20 practical guides

UX and UI Design Guides

Learn how to frame design questions, gather and interpret evidence, specify complete interface behavior, evaluate accessibility criteria, and maintain shared design systems.

Why this topic

Built for designers, researchers, writers, and product teams who need concrete methods, reusable working artifacts, and careful factual limits.

01
Usability research

Plan a usability test

Define the decision, participants, tasks, evidence, logistics, and analysis needed for a focused usability test.

02
Research task design

Write usability tasks

Create realistic task scenarios that establish a goal and context without revealing controls, paths, or expected answers.

03
Research synthesis

Prioritize research findings

Trace observations into findings, compare customer consequence and evidence, and make explicit design priority decisions.

04
Experience mapping

Create a journey map

Map one person's goal across stages, actions, touchpoints, questions, evidence, and opportunities without inventing a universal journey.

05
Content structure

Design information architecture

Organize, label, and connect digital content around user goals, content evidence, and tested retrieval paths.

06
Information architecture research

Run a card sort

Choose an open or closed card sort, prepare representative cards, facilitate consistently, and interpret patterns without treating them as a finished architecture.

07
Interaction exploration

Build a useful wireframe

Match wireframe content, states, flow, and fidelity to the design uncertainty instead of polishing assumptions.

08
Form interaction

Design safer forms

Structure questions, labels, input support, validation, and recovery around the person's goal and the consequence of mistakes.

09
UX writing

Write interface microcopy

Write labels, instructions, actions, confirmations, and errors that help people understand consequences and continue.

10
System feedback

Design system states

Distinguish system conditions, preserve context, communicate progress, and provide safe next actions across non-ideal states.

11
Accessible visual design

Build an accessible color system

Define semantic color roles, contrast-tested combinations, non-color cues, and review practices without treating a palette as conformance.

12
Keyboard interaction

Design keyboard access

Specify native interaction, logical focus order, visible focus, complete operation, and recovery for keyboard users.

13
Screen-reader interaction

Design for screen readers

Specify semantic structure, names, relationships, reading order, status, and focus behavior for nonvisual interaction.

14
Responsive design

Create responsive Figma layouts

Model reflow, resizing, content growth, and component behavior across meaningful container conditions in Figma.

15
Design-system foundations

Maintain design tokens

Create semantic design decisions that map across platforms, themes, components, documentation, and controlled change.

16
Design systems

Design a component library

Define component purpose, anatomy, behavior, states, content, accessibility, APIs, and contribution governance.

17
Design collaboration

Run a design critique

Structure critique around goals, maturity, evidence, constraints, observations, questions, and owned next decisions.

18
UX measurement

Measure task success and time

Define tasks, completion, errors, assistance, timing, segments, and interpretation before comparing usability evidence.

19
Dashboard design

Design dense dashboards

Organize measures, comparisons, filters, tables, status, and detail around recurring operational decisions.

20
Design career practice

Prepare a UX case study

Select a relevant project and explain context, contribution, decisions, evidence, tradeoffs, outcomes, and reflection truthfully.

Demand and scope reference: Nielsen Norman Group usability testing guide. Guidance on planning sessions in which representative participants attempt realistic activities.