7 Tools To Help You Level Up Your UX Design Skills

There are many reasons why you may want to consider pursuing a career path in UX design. High on the list of those reasons may be the fact that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that employment of web developers and digital designers is projected to grow 13 percent from 2020 to 2030, faster than the average for all occupations.

Thanks to increasing industry demand and the nature of UX design work, options for learning, both free and paid, are also taking off. There’s no doubt that the rich content, proven instructor experience, and rigorous structure of programs like our UX design bootcamp can offer you a great path to UX design knowledge. However, free options can let you dip a toe in the water and help you decide whether UX design is right for you.

Read on to explore a few options and see if they may help you learn enough to decide whether a UX design career path may make sense for your future.

Free Tools to Help You Learn UX Design

Future Learn

Future Learn offers two dozen UX design courses from different universities. Topics range from UX design fundamentals to the more specialized, like customer journey mapping and UX surveys, analytics, and testing. Most courses are six to ten weeks long and include video, audio, and written articles to help you learn in a variety of ways.

The free option offers access to the course for its duration plus 14 days afterward. Additionally, there are paid tiers where you can get extended access and certificates of completion.

And if you’d like to round out your education with info about game development, history or even gardening, they’ve got you covered.

Hack Design

Hack Design’s free design modules cover a perse array of design topics, with a subset specifically for UX design. There are general topics like Design System Fundamentals, Kickstarting a Design Career and The All-Encompassing User Experience, to more specific studies like Prototyping with Framer and Designing with Grids.

In addition to 50 free beginner lessons that lead you through the fundamentals of UX design at your own pace, Hack Design offers an additional 50 paid lessons that you can take advantage of if you want even more.

Invision

Unlike most of the resources listed here, Invision is a company that also builds a well-known UX design tool (one that you might use in a UX career path!). Invision doesn’t offer free UX design training, but their blog is chock-full of useful posts like “4 steps for choosing the right projects for your UX portfolio” and “7 guidelines for writing accessible microcopy,” along with other free resources.

Learn Design

If you want to get started in design, but don’t know where to begin, Figma’s Learn Design courses can help you jump in and start designing almost immediately.

Similar to Invision, Figma builds UX design tools, and the courses are generally much shorter than the previously listed options. Nonetheless, offerings like Design Thinking and Ethics, Design Research, and Storytelling may be useful for students who plan to pursue work in any number of UX positions and responsibilities.

Learn UX

Learn UX is geared for both potential and established UX designers with courses on tools and techniques across UX disciplines. They offer hundreds of hours of free content. There’s a wide assortment covering UX basics, design thinking and workflow, UI design, and prototyping.

LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn has several tools designed to help you grow in your career! Through its LinkedIn Learning program, LinkedIn offers more than thousands of UX design courses that cover the basics as well as more advanced specialties. Though the courses carry a fee, LinkedIn offers a one-month trial of LinkedIn Learning that gives you free access to the courses.

The number of options can be overwhelming, so unless you know precisely which skills you want to develop, we suggest you pe in with broad beginner topics like Getting Started in User Experience.

Udemy

Udemy’s free courses introduce a broad set of subjects in over two dozen video presentations to help you learn about UX design. Topics include UX Fundamentals, Web and eCommerce UX, Rapid Usability Research for UX, UX Strategy and more. Like the other free options here, Udemy courses are in a “pick and choose” list rather than structured curriculum. Explore these to gain familiarity that can help you decide where and how to pe in deeper.

“In addition to these tools, I really enjoy scrolling through Behance for inspiration on the latest design trends,” says DigitalCrafts UX Design instructor Mya Williams. “Another great tool for creative design challenges is Sharpen Design. I recommend this for students to get inspiration for portfolio case studies, or if you have an afternoon to practice a new design technique.”

Next Steps to Start Learning UX Design

The options above are designed to provide you a free introduction to UX design, so spend time in a few courses to explore possible career areas within the UX field to get a grasp of what feels like the best choice for you.

Once you gain familiarity, and if you feel like the next steps make sense for your own career path, explore options like our UX design bootcamp.

Check out the reviews, learn more about the program and apply when you feel ready to make the move!

Ready to take the next step and launch your education in tech? Download our course catalog for more information about our programs.

¹Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Web Developers and Digital Designers, at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm (visited July 5, 2022). This data represents national figures and is not based on school-specific information. Conditions in your area may vary.

²The sites referenced above are third-party sites not controlled by DigitalCrafts. DigitalCrafts is not responsible for the accuracy of content on third-party sites or their privacy practices.

DigitalCrafts cannot guarantee employment, salary, or career advancement. Not all programs are available to residents of all states.