UX Fundamentals: Practical Usability for Product Design

As a designer, no matter whether you’re working on UX or UI, you should always aim to design for the highest possible usability. It is something that all of your clients or team members will expect from every interface you design. A usable interface is easy to use, intuitive and does not require the users to think too much when using them. Knowledge of basic ergonomics and cognitive psychology is something that every designer should master and this course will help you start that journey, through learning:

• What usability means in digital interfaces

• The basics of cognitive psychology

• Why understanding your users is crucial for your interface’s success

• Why it’s important to avoid errors and overloading your users

• The basic aspects of usable navigation, search, form or animation

• How to check if what you designed is usable

Principles of usability

Learn what are the core components and principles of usability, through reviewing numerous real-life examples I prepared for you. Understanding these rules of thumb devised by the pioneers of the industry will help you analyse interfaces and look for aspects that could be refined to achieve a better usability. It will be a great starting point for learning about all aspects of usability.

The building blocks of interfaces

There are certain ground rules of usability in digital interface design and it’s important to understand what makes in interface simple and focused, as well as how to make basic decisions to avoid distressing your users. We will cover best practice in usability for common elements such as navigation, search, microcopy, forms or errors.

Validating the usability of your solutions

Creating an interface that seems usable to yourself is relatively easy. Problems often appear when other people try to understand it or when you “let it soak” for a couple of days and review it from the perspective of usability. Over a couple of lessons we will also explore how to validate interfaces for usability with the use of expert reviews, usability testing and analytics.