Career advice

Become a UX Designer

The role of a UX designer is to make products and technology user-friendly so that audiences find them simple, accessible and enjoyable to use. User experience is at the forefront of their minds when designing a product or service.

  • Average salary in UK

    £31,508 (PayScale)

  • Average salary in US

    $85,277 (Glassdoor)

  • Average salary in Canada

    CA$63,235 (PayScale)

  • Average salary in Australia

    AU$73,148 (PayScale)
Source: PayScale

What skills do you need to become a UX designer?

  • Research skills

    A lot of time and research goes into creating an app or website, and UX designers must ensure that their decisions are backed up with evidence. They gather a lot of data, research their target audiences, and evaluate user expectations and motivations.

  • Collaboration

    UX designers work very closely with other members of the team, including developers and content strategists. This means they have to be able to listen well to others, collaborate and compromise in order to design the best possible product.

  • Analytics

    Since UX design is all about user experience, designers need to understand analytics so they can see how users interact with different content. Data is becoming increasingly important when making decisions related to user design.

  • Coding

    You don’t need to be an expert coder, but it’ll certainly help if you have an understanding of coding in this role. It will be particularly advantageous to know HTML, CSS and Javascript, as these languages will help you bridge the gap between design and user experience.

Develop these skills. Start a short UX design course.

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2 ExpertTracks

A series of courses designed to help you specialise your skills. Start a free seven-day trial, subscribe to keep learning at your own pace, and cancel your subscription whenever you like.

FutureLearn in collaboration with Canva

UX Design Fundamentals

Launch your career in user experience (UX) design by developing your skills and knowledge of UX principles.

3 courses

12 weeks

Introductory

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FutureLearn in collaboration with Canva

UX Design Strategy and Application

Develop UX skills in customer journey mapping, service design and customer profiling.

3 courses

12 weeks

Introductory

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Courses
15 Courses

Learn new skills, pursue your interests or advance your career with our short online courses.

Accenture

Digital Skills: User Experience

4.7 (718 reviews)

Learn about why user experience (UX) is important, the research and design basics, and the tools and testing techniques used in UX

3 weeks

2 hrs per week

Free digital upgrade

Find out more
FutureLearn

UX Design Fundamentals: Business value through User Experience (UX) design

5.0 (6 reviews)

Learn the fundamental UX skills, principles and other essentials required to kickstart your career as a digital UX designer.

4 weeks

4 hrs per week

Find out more
FutureLearn

UX Design Fundamentals: Creating business outcomes

Uncover the role of business strategy and adopt a customer-centric mindset to become a successful user experience designer.

4 weeks

4 hrs per week

Find out more
FutureLearn

UX Design Fundamentals: Delivering value to users

Learn the role of design thinking in UX – from the five stages of design thinking to defining and creating an ideation plan.

4 weeks

4 hrs per week

Find out more
University of Michigan

Evaluating Designs with Users

Learn how to evaluate your designs by using effective UX testing methods and building robust UX research processes.

4 weeks

3 hrs per week

Find out more
University of Michigan

Introduction to User Experience Principles and Processes

Learn the basics of the UX design process, how to conduct effective user research, and kickstart your career in user experience.

6 weeks

3 hrs per week

Find out more
University of Michigan

UX Design: From Concept to Prototype

4.0 (5 reviews)

Better understand the UX design process and learn how to build a user-centred product from concept to prototype.

6 weeks

3 hrs per week

Find out more
University of Michigan

UX Research at Scale: Surveys, Analytics, Online Testing

Build your skills in conducting UX surveys at scale to gain UX insights, and explore alternative testing and research methods.

8 weeks

3 hrs per week

Find out more
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