6 Free UX Design Courses From Top Universities Worldwide

To master UX skills requires adequate guidance from industry professionals. Here are 6 UX design courses from top universities, all FREE!

This article includes 6 FREE UX design courses form top universities around the world.

To become an excellent UX designer, you need to master many necessary skills.

For example, you need to master architecture of user experience design (in terms of usability) and UCD (user-centered design) skills. You need to know how to use basic design tools, such as Axure, Mockplus, Sketch and other prototyping tools. You need to grasp the entire process of web design and development. You need to have an insightful market vision and always notice the latest industry trends. You need to be good at analyzing user behavior patterns, analyzing user’s feedback and putting it into the design of the product. We can go on and on…

Mastering these skills requires hands-on practice. More than that, though, it requires adequate guidance from industry experts. However, educational resources in the UX design industry are scarce, and only a few people have the opportunity to receive professional education.

Moreover, the quality and professionalism of the UX design courses offered by various institutions and individuals cannot be guaranteed. The massive demand cannot be met, so we’ve put together a list of several free UX online courses offered by top universities and enterprises for your reference

1. UC San Diego — — Interaction Design Specialization

There are 8 lessons in this course:

• Human-Centered Design: an Introduction
• Design Principles: an Introduction
• Social Computing
• Input and Interaction
• User Experience: Research & Prototyping
• Information Design
• Designing, Running, and Analyzing Experiments
• Interaction Design Capstone Project

This UX design course has a high rating of 4.3/5 on Class Central. In these 8 high-quality classes, Professor Scott Klemmer professionally and systematically describes how to create a good user experience design from the perspective of interactive design theory and practice, cognitive psychology, user interface design, and human-computer interaction.

In this course, you will learn how to analyze and research user requirements, how to draw prototypes, some principles of user interface design and strategies for design evaluation. It is best if you can seriously complete the small tests and tasks that are required in this course.

2. University of Michigan — — User Experience (UX) Research and Design

There are 9 lessons in this course:

• Understanding User Needs
• Principles of Designing for Humans
• Introduction to User Experience
• Evaluating Designs with Users
• UX (User Experience) Capstone
• UX Design: From Concept to Wireframe
• UX Design: From Wireframe to Prototype
• UX Research Surveys
• UX Research at Scale: Analytics and Online Experiments

This UX design course was first published by EdX in the fall of 2016 by the School of Information, the University of Michigan. You need to pay 1041 knives if you want to get a “graduation certificate” validated by the University of Michigan after completing this course. If you don’t need a certificate, you can participate in this course for free.

This course has high-quality and in-deep content, and meanwhile, there are a lot of small tests and practices exercises. Participating in frequent mini-tasks allows you to really learn a lot of skills.

3. Don Norman — — Intro to the Design of Everyday Things

There are 4 lessons in this course:

• Usability and Symbols
• Conceptual Model and System Image
• The Gap of Assessment and Implementation
• Final Project: Designing User Interface (UI) for Time Bank

This UX design course is made by Don Norman, and its content is mainly from the first two chapters of his popular book “The Design of Everyday Things”. If you really don’t want to read the book, you can take this course. Its style is relatively easy, and its rich cases will inspire you.

This course will provide you with the knowledge needed to start recognizing the role of design in today’s world, and to start making better design decisions in your own life. In addition to learning basic design concepts such as affordances and signifiers, you will also gain experience in observing and applying design principles.

4. Georgia Institute of Technology — — Introduction to User Experience Design

There are 5 parts in this course:

• Overview of User Experience Design
• Requirement Gathering
• Designing Alternatives
• Prototyping
• Evaluation

This UX design course is led by Dr. Rosa Arriaga, a senior scientist at the School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology. The main target audience of this course are those who have heard the word “user experience (UX)” but who do not know — or have little knowledge of — it. That design is a systematic and data-driven process is the point the course aims to teach.

Focusing on this goal, the course will start from the basics and explain exactly why design is a systematic and data-driven process, how to make technology and design serve each other, what kind of design can satisfy users, and how to judge whether the user’s needs are satisfied.

5. University of Minnesota — — Design Better User Interfaces

There are 5 lessons in this course:

• Introduction to UI Design
• User Research and Design
• Prototyping and Design
• Evaluating User Interfaces
• UI Design Capstone

This UX design course helps you to systematically learn how to understand user needs (eg. situational interviews and design psychology), common prototyping methods, how to use scientific methods to evaluate and select designs (eg. heuristic evaluation and user study).

6. University of Alberta — — Introduction to Software Product Management

There are 2 parts in this course:

• Module 1: Software Product Management — The Discipline
• Module 2: Foundations of Software Product Management

This UX design course highlights the importance and role of software product management. It also provides an overview of the specialization, as well as its goals, structure, and expectations. The course explains the value of process, requirements, planning, and monitoring in producing better software. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Relate software product management to better software products
• Recognize the role of a software product manager
• Reflect on how Agile principles will improve your own projects.