Udemy is a giant learning marketplace with courses on virtually every topic under the sun, from learning piano to, of course, UX design courses.
Because of the immense selection, it’s difficult to choose which courses are the best in each category, and UX design is no exception. So I present to you the “quick hits” list of the best courses available on Udemy within the categories of UX design like information architecture, visual design, Sketch, and more.
I’ve analyzed more than 200 design courses based on a mix of: 1) the course curriculum & content, 2) classes I’ve personally audited and 3) reviews + recommendations from my UX peers. These are the cream of the crop…
Here are all the course categories I’ll cover in this article, in order…
- Fundamental UX and Design Thinking Courses
- UX Research Courses
- UX Strategy Courses
- Usability Courses
- Information Architecture Courses
- Design + Data, Conversion Centered Design Courses
- UX Software Tools Courses: Interface Design and Prototyping
- Mobile UX & UI Design Courses
Fundamental UX and Design Thinking Courses
Are you just getting started and want a solid overview of the UX landscape? I call these “fundamental” courses because they 1) cover UX basics in an engaging way and 2) prevent gaps in UX knowledge from early on. The following are by far the best UX basics training I could find.
User Experience Design Fundamentals
The top selling UX course on Udemy, Joe Natoli’s course is basically a video version of Jesse James Garrett’s seminal book “The Elements of User Experience.” Natoli covers the product design.
Cooper Crash Course: Design Thinking in 3 Steps
Probably the best introduction to design thinking course available on Udemy, this course distills research methods from the famous UX Design Firm Cooper. Learn how to understand your audience, envision a creative solution, and test your prototype.
Design for Humanity: A New Perspective on User Experience
A uniquely different design thinking & research course that teaches how to design for inclusiveness by learning to challenge your vision, testing through stress cases, and analyzing real design. Arms designers with fun, original ideas (and exercises) to test their designs.
UX & Web Design Master Course: Strategy, Design, Development
Joe Natoli is one of the best teachers on Udemy (I strive to be at his level someday), and this course lives up to it’s “Complete” nature. Not only do you learn strategy and fundamental UX topics (IA, research…), but there are actionable sections dedicated to implementing your design in HTML+CSS AND WordPress. I specifically recommend this course for design-minded entrepreneurs interested in launching their own product with good UX principles in mind.
UX Research Courses
Similar to design thinking, developing an appreciation for UX Research early on helps instill the type of user-centered thinking critical in a UX career. The following courses dive deeper into the finer aspects of research not covered in the fundamental/basic UX courses.
How to Do Qualitative Research Right
One of the only courses focusing on qualitative research, this still-under-development course teaches you how to design your own qualitative research project. Topics like data coding and taking notes as an ethnographer (which are found nowhere else in Udemy) are covered in this short, actionable course. Perfect for designers and user researchers.
UX Research for Apps: User-centric from Concept to Launch
Most “complete” UX courses sprinkle on a little UX research in the front, but doesn’t dive into the topic. This course is a true “Intro to User Research” course, with the added context of conduct research for mobile products.
UX Strategy Courses
These Udemy courses are especially relevant to UX leaders, consultants and freelancers because they teach the intersection between business strategy and UX design. If you find yourself in a client-facing role, or project that requires a lot of collaboration with different teams, these strategy courses help you build better and faster.
This course lives up to it’s name – focusing on UX Strategy fundamentals like Determining Strategic Value, User Needs and Business Goals, Scope Planning, and user testing. Course is especially relevant if you come from a business or research background, If you’re a product manager, or if you’re a design consultant – areas in which strategy play a particularly large role.
User Experience Design: UX Mission Control & Strategy
This is a solid course for UX consultants and strategists, covering author Marion Goren’s own system of managing projects and some field-tested design strategies. If you work in an agency or interface often with design clients, this is one of the best courses that blend UX design with project management.
Usability Courses
Need to do a heuristic audit? Or test a product’s usability? The following courses are focused on the technical parts of usability and accessibility, teaching you skills to create products that are actually easy to use.
Designing for Productivity in the User eXperience
This is a usability-focused UX course that deep dives into optimizing user efficiency in software and user interfaces in general. Great expert knowledge to add to your toolbelt if you’re a UX / Design consultant or find yourself in a position to prove the ROI of UX through actionable exercises and metrics. A hidden gem of a course that covers techniques I haven’t found in any other usability course.
Winning User Experience Design
A solid course focused on web usability, Winning User Experience covers Information Architecture, Personas, and Design Heuristics. Taking this course will help you defend – and critique – design decisions.
Web Accessibility: Learn Best Practices, Tools & Techniques
A strong primer on designing accessible websites, covering core topics like how to optimize color, navigation and form inputs to be more inclusive for all user types.
Information Architecture Courses
IA is one of the fundamental “arms” of UX but the topic can be a beast to wrap your head around. What is Information Architecture (IA) Fundamentals
Joe Natoli back at it again, with the best and most complete introduction to Information Architecture available on Udemy. Lives up to the promise of teaching you everything you need to know from what content should be presented, to what its called, to how its organized.
Developing an Information Architecture with Card Sorting
If you’re asked to do a cart sort or figure out the organization of a product…buy this course now and following the 14 lectures. This knowledge is great to running a group workshop (group cardsort) and learning the power of cardsorting as a way to vet and organize information structures.
Design + Data, Conversion Centered Design Courses
If you make a new UI, or design a new feature…how do you know it’s any good? When qualitative research is not enough, data and conversion-designed thinking can help you navigate what makes an effective design or not. The following courses explore concepts from gamification, habit formation, statistics as applied to design, and of course conversion optimization.
How to Build Habit-Forming Products
If you loved Nir Eyal’s popular book HOOKED, then you’ll love his video course on designing experiences users love. Visualizes the core concepts made popular through the book, as well as numerous examples of actual companies that get users to return again and again to their products.
Practical Statistics for The User Experience I
Jeff Sauro is the KING of user experience analytics, or the intersection between design and data. This course completely lives up to it’s name and teaches you how to determine if your designs are statistically significant. Perfect for UX designers interested in data, or work in environments in which data and analytics are required in your job. In general, good for designers who want to learn how to back up their design with data.
Website conversion optimization: UX, social media & email
Adding conversion tactics is a quick way to become a more well-rounded, business-minded UX Designer. This course teaches optimization principles and techniques, like how to increase your sales funnel with social media and email. Perfect for designers starting their own blog, or working in a company in which SEO & conversion are priorities.
UX Software Tools Courses: Interface Design and Prototyping
Everybody has their favorite design tool, and I dug up the best-rated courses for each tool, from Sketch to Photoshop to Adobe XD and even UI animation software. These courses are all comprehensive and teach you user interface design through the context of each specific design tool – two birds with one stone!
Mobile App Design In Sketch 3: UX and UI Design From Scratch
Even though this course was last updated in 2015, it still remains the most complete Sketch course on Udemy that covers all the basics of the tool in detail. Impressive coverage from a “Sketch School” to prototyping in Invision to designing a full mobile app, all in one course. Highly recommended.
Learning Axure RP 8 – UX Design Fundamentals
Axure is still one of the best cross-platform (yes, Mac AND Windows) prototyping tools on the market, and this course delivers a solid overview of the apps most important design features. Great for beginners, not for more intermediate or more advanced Axure users.
UI/UX design with Adobe XD: Design & Prototype a Mobile App
The new(er) kid on the block by Adobe is going to be a dominate prototyping tool for most designers because it blends UI design and prototyping (think inVision level interactions) in one app. Learn-by-doing is the approach in this course: design a simple app (7 screens) all within Adobe’s Experience Design (XD).
UI Design with Photoshop from Beginner to Expert in 15 days
Photoshop is still the most dominant design tool in the UX industry (though that’s slowly changing). Learn how to optimize PS for a user interface environment through topics like layers, gradients, patterns, and of course useful shortcuts. There are a few hands-on projects in this course to help you build practical skills while using Photoshop.
UI & Web Design using Adobe Illustrator 2017
Illustrator, the standard favorite for vector art, is also widely popular for UI design. In fact, many companies run only Adobe products (not introduced to Sketch yet), and this is the best course that teaches you user interface design within the context of Adobe Illustrator.
UI Animation using Sketch 3, Principle App, and Flinto
Want to learn how to build micro interactions using some of the most popular UI animation tools? Pablo Stanley is one of the most talented instructors and designers in the UX & UI world, and this is one of the best courses teaches you how to animate your user interfaces using Marvel, Flinto, inVision, and Principle.
Mobile UX & UI Design Courses
For some reason, there’s a million and one Sketch + Mobile design courses on Udemy. Mobile is indeed important, so I curated the best courses in this category starting from mobile design principles, then into platform specific classes on Android (material design) and iOS design.
Mobile User Experience: The Complete Guide to Mobile
This is a bonafide course on mobile interaction design – and by interaction design I mean that the teacher actually talks about designing for physical touch, input, and even mobile information architecture.
Android Design: Master UI/UX Techniques and Material Design
The course definitely lives up to its name – learn the ins and outs of designing for Android, including Google’s Material Design. The course is geared a bit more towards programmers, as it does require some Java knowledge. If your goal is to design your own Android app, this is by far one of the best courses on the topic.
iOS 8 Mobile App Design: UI & UX Design From Scratch
What makes this course stand out from all other mobile design courses? It teaches you advanced Photoshop skills AND prototyping in InVision AND visual design principles – getting you as close to working product without code. Focused on iOS 8 design – good fundamentals, even with newer iOS versions out.
Learn UI/UX and Mobile App Design in Photoshop from Scratch
Lives up to it’s name: hands-on course has you designing mobile screens in the context of Photoshop. The first few lectures cover UX and UI fundamentals, then dives into 20 lectures doing a crash course on Photoshop + mobile UI design. Note: does not really cover prototyping, just screen design.
Mobile App Design from scratch with Sketch 3: UX and UI
I have to include this one because it’s the best-selling Sketch course that shows you how to design a mobile app step by step. It’s one of the few courses that blends teaching you about visual design principles WHILE teaching you the ins-and-outs of using Sketch. Course definitely lives up to its name :)
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Whew that was a huge list. If you have any suggestions for other courses or even categories, let me know!