With this module, you'll learn how to build products that users love by empathizing with the target customers, understanding their problems, and working more collaboratively with designers on your team.
Learn to use basic design terminology, and have an understanding of human experience design as it relates to their work.
- Explain the value of human experience in the software development process
- Describe the basics of UI and UX design as it relates to building software
- Distinguish the difference between good and bad design in software
- 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design - Nielsen Norman Group
Article - Human-Centered Design Is More Important Than Ever
Article - UX Design vs UI Design - What's The Difference?
Video - What is User Experience (UX) Design?
Article - The Design of Everyday Things
Book ($)
- Digital Product Design Assessment
- Discuss good/favorite designed products
- Collecting inspiration
- Go over ways the engineers can affect UX
Build an understanding of each phase of the design thinking methodology, enough to help and support software teams in their problem-solving processes.
- (Empathy) Identify who your users are more clearly, and recognize their pain points
- (Define) Define a testable hypothesis statement that addresses the users' pain points
- (Ideate) Participate in brainstorming exercises amongst yourself or in a team that helps generate many solutions to a user's problem
- (Prototype) Assemble testable prototypes from brainstormed ideas
- (Measure) Evaluate the success of a prototype by testing it with users
- Design Thinking - Ideo.com
Resource - What is Design Thinking - IDEO U
Article - What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?
Article - Why Design Thinking Works - Harvard Business Review
Article - Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All
Book ($) - Foundations in Design Thinking Certificate - IDEO U
Course ($)
- Process Observation (Empathy Mapping)
- Empathy Exercises: Observe and document the steps of a process
- Ideation Exercise: Ideate and brainstorm with the team on a topic or task
- Prototyping Exercise: Create a paper prototype
Learn how to use, contribute to, and maintain a design system for building web applications.
- Explain what a design system is
- Use a design system when working on software projects
- Contribute to an existing design system for software projects
- A comprehensive guide to design systems - Invision
Article - Apple's Human Interface Guidelines
Design System - Design Systems 101 - Nielsen Norman Group
Article - DesignSystems.com
Resource - Google's Material Design
Design System - IBM's Carbon
Design System - Storybook
Tool
- Login Screen with Material Design
- Build a simple UI layout using Material Design
- Read Documentation in popular Design Systems or your company's own
- Storybook exercise: Create reusable and documented UI components
Learn how to build software that meets the accessibility needs of its users.
- Explain the importance of accessibility in software
- Develop software that meets standard accessibility requirements set forth by W3C
- Recognize approaches to adapt your software to various languages and regions
- A11y
Website - Can I Use
Tool - Funkify Disability Simulator - Chrome Extension
Tool - IBM Equal Accessibility Toolkit
Tool - W3C Accessibility Fundamentals
Resource - Why Digital Accessibility Matters - Invision
Article
- Using an Accessibility Checker
- Implement a color palette for color blindness in a webpage
- Build a simple webpage using proper HTML semantics
- Quiz: Define internationalization, localization, and accessibility
Learn how to collaborate with designers in the field by understanding the role they play in the creation of quality software.
- Explain the role a digital product designer plays on a software team
- Identify what you need from a designer to complete software tasks
- Recognize standard design tools and design methodologies when working with designers
- 6 ways for designers and developers to collaborate better - Invision
Article - Intro to Design Terminology
Course - Abstract - The Art of Design: Netflix
Film ($) - Your company's designers!
- Give UI/UX Design Feedback
- Shadow or pair with a designer
- Collaborate with a designer on UI tasks
- Give feedback on a design to a designer (visual, and feasibility feedback)