UI/UX Design Resources for Developers

You don’t need a design degree to build beautiful, usable interfaces. These are the resources I’ve found most useful for learning UI/UX — from theory and inspiration to hands-on tools and practice challenges.

Courses & Learning Platforms

Google UX Design Course — Google’s professional certificate on Coursera. Covers the full UX process from research to prototyping.
Interaction Design Foundation — One of the most comprehensive UX education platforms. Courses on everything from usability to design thinking.
Hack Design — Free design lessons curated by top designers, delivered weekly.
IBM Design Thinking — IBM’s free practitioner course on applying design thinking at scale.
HPI Design Thinking — Free online courses on design thinking from Hasso Plattner Institute.
Baseline HQ — Typography-focused design course. Essential for getting text right.
10k Designers — Indian design school for UI/UX. Cohort-based, project-driven.
UXPin Ebooks — Free ebooks on UX design, prototyping, and design systems.
BiteSize UX — Short, digestible UX lessons for busy people.
Simplified UX — UX concepts explained simply with visual examples.
Egghead — Expert-led courses for front-end web developers. Short, focused screencasts.
Kickass UX — UX education for creatives. Practical, no-fluff approach.
Design Better — Discover the world’s best design practices. Long-form guides from InVision.

UX Theory & Principles

Laws of UX — The essential psychological principles that every designer should know. Beautifully presented.
Principles.design — Open source collection of design principles from teams around the world.
NN Group — The gold standard for evidence-based UX research and guidelines.
NN Group — Psychology & UX — How cognitive psychology shapes user behavior and design decisions.
NN Group — UX Process — Practical guidance on running a UX design process.
Farnam Street — Mental Models — Not design-specific, but the mental models here apply directly to product thinking.
Psychology of Design — 106 Cognitive Biases — Visual reference of cognitive biases that affect design decisions.

Design Systems

Material Design 3 — Google’s design system. The reference for Android and web component patterns.
Apple Human Interface Guidelines — Apple’s design bible. Required reading for iOS and macOS design.
Shopify Polaris — One of the best-documented design systems. Great for learning how to structure components.
Carbon Design System — IBM’s open-source design system. Thorough and accessible.
Lightning Design System — Salesforce’s enterprise design system.
CRED NeoPop — CRED’s bold, 3D-inspired design system.
Spotify Design — How Spotify reimagined their design system at scale.
Design Systems Surf — Curated collection of design systems from real companies.
Design Systems Repo — Searchable directory of open-source design systems.
The Design System Guide — Comprehensive guide to building and maintaining design systems.
DesignSystems.com — Articles, talks, and resources about design systems from Figma.
What is a Design System? — In-depth explainer on design system fundamentals from Backlight.
Style Guides & Tools — Curated collection of style guide tools and resources.
Branding Style Guides Archive — Real brand guideline documents from major companies.

Case Studies

Growth.Design — UX case studies told as visual comic strips. Addictive and educational.
Airbnb Personalization — How Airbnb personalizes the experience for every user.
Amazon Purchase UX — The psychology behind Amazon’s buying flow.
Headspace Onboarding — A masterclass in user onboarding.
Spotify Wrapped — The psychology behind Spotify’s most viral feature.
Tesla Word of Mouth — How Tesla grows without traditional advertising.
Tinder Monetization — The dark and light patterns in Tinder’s business model.
Typeform Offboarding — What good offboarding looks like.
YouTube Retention — How YouTube keeps you watching.
Baymard — E-Commerce Checkout Usability — Original research on checkout UX. Essential reading for anyone building e-commerce flows.
Baymard — E-Commerce Design Examples — 18,000+ real e-commerce design examples, searchable by component and pattern.

Inspiration & UI Galleries

Dribbble — The go-to for visual design inspiration. Great for exploring UI styles and trends.
Behance — Full case studies and project showcases from designers worldwide.
Mobbin — Real-world mobile app screenshots, searchable by flow and screen type.
Screenlane — UI design inspiration from real mobile and web apps, organized by screen type.
Land-book — Hand-picked landing page designs for inspiration.
Landing Folio — Landing page designs categorized by industry, style, and component.
Page Collective — Curated web design inspiration.
Refero Design — Real product screenshots from top companies, searchable by component.
AppShots Design — App Store screenshot design inspiration.
UX Archive — User flow examples from real iOS apps, organized by task.
Pinterest — Endless moodboard material for visual direction and style exploration.
Design Drug — Curated design inspiration and resources.
Inspo Page — Website inspiration collected at the component level. Great for finding specific UI patterns.
Layers — Discover and share design work. A growing community of designers.
Savee — Visual bookmarking for design inspiration. Like Pinterest but for designers.
Recent Design — Fresh web design inspiration updated regularly.
Curated Design — Hand-picked web design inspiration catalog.
Dark Design — Dark-themed web design inspiration specifically.
Dark Mode Design — Showcase of websites with beautiful dark mode implementations.
Nicely Done — Curated gallery of well-designed web apps.
Calltoidea — UI inspiration organized by component type. Search by element.
Design Spells — Delightful UI micro-interactions and design details.
Spotted in Prod — Real UI patterns spotted in production apps.
App Motion — Mobile motion design gallery. Great for animation inspiration.
iOS Icon Gallery — Curated gallery of beautiful iOS app icons.
Logobook — Discover the world’s finest logos, symbols, and trademarks.
Cofolios — Design portfolio inspiration from real designers.
Built at Lightspeed — 4,000+ themes, templates, and UI kits.
Landing Folio — Hero Examples — 450+ website hero section examples.
Inboxflows — Email marketing design database. Great for transactional email inspiration.

Design & Prototyping Tools

Figma — The industry standard for UI design and collaboration.
Sketch — The OG UI design tool. Mac-only, still widely used.
Framer — Design and ship real websites with no code.
Webflow — Visual web builder that outputs clean code.
Axure — Advanced prototyping for complex interactions and enterprise UX.
ProtoPie — High-fidelity prototyping with sensor-based interactions.
Origami — Meta’s prototyping tool for designing interactive interfaces.
Miro — Collaborative whiteboarding for brainstorming, user flows, and workshops.
Notion — Not a design tool, but essential for design documentation and specs.
Jitter — Fast and simple motion design tool that runs in the browser. Great for UI animations.
Excalidraw — Virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn style diagrams and wireframes.
Popmotion — The animator’s JavaScript toolbox. Functional, flexible animation library.

Figma Plugins & Resources

Figma Playlists — Official Figma YouTube channel with tutorials and Config talks.
Figma Friends — Figma’s community program for meetups and events.
iOS Design Kit — Official iOS UI kit for Figma.
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Color & Typography Tools

Coolors — Fast color palette generator. Hit spacebar to explore.
Color Hunt — Community-driven color palette collection.
Palettte App — Fine-tune and edit color palettes with precision.
Color Method — Train your eye for color matching with this game.
FontJoy — AI-powered font pairing generator.
Google Fonts — The free font library most of the web runs on.
1001 Fonts — Free fonts for commercial use.
DaFont — Massive collection of free downloadable fonts.
Better Web Type — Interactive tool for understanding the relationship between font size, line height, and line length.
UI Colors — Tailwind CSS color palette generator. Generate full shade scales from a single color.
Brandmark Color Wheel — Interactive color wheel for branding and design exploration.
Font Brief — Find the perfect font by describing what you need.
Typewolf — What’s trending in type. Font recommendations and real-world typography examples.

Design Skill Games

Can’t Unsee — Pick the correct UI design from two options. Trains your eye for detail.
Type War — Can you tell fonts apart? A game for typography nerds.
Pixact.ly — Guess pixel dimensions. Surprisingly addictive.
Shape Method — Practice drawing Bezier curves to match target shapes.
Type Method — Kern type to perfection in this interactive game.
Bezier Method — Master the pen tool with Bezier curve challenges.
Designer’s Eye — Test your visual design skills with quick challenges.

Assets & Illustrations

Flaticon — Largest database of free icons and stickers.
Freepik — Free vectors, photos, PSD, and icons.
Unsplash — Beautiful free photos contributed by photographers worldwide.
unDraw — Open-source illustrations that you can customize by color.
LottieFiles — Free animations for web and mobile. Lightweight and easy to integrate.
SneakPeekit — Free printable sketch sheets for wireframing on paper.
UI Print — Printable wireframing templates for mobile, tablet, and desktop.
UIUX Assets — Free design resources and UI kits.
Microcopy.me — Real examples of UX writing and microcopy from products.
GraphicBurger — Free design resources, mockups, and PSD files.
Unblast — Selective free design resources — mockups, fonts, templates, and graphics.
Mockup World — Free PSD mockups for every device and scenario.
MockupBro — Free online product mockup generator. No Photoshop needed.
Mockups Design — Free premium mockups for presentations and portfolios.
Creative Market — Marketplace for fonts, graphics, templates, and themes.
Design Resources — Curated list of the best design resources across categories.
Produce UI — Large collection of Figma resources and UI kits.
Thiings Collection — Curated collection of useful design tools and resources.
UX Gears — Curated design tools organized by workflow stage.
App Icon Generator — Generate app icons for iOS, Android, and web from a single image.
Relume Component Library — Large Webflow component library for rapid prototyping.
UIverse — 3,000+ free UI elements built with CSS and Tailwind.

UX Practice & Challenges

UX Tools Challenges — Real-world UX design challenges to practice your skills.
Fake Clients — AI-generated design briefs for practice projects.
UI Coach — Random UI design challenges with constraints to push your creativity.
Design Assignments — Practice design tasks that simulate real work.

Blogs & Articles

UX Planet — One of the largest UX publications on Medium.
UX Design CC — Curated stories on user experience, usability, and product design.
Adham Dannaway — Product designer writing about portfolios, career, and practical design tips.
Dan DeMello — Writes about UX strategy and product design.
Edward Che — UX design and career insights.
Fabricio Teixeira — Co-founder of UX Collective. Writes about design leadership and industry trends.
Joey Banks — Design systems and UI engineering.
Nir Eyal — Author of Hooked. Writes about behavioral design and habit-forming products.
Nir Eyal — Best Articles — Curated collection of Nir’s best writing on behavioral design.
Vikalp Kaushik — UI/UX design tutorials and case studies.
A List Apart — Pioneering web design publication. Articles on design, development, and web standards since 1998.
Spotify Design — Leadership Skills — How Spotify thinks about design leadership.

Medium Articles Worth Reading

How I Use ChatGPT as a UI/UX Designer — Practical ways to integrate AI into your design workflow.
Pixels to People — What is UI/UX Design — A clear breakdown of UI vs UX and how they work together.
What is Spatial UI Design — Introduction to designing for spatial and 3D interfaces.

Worth Reading

40 Lessons from Famous Graphic Designers — Timeless design wisdom from the legends of graphic design.

YouTube Channels

AJ&Smart — Design sprints, workshops, and product design.
Ansh Mehra — Indian design creator covering freelancing, UI/UX, and career.
DesignSense — UI/UX tutorials and design breakdowns.
ForeverDansky — After Effects and motion design tutorials.
Malewicz — Opinionated takes on UI design, Figma, and the design industry.
Mike Locke — UX career advice and practical design guidance.
Mizko — UI/UX design tutorials and career content.
NN Group — Evidence-based UX research in video format.
Punit Chawla — UI/UX design tutorials and Figma tips.
UX Anudeep — UX design for the Indian audience.
UX Hacker — Sketch and UX design tutorials.
Abnux — UX design course content and career advice.
Saptarshi Prakash — Indian product designer sharing design breakdowns and tutorials.
The Futur — Business of design, branding, and creative entrepreneurship.

Books

Hooked — Nir Eyal — The framework for building habit-forming products.
Articulating Design Decisions — How to communicate and defend your design choices to stakeholders.
Design for How People Think — Applying cognitive psychology to product design.
Algorithms to Live By — Computer science principles applied to everyday decision-making.
Steal Like an Artist — Austin Kleon — A creative manifesto for finding inspiration everywhere.
Show Your Work — Austin Kleon — Why sharing your process matters more than the final result.
Keep Going — Austin Kleon — Staying creative when motivation fades.

Instagram Accounts

sam.designs — UI/UX design tips and inspiration.
joelledesigner — Design content and tips.
ux.sayali — UX design content and career insights.

Freelance & Job Platforms

Upwork — The largest freelancing platform for design and development work.
Fiverr — Freelance gigs starting at $5. Good for building a portfolio with real clients.
Toptal — Exclusive freelance network for top designers and developers.
Contra — Commission-free freelancing platform.
Peerlist — Professional network for designers and developers.
Wellfound — Startup jobs. Formerly AngelList Talent.
We Work Remotely — Remote-only job board.
Freelancer — Freelance marketplace with design contests.
PeoplePerHour — Freelance platform popular in Europe.
Simply Hired — Job search aggregator.
99designs — Design contest platform for logos, branding, and more.
Designhill — Graphic design marketplace.
DesignCrowd — Crowdsourced design platform.
Guru — Freelance platform for creative and technical work.
ADPList — Free mentorship from designers around the world.

Design is a skill you build by doing. Pick a few resources from each section, practice daily, and don’t wait until you feel ready — just start making things. Pair this with Frontend Tools & Learning Resources for the dev side of the equation.