Are you ready to learn more about user experience (UX) design but don’t want to dive into paying for a formal degree or bootcamp yet?
Free UX design courses are the answer. You can learn a lot about UX design, the tools UX designers use, and the UX design career path—all at no cost.
From UX micro-courses to tutorials, this guide on the best free UX design courses online will help you, the aspiring UXer, broaden your horizons. All are free, 100% online, and created by trusted sources in the field.
- The best free UX design short courses
- Final thoughts
- Frequently asked questions (FAQ) about free UX design courses
Ready? Let’s dive right in.
The 10 best free UX design courses
1. CareerFoundry’s Free UX Design Short Course
CareerFoundry provides a range of certificate programs with a job guarantee that you can pay for. However, this course is free! It offers an introduction to user experience design so that you can find out if UX Design is the right career path for you. This course is self-paced and takes about 90 minutes over a week.
This free and completely online UX course includes an intro to UX and changing your career, as well as hands-on UX exercises. It’s made up of six daily lessons that take around 15 minutes each, covering topics such as:
- What is UX design?
- The UX design process
- Career paths in UX
- Core UX design skills
- Tips for a UX portfolio
This is an excellent way to find out if UX design is the right career change for you. Watch the video below to find out more:
2. The Gymnasium’s UX Fundamentals
Gymnasium offers free online courses that are all taught by industry experts. They also offer access to Aquent, a staffing agency. Gymnasium’s free UX design course teaches new UX Designers how to apply user-centered design principles to websites and mobile apps.
In this course you will learn:
- Basic user research techniques
- How to create user personas
- Approaches to information design
- Wireframing and prototyping
- User-optimized content organization
- Common UX design patterns
- How to conduct user testing.
This course aims to provide a solid framework for assessing a site’s usability and methodology for applying UX principles during website design and development.
3. Accenture’s Digital Skills: User Experience on Future Learn
Future Learn is an online learning platform that offers courses from universities and industry experts. Accenture Digital Skills is a course series created by Accenture, a Fortune 500 company known for strategy, management, digital, technology, and operations consulting.
This three-week, self-paced free UX design course is designed to help complete beginners discover the basics of user experience. You’ll learn about why user experience (UX) is important, the research and design basics, and the tools and testing techniques used in UX.
This course covers:
- Why is user experience important?
- User experience basics
- Tools and testing
This course is for anyone who is seeking to develop their entrepreneurial skills, preparing to enter the workplace, or looking to change careers.
4. Become a User Experience Designer through LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning offers a free 30-day trial that you can use to complete this entire 12-hour, self-paced free UX design course. LinkedIn Learning is a subsidiary of the social media giant that provides thousands of subscription-based skills courses to help you achieve your personal and professional goals.
This course helps you become a modern user experience designer who knows how to design effective, compelling digital experiences with research and analysis skills. You’ll comprehensively learn how to create user experiences across mobile platforms, the web, and the internet of things.
It’s taught by industry experts and training professionals who’ve worked for companies like Amazon, LinkedIn, Intuit, Salesforce, Paypal, Intel, Lynda, and more. This course has 13 chapters that teach:
- The principles of user-centered design
- Creating wireframes and graphics with industry standards tools like Illustrator and Sketch
- Building a UX portfolio that includes interactive prototypes, user personas, and more
This course will help you start creating the foundation for a solid career in UX design.
5. UI/UX Design Specialization by CalArts on Coursera
Coursera is a learning platform that partners with big companies and universities to provide courses, degrees, and certifications at no cost. This free UX design course, created by the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), is a thorough massive open online course (MOOC) that takes about five hours per week for four months to complete.
You’ll work through a hands-on project and earn a shareable certificate at the end of the program. The free version of this course offers access only to the course content that you can work through at your own pace. The paid version comes with graded assignments, quizzes, and programming challenges with peer feedback. There is financial aid available for the paid version.
This course teaches:
- Visual elements of UI design
- UX design fundamentals
- Web design strategy and information architecture
- Wireframes and prototypes
This course is taught from a graphic design perspective and is perfect for someone who already has some graphic design experience. There is also a free Fundamentals of Graphic Design course offered by CalArts on Coursera that you can take as a prerequisite if you’d like a more comprehensive experience.
6. Introduction to User Experience Design by Georgia Tech on Coursera
Another MOOC on Coursera offered by Georgia Tech, this course is more of an introduction to UX design. Intro to UX Design offers a shareable certificate and hands-on project and requires about six hours total to complete.
You’ll learn:
- An overview of UX design
- Requirement gathering
- How to design alternatives
- Prototyping
- Evaluation
This free UX design course is designed to introduce novice designers to a cycle of discovery and evaluation along with a set of techniques that help designers meet user’s needs.
7. LearnUX.io
LearnUX.io is a video learning platform created by Greg Rog, a designer with 15 years of experience at Fortune 500 companies. LearnUX.io aims to help aspiring and professional UI and UX Designers develop their skills through courses on the most relevant technologies and tools. This beautifully designed website offers both free and paid video courses.
You can find free UX design courses on:
- UX Careers
- Usability
- User Testing
- Design for Screens
- Tools like Sketch, Figma, InVision, Principle, Flinto, Zeplin, Abstract
- HTML and CSS
- Webflow
LearnUX.io offers courses for complete beginners and experienced UX designers alike. If you want to learn how to use specific industry tools for UX design, this site is for you.
8. Springboard’s free UX Design Curriculum
Springboard offers a variety of tech professional career programs include UX design but they also provide free learning paths including UX design, data analysis, machine learning, digital marketing and more.
The Free UX Design Curriculum is a 55-hour course made up of videos and resources from across the internet organized into a logical pathway for beginners. This course covers best practices, but not specific tools.
This course covers:
- Design research methods
- User-centered design techniques
- Interviewing users in real-world situations
- Creating personas to define users
- Deliverables a UX designer is expected to produce
- Best practices
This curriculum is designed for aspiring designers, product managers, engineers, entrepreneurs—virtually anyone who wants to learn more about UX. If you want a roadmap to getting started in UX design, this is a great place to start.
9. General Assembly’s Intro to UX Design
General Assembly provides full-time, flexible, and part-time bootcamps for everything from software engineering to data science, design to digital marketing. Their free live online workshops provide an introduction to these topics in real-time.
The Intro to UX Design is a live online workshop that helps you explore the decision-making process that dictates how users interact with digital products to see why businesses need UX talent.
You’ll learn:
- What UX design is and why it matters
- How users interact with digital products
- Fundamental tools and techniques used by professional designers
- More UX resources
This workshop is for someone who knows nothing about UX design and wants to understand more about the UX design process.
10. Break Into UX Design from General Assembly
Another free live-stream workshop from General Assembly, Break Into UX Design, teaches you all about the jobs of UX designers, product managers, and developers. You’ll get an introduction to interviewing for design roles, the types of companies hiring UX designers, and the design process.
You’ll discover:
- An overview of the process involved in building a product
- The roles involved, including Product Manager, UX Designer, & Developer
- Each role’s responsibilities, and how they contribute to a product
- Job requirements for each role from entry-level to senior level
- Expectations of an agency vs. a start-up vs. a large-scale company
- How to create a portfolio to make you stand out
- How to prepare for an interview
- How to identify companies you might be a good fit for
- The tools used by designers to create the products you use everyday
This course is for anyone who is curious about UX design careers.
Final thoughts
There you have it! Eleven fantastic and free UX design courses. Most of these will take you just a few days to complete and provide you with a peek into the career, tools, and best practices of UX design.
If you’re ready to dive into learning more about UX design, why not get your hands dirty with a few of these free courses? You might find out that UX design could be the best career path for you after all.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ) about free ux design courses
1. How can I learn UX design for free?
There is an abundance of free UX design courses to get you started. Online platforms like CareerFoundry, Linkedin Learning, and Gymnasiu, all offer free UX courses online or free versions of their longer programs.
2. Can UX design be self-taught?
While formal education and certification courses are important for the skills taught and to showcase proficiency to potential employers, the basics of UX design can be self-taught. There are a number of free online resources, including online courses and books that help develop online skills.
3. Can I learn UX design in three months?
It is possible to learn the fundamentals of UX design in three months, but it depends on your dedication, learning pace, and the amount of time you can devote to learning each day.
While it’s possible to learn the fundamentals of UX design in three months, UX design requires a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical skills, and this will likely take some time and practice to master.
If you want more advice answering any of these questions, then book a chat with one of our program advisors and they’ll be happy to help with your UX journey.