Attending this course and passing the exam earns 1 UX Certification credit, which also counts towards the optional Interaction Design Specialty.
Learn more about NN/g's UX Certification Program.
Visual Design Fundamentals
What every team member needs to know about creating user interfaces using essential principles, techniques, and methods of visual design
Learning Objectives
Learning Objectives
In this course, you’ll learn how to:
- Identify what makes a design aesthetically pleasing
- Better communicate and collaborate with visual designers
- Level-up your visual design skills
- Assess designs using proven principles rather than subjective opinions
Who Should Attend
Who Should Attend
- UX generalists covering many aspects of UX at their organization, including visual design
- UX researchers or writers who want to upskill their visual design understanding
- Cross-disciplinary team members looking to better understand the visual design process
- Visual designers needing a refresher on the fundamentals
Note: We do not recommend this class for visual designers with a degree in Graphic Design, or similar, unless you are responsible for teaching visual design to others.
Topics Covered
Topics Covered
- Understanding visual hierarchy and layout
- The principles of visual design
- How to create a visual hierarchy
- Visually prioritizing elements and content on the screen
- Graphic design fundamentals
- Creating and using grid systems
- How to apply grids to web and mobile applications
- Responsive grids
- The Golden Ratio
- Working with typefaces
- Choosing a typeface
- Using line width and height to create white space
- Mixing and matching typefaces
- Typography accessibility
- Choosing colors and creating color palettes
- Create a color palette
- How to use color for interaction
- The 60-30-10 rule for applying color
- Color accessibility
- Incorporating imagery
- Choosing and working with illustrations
- Utilizing icon libraries
- Selecting photography
- Assessing imagery for use on web and mobile apps
- Establishing a visual design system
- Maintaining consistency
- How to create, store, and update a visual design system
- Incorporating brand guidelines into UI designs
- The visual design process
- Formatting and documenting files for collaboration
- Working effectively with development teams
- Visual design tradeoffs
- Organizing and versioning files
- Choosing the right level of fidelity (lo vs. mid vs. hi)
- Assessing visual designs
- Running a design critique
- Testing visual design
- Recognizing dark patterns
Format
Format
This course is a combination of lecture format and participatory workshop. You will participate in group exercises to reinforce the learned principles.
This course also includes:
- Hands-on visual design exercises with feedback from the instructor
- Screenshots of designs that work and don’t work, and why
- Resources and tools for improving your visual design process
- Opportunities to ask questions and get answers
UX Certification Credit
UX Certification Credit
Participant Comments
Participant Comments
"This is an excellent course for educating designers on visual principles. It's also approachable enough that I would recommend it to non-designers who work on projects that involve design. It's a direct view into the criteria that inform how visual design decisions should be made, and it will help designers and non-designers alike achieve a better understanding of processes that might otherwise seem subjective or even arbitrary."
Josh Vincent, Austin, TX USA
"Really helpful. Rachel was very patient and took time to answer all the questions with examples/references that helps us associate the principles easily. Its funny how we tend to overlook some of the fundamentals but that ends up being the prime reason for the over complex designs. After this course my first goal is to get the fundamentals right then the design will fall in place."
Shylu Rajakumar, Baxter, Deerfield
"I would like to recommend this course to visual design workers and people in all fields who need to consider UX-related work and user experience. It will be helpful because the necessary contents and the understandable sample composition are well made."
Serrah Lim, HP, Seoul, Korea
"It's great for those wanting to brush up on their visual design skills. I don't come from a design background so I learned from experience so it was good to actually put names to the things I'm doing and then actively use them in my job."
Heather Johnson, Leidos, Morgantown, WV United States
More Participant Comments
"I benefitted greatly from this course and feel confident I can come back to my company and apply these skills moving forward."
Carmine, WorkWave, Montclair, New Jersey, USA
"I would tell people that even if you're an experienced designer, these skills are still perishable. Rachel did a great job of satisfying the experts AND newbies in the room."
Addison E Cruver, Booz Allen Hamilton, Richmond Hill
"I have some experience with Design that I thought myself through other resources. The Gestalt principles I know, to me they seem to be the rockstars in content online about visual design. The hands-on examples of Scale, Hierachy, Balance and Contrast created a 'click' moment for me that I can actively use in my future projects. If you are doubting yourself in 'Design' in general, take this course and you will able to know where you currently stand and how you can grow your skillset."
Kevin Mol, UXRD, Utrecht, The Netherlands
"I would highly recommend anyone who is just getting started, or works on Design Systems or pretty much anyone who is wanting to brush up their skills attend this course! Rachel was just amazing, the activities she had planned in groups and individually, were engaging and immersive. I learned about principles, strategies and just tricks of the trade that would help me excel in this aspect of design. I feel like even the 6 or 7 hours weren't enough for this course as I could keep go on and on to learn more about colors, typography and so much more!"
Sonali Agrawal, Fetch Rewards, Flower Mound, USA
"Excellent course, especially if you're new to design or work with designers and need to learn their "language". So many excellent resources offered, too."
Luisa Lago, The Co-operators, Guelph, Canada
"There are many valuable theories for a Front-end UI Designer, but I'd also like to recommend this course to my UX research and evaluation field colleagues. These theories could help them on how to visualize the data more engagingly. Previously, I tried to guess and build a color palette manually using color guide tools on adobe illustrator, which takes too much time and energy. Thank you for demonstrating the Adobe color tool. It helps improve my design time management."
Mentari Fajrin, Telkom Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia
"Even though I was familiar with virtually every topic discussed, it was valuable to have it organized in a way that I have a clearer understanding of when and how to apply concepts (using objective visual design concepts). This structure is a helpful reminder of all the things to think about, and gives me something practical to apply directly to my work."
Michael Casey, Philadelphia, USA
"This course does an excellent job of empowering you to look at a visual design and dissect it with constructive feedback. It is for both UI designers and UX analyst; it would even benefit a front-end web developer. I highly recommend the course."
David Felfoldi, SHERPA Global, Atlanta, USA
"Will recommend it for sure. Covered all topics related to Visual Design - good for everybody that wants to jump start or have a deeper understanding about Design."
Hugo Figueira, Hitachi, Lisbon, Portugal
"This course is very easy to follow. It's great for people looking to be introduced to visual design concepts but also for people who want to brush up on their knowledge. I felt like I was able to understand and learn very easily, as Rachel takes the time to thoroughly explain everything with case studies, examples, and activities."
Cindy, AppFolio, Los Angeles, USA
"This is a well structured course introducing visual design concepts, which enables non-visual designers like me to understand processes, name things, and make informed and objective visual design decisions. I found it a good complement to the Design Systems course."
Ingrid Pigueron, Freelance, Paris, France
"I would definitely recommend the course to people interested in the UX and others, because I think everyone would understand the content of the presentation. I was able to refresh and organize my knowledge. I liked everything, I have no objections :)"
Marta, Poland
"A course full of details, well explaining the theory behind various aspects of Visual Design as well as how to apply this theory in practice. The content of the presentation is very well structured and organized, the theory and proposed methodologies have been greatly explained. This course helped me with structuring and deepening my knowledge on the subject."
Marzena, Poland
"This class was great in helping me (a developer) understand why users like/dislike certain design elements and how to properly design features for users. The activities are engaging and helpful at reinforcing the knowledge. The knowledge is well explained and with the examples given it is easy to make connections and remember the principles for later use."
Carrie, USA
"Basics for beginners - all you need to know as Frontend Developer to cooperate with Designers and understand their work. ;-)"
Magdalena, Accenture, Katowice, Poland
"It is a really good introduction to Visual Design and it is something I recommend for everyone."
John Lindén, Kindred Group, Stockholm, Sweden
"Rachel is very knowledgeable about UX design. She is a great and fun facilitator. I definitely have learned a lot from this course. I would encourage people take this course from Rachel that learn about visual design principles and fundamentals, which will help improving the quality of their work."
Weiwei Ji, Arkansas Tech University, Russellville, AR
"Even though this course gives you "fundamentals", it's great either for beginners and experts who would like to improve their design skills. The tools, tips and information are really helpful for designers and non-designers."
Leslie Meléndez, Human Resources, Jalisco, Mexico
"Really worth taking if you can appreciate or practice good design and how it applies specifically to websites and apps. Love the practical nature of the activities."
Mitchell Carrigan, Canstar Blue, Brisbane, Australia
"This course is an excellent overview of visual design. I teach UI/UX and have a degree in graphic design. This course covers the most essential and immediately useable principles (gestalt, elements & principles) in designing the interactive digital format."
Kathleen Watson, katsvision, Los Gatos
"I really liked everything about this course, especially the information on color."
Tassyn Miller, SEIU 775 Benefits Group, Seattle, WA
"It was slightly too basic for me, but I'd highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't spent too much time with visual design before."
Jonte Edvardson, Transfer Galaxy, Undersåker
"Great class! I have been doing art design for years so I knew the basics, but this class really helped me apply those skills to web and UX."
Whitney, SILAC Insurance Company, Salt Lake City, USA
It’s easy to look at a design and acknowledge that it looks good. It’s often much more difficult to identify why it looks good. When UX professionals have a fundamental knowledge of visual design, they’re better equipped to identify and communicate what makes a design look good using the correct terminology and concepts.
This course explores core visual design principles and methods for creating aesthetically pleasing, but easy-to-use, user interfaces.