Creating User Experiences: Fundamental Design Principles

Pluralsight

Course Summary

An entry point for developers to begin learning more about UI/UX design

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Course Description

We're in a new era of software and devices, and user expectations are rising rapidly. To meet those expectations, developers need to understand more about design concepts. Whether working alone, or with a designer, this course will help by explaining fundamental principles, concepts, and terminology, and by exposing developers to a broad range of design possibilities.

Course Description

We're in a new era of software and devices, and user expectations are rising rapidly. To meet those expectations, developers need to understand more about design concepts. Whether working alone, or with a designer, this course will help by explaining fundamental principles, concepts, and terminology, and by exposing developers to a broad range of design possibilities.

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Course Syllabus

Module 1: The need for new thinking by developers
- 38m 8s

—Introduction 5m 43s
—The need for new thinking by developers 4m 1s
—Stuck in a rut 3m 20s
—Evolution as a useful mental model 3m 36s
—Example to learn from: the music industry 4m 57s
—Demo: StaffLynx as an example of new thinking 4m 35s
—Preparing for the new ecosystem: fundamental principles of design 4m 49s
—A test of awareness and observation 2m 47s
—Summary and looking forward 4m 20s

Module 2: Design Principles for Choosing Options
- 28m 41s

—Module 2 Introduction - Starting in the real world 2m 27s
—What's wrong with this elevator? 4m 49s
—The Gestalt principle of proximity 4m 42s
—Some important design principles for choosing options 4m 49s
—Hick's Law and its consequences 3m 23s
—Alternatives to ridiculously long lists of options 5m 3s
—Users outnumber developers, plus summary and next steps 3m 28s

Module 3: Visual Scanning and Processing
- 30m 30s

—Module 3 Introduction - The stages of visual processing 5m 33s
—The Gestalt principles of proximity and similarity 4m 51s
—More grouping gestalt principles 4m 22s
—Gestalt closure, continuity, and figure / ground 6m 40s
—Gestalt principles in remote controls, plus more on intentional blindness 4m 46s
—Gutenberg diagram, and summary 4m 18s

Module 4: Preference for Naturalness
- 37m 2s

—Module 4 - Introduction to naturalness preference - Biophilia 5m 41s
—Savannah preference and white space 4m 46s
—Crowded screens and horror vacui 6m 35s
—No matter what you've heard, screen real estate isn't that valuable 5m 40s
—Infinite whitespace - demonstrating the viewport pattern 3m 4s
—An exercise on crowded screens 3m 18s
—Using color and gradients to promote naturalness 6m 4s
—Summary and next steps 1m 54s

Module 5: Preference for Naturalness, part 2
- 29m 27s

—Module 5 - Introduction and definition of contour bias 3m 28s
—Contour bias and desire lines 3m 37s
—Overuse of rectangular designs and how to avoid it 5m 12s
—Using animation to promote naturalness 5m 2s
—Animation examples in StaffLynx 4m 1s
—Three dimensional appearance - reasons and techniques 6m 8s
—Summary and next steps 1m 59s

Module 6: Aesthetics and Legibility
- 21m 30s

—Module 6 - Introduction and the role of aethetics in design 4m 49s
—Attractiveness bias 3m 34s
—The Aethetic-Usability Effect, plus advice on typefaces and legibility 4m 56s
—Legibility and contrast 4m 53s
—A bit more about fonts, and summary/wrap-up 3m 18s

Module 7: Managing Cognitive Load
- 32m 46s

—Module 7 - The need for keeping cognitive load low, and the progress we've made 4m 25s
—Recognition over recall and progressive disclosure 5m 55s
—New UI for progressive disclosure, plus highlighting and the mapping principle 6m 10s
—Mapping continued, plus affordances 3m 51s
—Affordances continued, plus constraints 5m 11s
—Feedback, confirmation, and forgiveness 4m 49s
—Summary and next steps 2m 25s

Module 8: Meta-design Principles
- 31m 50s

—Introduction and context-sensitive design 6m 12s
—Touch as an example context, and form follows function 5m 2s
—Form follows function, continued, and Ockham's Razor 5m 22s
—Most Advanced Yet Acceptable 4m 52s
—Performance vs. Preference 4m 33s
—Flexibility-usability tradeoff 3m 46s
—Summary 2m 3s

Module 9: Summary and Resources for Further Study
- 21m 48s

—Introduction and a Final Exercise 2m 19s
—Final points about how you can use these concepts, part 1 5m 7s
—Final points about how you can use these concepts, part 2 4m 30s
—Suggested activities 3m 44s
—Recommended books 4m 15s
—Summary and contact information for Billy 1m 53s