer questions and provide feedback. As a drawback, while students won’t have to commute, they will have to provide their technology, which can be pricey for UI design training if they take courses that will have them learning multiple different graphic design applications.

Noble offers all of its in-person UI design classes through live online class formats. These courses are identical to their in-person versions so that students can take them from the comfort of their own homes. Several other service providers offer similar training options through live online instruction. To see what options are available to you for live online UI design classes, consider checking out Noble’s Classes Near Me tool.

Free Online Courses & Tutorials

Interested in learning UI design, but don’t feel like you’re ready to take the plunge into a professional training course? You may be interested in learning some of the basic UI design skills through free online courses and resources. While these courses are unlikely to replace a student's professional training in a UI design bootcamp, they are an ideal place to start learning fundamental UI design skills. 

Noble offers several free introductory courses through its website and official YouTube page. Noble offers a free Intro to UI Design course and a free Intro to Figma course. These courses will cover the basic elements of design philosophy and the basic functions of one of the market's most common UI design tools. These courses can help students become more comfortable with the ideas and programs they will practice during more advanced training courses.

In addition, Noble offers many pre-recorded courses covering web design and development concepts and graphic design concepts on their YouTube page. These video recordings will help students understand tools like Photoshop and Illustrator or design platforms like WordPress. These training options are ideal for students looking to get a taste of the various flavors of graphic design and who aren’t yet confident that UI design is right for them.

Free courses are also available through other professional training services, such as GeneralAssembly, Udemy, and Coursera. Additionally, for individual applications and tools, first-party developers like Adobe and Figma provide users with tutorials and videos instructing new users how to take advantage of their applications.

Read about more free UI design videos and online tutorials.

On-Demand UI Design Classes

Work or family obligations may prevent some students from regularly attending a live training course. Instead, these students may enroll in an on-demand training course that offers them the flexibility they need. These courses are self-paced and allow students to speed up or slow down their lessons as their availability allows. The drawback to these courses is that without a live instructor, students may need to do extra work overcoming obstacles in their training that they would otherwise have ample resources to address in a live classroom environment.

On-demand courses are available through several service providers and come in many forms. Some are a series of pre-recorded lectures, while others are independent study modules. Some are purchased as individual courses, while others require users to subscribe to a service platform like SkillShare or LinkedIn. You can compare on-demand UI design classes using Noble’s Classes Near Me tool to learn more about your options.

Which Learning Method is Right for Me?

There are so many ways to learn UI design skills that some new students may find it overwhelming to choose the one that is right for them. Each course has its advantages and disadvantages, and students should consider their availability, learning preferences, and desired outcomes before enrolling in a course.

In-person training seminars may be ideal for students who want a live learning experience and have the luxury of commuting to a nearby campus. These classes give students hands-on experience working with UI design programs under the supervision of expert instructors who can help them learn the skills they need to succeed professionally. Students will also have the advantage of working with like-minded colleagues and networking with instructors and students. In addition, most in-person courses will furnish students with the hardware and software they need to practice UI design principles.

Live online training seminars are well-suited for students who wish to take a real-time training seminar but aren’t located where they can commute to a training campus. Live online courses retain all the benefits associated with having a trained expert instructor guiding your learning, as they will still be present to answer questions, provide feedback, and offer advice on design theories and principles. As a bonus, students learning in a live online environment can choose from a much wider variety of courses and instructional styles.

On-demand training courses may be the best option for students whose schedule requires that they have an added element of flexibility in their UI design training. These courses let students control their learning pace and can be ideal for students with inconsistent schedules or other obligations preventing them from attending regularly scheduled classes. Students will be required to do more independent work outside the classroom, which can be a bonus for some designers.

Free training options and video tutorials are available for students looking to become comfortable with a program or field of study. These resources are ideal for students looking to get their feet wet with a subject like UI design before enrolling in a more detailed training course. However, these courses will necessarily be cursory, so most students will need more dedicated training if they hope to use their UI design skills professionally.

Why Learn UI Design?

More so than ever, companies and organizations are investing large amounts of money and resources into their digital presence. Web design is booming; the mobile app industry has been growing for years, and building a coherent online brand identity is incredibly important to new businesses and organizations. These concerns are partly addressed by specialists working in UI design, as the look of a digital application informs and colors users’ first impressions of a product. Learning UI design skills will position students to enter the visual and graphic design field, focusing on the fast-growing digital side of the industry.

In addition, UI design training will provide students with valuable knowledge of visual design and communication theories. So much modern communication, particularly online, is done through graphic design projects, so learning the ins and outs of UI design can add another layer to a student's understanding of how to communicate ideas using only visual elements of design effectively. This training will make them better communicators and better equipped to understand the visual strategies employed by other graphic designers in different fields.

Finally, learning UI design is a great way to learn many transferable career skills applicable to creatives in most industries. UI Designers will work with specialized user experience design tools, but they will also work with more generic creative tools like Photoshop and Illustrator. This means that learning UI design will help students hone skills they can apply to any creative project, whether digital or otherwise. This makes learning UI design ideal for aspiring creatives who aren’t yet entirely sure that there is a specific medium they will be working in for the rest of their careers.

Read more about why you should learn UI design.

Level of Difficulty, Prerequisites, & Cost 

UI design can be a fairly difficult skill to master at first because of the sheer number of tools users will need to learn how to use. Most UI Designers will need to know at least one user experience design tool, a photo manipulation tool, an illustration tool, a prototyping tool, and several other graphic design tools. This means that while novices can easily pick up individual skills, students may encounter more obstacles than they otherwise would, owing to the number of skills they will be trained in.

Likewise, there are no upfront costs to UI design as a skill, but new designers will need many tools to fully prepare themselves for a creative career building UIs. Licensing a web layout tool is a must; novice designers will likely need to license other graphic design software to build digital elements and construct creative and unique sample interfaces. This means that the cost of building UIs may vary from person to person, depending on the programs that they are using.

There are no formal prerequisites required to learn UI design, but there are a few skills worth brushing up on before entering a training program. Students should be familiar with and comfortable using a computer and design software. Additionally, it is worth knowing a bit about current graphic and UX design trends before setting out, as it can help students avoid common pitfalls that new designers may make.

Read about how difficult it is to learn UI design.

Learn UI Design with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Once students have committed to learning UI design, they can receive hands-on training in one of the many UI design classes offered through Noble Desktop. These courses, available both in-person at Noble’s Manhattan campus and online, provide students with career-focused skills training in an industry-recognized educational environment. Students will benefit from working with live instructors who can answer their questions, provide feedback, and help them overcome any learning challenges they encounter. Even online, Noble’s classes boast small class sizes so that students can receive individual attention from their instructors. Plus, Noble offers free retake options, meaning that a student can re-enroll in a completed course within one year to receive additional training, review material, or just get a bit more hands-on UI design experience.

Students looking to learn the basics of UI design may wish to consider enrolling in Noble’s UI Design Bootcamp. This course will provide students with hands-on experience, using practical examples, designing the appearance of web pages and mobile applications. Students will receive training in the basic theories of composition and design and one-on-one feedback from expert instructors on the make-up of their UI design projects. This course is ideal for students hoping to learn the ins and outs of how to apply their existing knowledge of visual design tools to the process of building digital applications. Students who wish to enroll in this course should have a working knowledge of the user experience design tool Figma. Students looking for this training can enroll in Noble’s Figma Bootcamp.

Noble offers a UI Design Certificate program for students who want a more career-focused learning experience that will teach students all of the important fundamental skills they will need to enter the workforce as UI design specialists. Students will learn theories of composition and design and how to apply those theories of design to web pages and digital applications. In addition, students will learn how to use design tools like Figma, Adobe Photoshop, and Illustrator. This course caps off with a series of lessons concerning how to build a design portfolio to take onto the job market. With portfolio design training, one-on-one career mentorship, and the reception of an industry-recognized skills certificate, this course is ideal for students looking to build new careers in UI design.

Key Takeaways

• UI design is a rapidly growing field of digital design. Students hoping to learn how to design the appearance of digital interfaces and applications have many options available to them.
• The most immersive option for students is live instruction, either in-person or online. These courses are ideal for career-focused students with the time and availability to work hands-on in a classroom setting.
• For students who can’t attend a live instruction course, on-demand courses offer students the chance to control the pace of their own education.
• There are numerous free resources available to students, but these will only be to introduce students to the basics of UI design. Further training will be required for students wanting to enter a UI design career.
• Regardless of how a student chooses to learn UI design, Noble Desktop offers comprehensive training options.