At first, UX design can feel like a mountain of jargon, methods and tools. The good news: you don’t have to learn everything at once. This path puts the basics in an order where each step builds on the one before. Read it from top to bottom or jump straight to the step you’re working on right now.

Each step contains two to six articles. If you come across a term you don’t know along the way, the UX glossary has you covered.

1. What UX is about

Before you learn methods, it helps to have a clear picture of what user experience actually is, how it differs from usability and what steps UX work involves.

• What Is User Experience? The term explained in a few minutes.
• What Is Usability? Why ease of use is only one part of the experience.
• What Is UX Design? The Banana Example An everyday object as a lesson in good design.
• The UX Process at a Glance The map for everything that follows on this path.

2. Understanding people

Good design doesn’t start in a design tool. It starts with the people who use a product. In this step, you’ll learn how to get honest answers and capture what you learn in a way your team can actually work with.

• User Interviews Without Leading Questions How to ask questions that don’t suggest the answer.
• Personas from Real Data Turn interviews into a persona that helps in everyday work.
• How to Create a Journey Map Make someone’s path to their goal visible.

3. Structure and first drafts

Once you know what people need, the next questions are where each piece of content belongs and how to make ideas visible quickly, before anyone starts debating colors.

• Navigation Nobody Gets Lost In Information architecture with card sorting and tree testing.
• Wireframe, Mockup, Prototype Which draft answers which question.

4. How people perceive and decide

A few basics from psychology explain why some interfaces make sense at a glance and others don’t. They help you justify design decisions instead of relying on taste.

• Gestalt Principles in Interface Design Why people see elements as belonging together.
• UX Laws Explained with Examples Fitts, Hick, Jakob and Miller in everyday use.
• Cognitive Load Why less is often more in interface design.

5. Design basics

Now it gets concrete. With these basics, you’ll design screens that look tidy and are easy to use. The order follows how a screen is built: from overall structure to type and color, down to a single button.

• Visual Hierarchy How to guide the eye through your interface.
• Spacing and Grids in Interface Design Whitespace, the 8-point system and layout grids.
• Screen Typography Font size, line length and line height.
• Color in the Interface The basics for your first color palette.
• Designing Buttons Right Hierarchy, labels, states and size.
• Mobile First and Responsive Design Making your website work on every screen.

6. Accessibility from the start

Accessibility isn’t an extra for later. If you consider it early, you avoid costly fixes and reach more people.

• WCAG Explained Simply The four principles of the guidelines at a glance.
• Test Your Website with the Keyboard in 15 Minutes A first hands-on test without special tools.

7. Testing and measuring

Whether a design works only becomes clear when real people use it. These articles help you find problems systematically and make improvements visible.

• Heuristic Evaluation Step by Step The ten usability heuristics applied to one example.
• Your First Usability Test Step by step with five users.
• Measuring UX Task success, time on task, SUS and conversion explained.

8. Tools

Tools come last on purpose. They make the work easier, but they don’t replace any of the earlier steps. A handful of tools is enough to get started.

• The Right UX Tools to Start With What you actually need, sorted by task.
• Figma Basics Frames, auto layout and components.

Terms to look up

You’ll come across these glossary entries again and again on this path: user experience, usability, user research, persona, wireframe, usability testing and WCAG.

Further reading

• Laws of UX: the best-known UX laws collected in one place.
• 10 Usability Heuristics: the checklist for your first heuristic evaluation.
• Don’t Make Me Think: Steve Krug’s classic on web usability.