Work on projects, create real prototypes, and earn a full certificate in UX & UI Design in our New York State-licensed program, available full or part-time in NYC or live online.
Learn the skills to become a UX/UI Designer. This course covers design concepts, industry tools like Figma, and research methodologies. Get career-focused training, build a portfolio, and receive one-on-one mentoring and prepare for a career in UX/UI design.
Gain essential skills in UI design for websites and mobile apps, including composition, typography, color, and attention to interactivity. Develop a portfolio showcasing your design projects and earn a NY State-approved certificate in UI Design.
Learn fundamental UX concepts with lectures and collaborative classroom exercises in UX Design in a Day, or pick up skills in one of the essential apps such as Figma or Sketch for creating designs and prototypes.
Learn the skills to become a UX/UI Designer. This course covers design concepts, industry tools like Figma, and research methodologies. Get career-focused training, build a portfolio, and receive one-on-one mentoring and prepare for a career in UX/UI design.
Start learning Figma for UI/UX design. Gain a solid understanding of its capabilities, from creating files, to designing on a grid, working with text/photos/colors, creating components, building prototypes, exporting assets, sharing files, creating animations, and more.
Discover the essence of UX Design. From UX vs. UI to usability testing and prototyping, delve into the intricacies of user experience design. Gain practical skills in research, wireframing, and more. Elevate your design game with this comprehensive course.
Discover the essential features of Sketch. You get hands-on experience designing on a grid system, creating reusable symbols, exporting graphics, building clickable prototypes, and using useful plugins to enhance workflow.
Learn the skills needed to launch a career in UI design in this advanced course. Gain expertise in UI fundamentals, wireframing, visual design concepts, and more. Build your portfolio through hands-on projects and personalized feedback.
Learn the concepts and skills covered in these courses or your tuition is on us. See details and terms & conditions.
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Train your team in UX techniques and processes and empower them to design mockups and prototypes in Figma, Adobe XD, or Sketch. Purchase group class vouchers at a discount for our regularly-scheduled group classes in New York, or create a custom training program at your offices.
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In our UX classes, you’ll work as a team to solve user needs, use paper prototypes to verify assumptions, prioritize tasks based on user research, create prototypes with Sketch and InVision, and practice giving client presentations. Work on actual projects and create real prototypes in our UX Design Bootcamp, or get started in our one-day course.
“When I entered the UX Fundamentals class, I felt that I was a complete newbie to the UX field. After I finished the class, not only was I able to finish a prototype that I really love, I'm most likely going to develop it soon.”
Eva Schicker
In our UX classes, you’ll work as a team to solve user needs, use paper prototypes to verify assumptions, prioritize tasks based on user research, create prototypes, and practice giving client presentations.
Our UX classes are all taught by user experience industry professsionals. Learn from their real-world experience and gain valuable practical knowledge.
From our hands-on training style to world-class instructors and proprietary curriculum, we deliver a learning experience our alumni can be proud of.
User experience (UX) design refers to the aspect of the digital design process that is attentive to the ways in which users will directly interact with an interface. Rather than accounting for how the interface looks, this part of the design process accounts for how the interface feels. No matter how hard they try, user interface designers can’t control how users will interact with their designs, so it is the job of the UX Designer to conduct user research on prospective customers to determine how users respond to a given interface design. They will then collect this feedback, interpret the data they have collected, and present their findings to designers and project managers, who can then make more informed decisions about the direction of a design project based on the UX Designers' findings and recommendations.
The term was coined by computer science professor David Norman in 1993 but has been an integral part of design for almost as long as humans have designed mass-market goods. Since the middle of the 20th century, there has been an increased focus on the ways in which human beings interface with computers, and the field of user experience design has grown to attempt to address these interactions. Learning UX design will have students considering best practices for designing the tools that allow people to regularly interface with complex computer systems in a way that is simple and accessible. This is an important field, theoretically and practically, as more and more of our daily lives involve directly working with computer applications and software.
While the term user-friendly gets bandied about a lot in web design, it is important that a digital interface feels inviting and easy to use once it is in a consumer’s hands. User-friendly is a vague enough term that can mean that an interface is easy to understand for new users, easy to navigate from page to page, or simply that users aren’t confused when clicking on different buttons and interactive elements of a web application. More so than other aspects of UX design, this is the process that requires rigorous user testing to generate feedback on whether a design is user-friendly enough for release. UX Designers won’t be able to judge how inviting a web application is without letting users test working prototypes of the interface. They will be responsible for listening to this feedback and passing it along to other designers who can make fitting alterations to the application.
Web applications also need to be designed with accessibility in mind. This includes many concerns, ranging from simple design decisions like ensuring that all images contain an alt-text description of their content to more complex design processes like ensuring that a web application can easily be accessed by users with limited mobility in their hands. Building accessible web applications is one of the most important aspects of designing an internet environment that serves all people, and this is even more true when it comes to web applications that communicate vital information. Accessible design also means accounting for all skill and comfort levels when utilizing a computer. Government agencies, for example, need to make sure that their webpages can be easily accessed by users who may rarely if ever, have used a desktop computer before, and it is the job of the UX Designer to make this design goal a reality.
An important aspect of the design process is ensuring that a web interface functions and displays properly on all manner of different screens and devices. As more and more essential services move to online platforms, users must be able to access those services from any device easily. Responsive design principles aim to ensure that a web application functions and runs properly on various devices. Sometimes, this is as simple as modifying the content of a webpage to run on high and low-resolution monitors, but in other contexts, it can be as complex as reworking a user interface to ensure that it isn’t too crowded to work well on a cell phone. This is just one of the general design principles that UX Designers will need to be attentive to when they are building web applications and digital interfaces.
User Experience Designers are a vital part of virtually every modern web design project since building an easy-to-use, intuitive interface is essential to getting your project off the ground. Virtually every digital marketplace is incredibly crowded, and no matter what kind of digital application a user is looking for, they are likely to find dozens or even hundreds of options available to them in an instant. This means that users have little patience for interfaces that are difficult to use or opaque in their design. Having the most beautiful webpage in the world will be useless if no one wants to use it because it is not well designed for user interactions. Thus, skilled UX Designers are in high demand as companies, firms, and organizations have come to realize that they gain a lot of ground on the competition by ensuring that their web presence is easy to navigate and pleasurable to use.
While many UX Designers find work for specific companies or firms, many UX Researchers take a more generalist approach to improving the user experience process. These professionals create the theories and frameworks that are applied to specific user interface projects, and they are responsible for helping design the best practices for user testing. Their goal is to help other UX Designers build a more accessible, easier-to-navigate internet one interface at a time. UX Designers play an important role in making people’s lives easier, particularly as more and more people (coming from more diverse backgrounds) are regularly required to use the internet as a part of their daily lives. The work of the UX Designer is to make the internet a more accessible and useful space for everyone, making it an appealing career path to follow for anyone who wants to contribute to this process.
Of all the fields of digital and web design, UX Designers will spend the most time working with the general public and the most time working alongside teams of different designers. Thus, successful UX Designers will need to learn the interpersonal communication skills they need to balance a wide range of different interests to build the best user interface possible. They will need to learn how to communicate with users and listen to their feedback to generate actionable information for project managers and UI Designers to implement. They will also need to learn how to present this information to various audiences of stakeholders since they will need to respond to user feedback and modify the design process to account for the suggestions offered by the UX Designer. Many UX Designers also work as part of larger teams on massive interface design projects, meaning they will need to learn how to collaborate on their work. This also means that experienced UX Designers can hone their interpersonal skills to find work as team leaders on a UX design project.
Most of the work of the UX Designer will focus on user behavior testing. Experienced UX Designers will regularly use a wide variety of user behavior research skills, including A/B testing, focus group testing, anonymous surveys, and one-on-one user interviews. UX Design is unique among related disciplines because it mostly centers on data collection and analysis rather than creative design principles. However, this analysis tends to be more qualitative than quantitative since designers will work with human responses rather than numerical data.
The other major part of succeeding as a UX Designer is learning how to collect and analyze user feedback. Since the data collected is often qualitative user responses, it won’t be as easy to parse and interpret. UX Designers need to understand how to take user feedback on an interface design and present that information to other designers and developers in productive and actionable ways. It is a general principle that users are good at identifying problems but terrible at identifying solutions, so UX Designers will need to learn how to listen to user feedback and present it in ways that address underlying concerns and improve the overall web design experience, particularly when that feedback is either unclear or contradictory.
Another aspect of the design process that makes UX design unique is that UX Designers will spend less time working with user interface layout technologies than their graphic design and user interface design colleagues. Instead, most of their work will focus on user testing and data collection. However, UX Designers will still need to understand how to use interface design tools like Figma to conduct successful usability testing. Importantly, Figma allows users to build working prototypes of their designs, which can greatly improve the user testing process. Figma also allows designers to make alterations to a web design from virtually anywhere, so skilled UX Designers can make alterations to an interface on the fly to better gauge user response.
Good communication skills are important for a UX designer. UX designers must explain a product to users in plain English, then translate customer feedback to the developers writing code, clients, digital marketers, and other stakeholders who don’t understand the technical language of design. For UX designers, communicating with individuals of different technical expertise is essential. Interpersonal skills are also important, since UX Designers will need to be patient with users, and they will need to be able to work with large random samples of test users since they want to ensure that their results are as widely applicable as possible.
Before we dive into UX, let’s clarify the difference between User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) design. Think of UX as the experience of going on a road trip and UI as the stop lights, signs, and lane markings that shape the events on the road. The appearance of the stop lights, signs, and lane markings each had to be designed (like the UI of a website or app), but how they all affect your driving experience defines the overall user experience (UX). UI design is more concerned with the appearance and look of an interface, with attention paid to things like how interface elements appear on screens, what kinds of effects are utilized in a design, and how those visual elements communicate meaning with consumers.
UX design is more concerned with how the interface feels to users and how they interact with an interface once it is in their hands. This is a set of more practical considerations since how users interact with a product is not always in line with how designers think they will interact with it. In the above example, the sign that communicates what the speed limit is would be an example of a UI element, since it gives the user information about the road. The actual speed limit, which is designed to encourage certain behaviors on the road and keep traffic moving at a reasonable speed would be a UX element, since it addresses how a driver actually interacts with the road. Together, these two kinds of elements shape the way that the road functions, making it a far less dangerous and chaotic place. Without a speed limit, there would be nothing meaningful to modulate driver behavior and without a sign there would be no way to communicate the speed limit to the user. Though they serve distinct purposes, these two elements come together to create a functional space for users to drive.
UX designers are responsible for creating a customer experience that is easy, intuitive, and anticipates the customer’s needs. UX designers are generally concerned with the total customer experience including the ease of finding information within the product and accomplishing tasks quickly, easily, and enjoyably. (UI designers focus on visual elements such as graphics, typography, color, and composition.)
The following are primary tasks of UX designers that you would learn in our UX design classes:
A good first step for a UX designer is product and concept development, which includes researching existing users and creating user personas based on this research. A UX designer may conduct user interviews and contextual research (observing users do an activity in their usual everyday environment).
After UX designers have an initial idea of what the product should do and what the customer experience should entail, they move on to wireframes, prototypes, and mockups.
Wireframes:
Text Bank Wireframe- iteration by Mark Congiusta. CC BY 2.0
Wireframes demonstrate where content goes, and how the app or website functions (screen by screen). Wireframes are typically drawn by hand or designed on a computer in grayscale with minimal color, text, and images. The wireframe should be detailed enough to explain the purpose of the product and also present the specific layout to achieve that purpose.
UX designers make the most changes to the layout, structure, and functionality of the product at the wireframe stage. Because designers draw wireframes by hand, the time investment and development costs are minimal. At the end of the wireframe phrase, some companies send the wireframes to developers to code the core structure of the app, while others move on to the prototype or mockup.
The prototype is an interactive representation of how the product will operate. The prototype is a functional version of the concept without code or final UI design, letting the UX designer test out ideas quickly without expensive development costs. It can demonstrate paths between pages or screens and animations within the design. UX designers may present the prototype design to a client and do user testing with it. Many of the UI decisions happen after the prototyping phase. Prototypes can be built with apps such as Figma, Sketch, Photoshop, and InVision (to name just a few).
A mockup is a high-fidelity, static representation of the product. The mockup stage is where designers choose the colors, typography, etc. The mockup takes time to develop, so UX designers typically don’t get to this stage until they are sure about the features and flow of the app or website. The mockup is usually created with Figma, Sketch, or Photoshop apps.
User testing is an important part of the UX design process. UX designers demo a prototype to prospective users, so they can understand a user’s pain points while using the product and suggest improvements. Sometimes users won’t notice or interact with a particular button or will propose a new feature. Here are some of the different forms of usability testing:
UX designers make adjustments to the product based on research and user feedback. These adjustments can include changing the layout of screens and the order of information, adding or removing features, and altering the interface to make the customer experience more intuitive. The specific kinds of adjustments that a UX Designer makes will vary from project to project since it is only after you test the interface that you have a good idea of what needs to be changed. While certain consistent UX design principles may be broadly applicable, every interface will be a new design challenge for UX Designers.
Students will need to remember that though UI and UX are distinct fields, they overlap, and smaller companies may combine these roles. At a 10-person company, a UX or UI Designer may do research, UI design, and development tasks. At a large company, UX designers may focus on a single aspect of UX (research, design, user testing, etc.), and a UI designer may focus exclusively on visual design. When deciding whether to pursue a career in UX or UI design, students should consider what kinds of work they want and what kinds of projects interest them.
Study UX Design if you:
Study UI Design if you:
Most professionals with significant UX design training unsurprisingly find work as UX Designers. These professionals can find work in virtually any industry that regularly produces consumer-facing digital products, though they will most commonly find work in the computer software industry or fields like advertising, video games, or mobile development. UX Designers will be tasked with conducting user research on interface designs and reporting their findings to project managers and other internal stakeholders. It is common for UX Designers to work alongside Market Researchers and other professional Data Analysts once a project has been released, particularly since user interfaces are far easier to update digitally nowadays. They may find work at large companies or firms that regularly design new products and interfaces or as freelancers working on their own or at design studios. If you are interested in working on a wide range of different projects and you want a design career that has you regularly interacting with consumers, a career in UX design may be right for you. In the US, UX Designers earn about $95,000 a year.
Another common user experience design career is that of the UX Researcher. UX Researchers take a wider view of the question of user interface design and, as such, are less likely to work on individual design projects. Instead, they will perform broad testing and develop more generalist theories and principles about user behaviors. This knowledge can then be used by UX Designers to make targeted changes that will make practical user interface designs more accessible and inviting for users. UX Researchers will likely spend far more time testing applications and conducting user research than UX Designers, who will be more responsible for working with UI Designers, Project Managers, and other design professionals. In the US, UX Researcher positions carry an average annual salary of $105,000.
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