Free Interaction Design Course: Master the Basics

Interaction design is essential to both user experience and user interaction design, but what topics do you actually need to know? In 5 days, go from Nielsen heuristics and interaction design principles to user states, touch targets, and material design for a complete product design introduction.

Learn how to build products that solve actual user problems

Translate user experiences "whats" to engineering "hows"

Become irreplaceable to any design team

Learning that fits your schedule

Split across five days and sent straight to your inbox, you can take this course at your own pace.

Content from our curriculum

You'll learn the same content our students do. Not to mention ...

Free lessons for life

We made this course free so people could learn about what it takes to be a designer risk free.

Leveraging Springboard's own UI/UX Design Career Track curriculum, we created this approachable 5-day course to make the foundations of interaction design accessible to everyone.

1. Intro to Heuristics and Principles : Learn the difference between different design disciplines, the 10 rules-of-thumb that changes UI design, and how to pick principles for your own design practice.

2. ID Common UI Elements : Learn the most comment elements you could utilize in your interaction point, and the HTML you should associate with each one.

3. Common and Current UI Patterns : A primer on recognizing UI patterns and creating a design system for consistent experience.

4. Interaction Behaviors and Mobile Design : Short introduction to user "gestures" and designing for mobile devices specifically.

5. Designing for User States : What are user states? Whether empty, loading, error ridden or successful, learn to create mock ups with all of your basis covered.

Who is this interaction design course for?

Working professionals who have heard of user experience design and want to get a sense of whether that work will interest them.

Someone who has taken our other free content, read our blog, or watched tutorials enough to dive into a more specific subject.

Students who are about to graduate their secondary or post secondary education, and want to understand the basics of a new skillset quickly.

People who want to transition into a tech career, but aren't sure what role they'd like to pursue.

The course is available to anyone interested in learning a foundational user experience design skill. While welcoming to beginners, it may help to affiliate yourself with the subject first. Our blog post, UI Design vs. UX Design vs. Interaction Design vs. Visual Design, is a great place to start.

While interaction design is an essential skill for all UI/UX designers, learning Ix design alone will not get you job ready. If you’ve validated your interest in pursuing a design career, see if mentorship through our Intro to Design course is right for you.

Yes! Even though material is pulled from our UI/UX Design Career Track, this course was designed for the curious and driven beginner. The first lesson explains what interaction design is, with subsequent lessons breaking down fundamental principles and trends.

Many students discover that interaction design is as much an art as it is a science, and it can be difficult to apply to current projects. Every persona requires different design elements. While this course teaches interaction design fundamentals, it’s important to get feedback from your ideal user (and other designers) along the way.