DESIGN RULES: Principles + Practices for Great UI Design

Learn to design powerful user interfaces for apps, sites and systems

What you'll learn:

• Learn to create useful, usable and visually compelling UI design for any kind of app, site or system.
• Learn how to properly balance form and function
• Learn the critical rules for designing on small screens and mobile devices
• Learn how to effectively organize and economize visual information
• Learn how to apply the principle of Balance to create visual order
• Learn how to apply the principle of Rhythm to establish and reinforce comprehension
• Learn how to apply the principle of Harmony to shape disparate UI elements into a unified, consistent experience
• Learn how to apply the principle of Dominance to direct user focus and enhance UX
• Learn how to apply the principle of Alignment to lead the user's eye and speed task completion
• Learn how to apply the principle of Proximity to signal relationships between screen elements and decrease users' cognitive effort
• Learn to communicate with color, typography and imagery in the UI
• Learn how color communicates and influences interaction
• Learn how to choose the right colors for any UI design
• Learn how to apply contrast properly to guide users and call attention to critical UI elements and interactions
• Learn how to determine whether or not color and contrast are appropriate
• Learn and apply the fundamentals of typography as a design element
• Learn how to choose the right fonts and design appropriately with them
• Learn and apply 7 crucial rules for great typographic design
• Learn and apply 5 rules for choosing the right imagery
• Learn and apply a core set of DOs and DON'Ts when designing with images
• Learn how to create and simplify visual cues that direct user focus and interaction
• Learn the 3 kinds of data visualizations used in UI design and when they're appropriate
• Learn how the context of the data presented determines its visual form
• Learn and apply 6 rules for great data design
• Learn how to simplify visual information to clarify meaning and improve UX
• Learn how to visually separate content from controls to make interactions easier for users to understand and act on
• Walk away with a set of "18 UI Design Mantras" that you can apply to anything and everything you ever design!

The principles, practices and real-world techniques I'm going to show you here are the same ones that have informed graphic design for hundreds of years. And while that may sound like blasphemy to some of you, I guaranteeyou'll see why and howthey apply equally to the world of digital design — especially for mobile devices and their small screens.

I'm going to give you 50 lessons across 5 hours, packed withtimeless, ironclad, unchanging rules for good UIdesign that you can apply to anything and everything you ever work on. You’ll learn how to create and apply hierarchy, color, contrast, typography, and gestalt principles to design appropriate visual cues for your users —and that's just for starters.

You'll learn how to make it easier for people to interactwith what they see on the screen – whether they know what to tap, swipe or click, and whether what happens meets their expectations and moves them closer to their goals. You'll learn how to create and applyhierarchy, color, contrast, typography and gestalt principles to design appropriate visualcues so people know where andhow to take action.

I'll show you how to make good visual decisions for even the mostchallenging applications, fromsimplifying complexvisual information to designing with data. My goal with this course is to give you everything you need to know to make great UI design decisions, no matter what the content, context or product may be.

Trends will come and go, and it won't matter:your UI will still be useful, usable, appropriate and relevant for its users. From this point forward, you'll be equipped to makestrategic, impactful User Interface designs thatcommunicate, guide, encourage, motivateandeducate. Anything else is decoration, and decoration has a very short shelf life.

When it comes to User Interface (UI)design, your job — whether you'readesigner,developer, UXer or a mix of all those things — is to make sure that no aspect of someone’s onscreen interaction happens without explicit intent. The UI design choices we make have to reflect the user’s motivations, expectations, environment and possible actions.

All of those things manifest themselves in the User Interface — so what people see on the screen is usually the sum of their understanding about what this is and how it works.

So what we show them has to do a hell of a job communicating what’s there for them, how it’s organized, how they get to it and what they can do with it once they do.

By the time you finish Design Rules, you'll be able to do much more than create a more beautiful User Interface. Instead, you'll be able to design a UI that trulyworks for the people who use it. One that it allows them to easily figure out where to start and how to get what they need — quickly, efficiently and intuitively.

Of course, it'llalso justhappento be beautiful ;-)