How to learn ui/ux design for free in 2025

Hey, I am Arman Hossain Somoy, a senior UI/UX designer with four years of experience. When I started in UI/UX design, I faced many challenges in learning. I didn’t have any proper guidance or a clear path to learn UI/UX design easily. Although there were many videos and articles available, none provided a proper guideline. So, I am writing this article for my fellow UI/UX designers who want to learn UI/UX design and build a career in it.

Why UI/UX design?

Before starting to learn UI/UX design, you need to know why you’re interested in it. Do you want to be a UI designer, a UX designer, or a UI/UX designer?

• UI design (User Interface design): This is where a designer works on the product interface, focusing on color, design patterns, and aesthetics. The goal is to make it visually appealing so users can easily be attracted to it.
• UX design (User Experience design): This involves designing the product’s functionality, including how the system will work and how the call-to-action buttons will function. This is the work of a UX designer.
• UI/UX design: In UI/UX design, you need to consider both aesthetics and functionality. You must make the product visually appealing while ensuring it is user-friendly, so users can easily interact with it.

Learn UI/UX Design Skills

Okay, it’s official—you want to learn UI/UX design. There are some essential things you should know in UI/UX design, like visual design, prototyping and wireframing, user research, and, most importantly, learning design tools. I’ll explain these in detail later, but first, you need to create a routine. For the next 8 weeks, you should aim to learn all these skills. I’ll also suggest some YouTube channels, free video courses, and some books to help you. So, make a routine and start learning.

Alright, now let’s dive deeper:

• Visual design: You need to understand color schemes, typography, layout, and visual hierarchy.
• Prototyping and wireframing: These are methods for planning the user journey and showcasing product visuals.
• User research: This is one of the most important things. You need to know your target audience and design functionalities according to user needs.
• Design tool: Here, you need to learn a design tool. It can be anything, but we can start with Figma because it’s one of the most beginner-friendly tools.

Resources and Planning

Planning: Although you can make your own plan, let me help you understand how to start first. You know what things you need to learn, so now search those topics on Google to find articles and YouTube videos. Then, create an 8-week plan based on that research. You can also ask ChatGPT to help create an 8-week plan for learning visual design fundamentals, prototyping, wireframing, and user research. Here is a sample plan for guidance:

Weeks 1-2: Visual Design Fundamentals

Goal: Understand the basics of visual design, including color theory, typography, layout, and visual hierarchy.

• Week 1:
  • Day 1-3: Color Theory – Learn color basics and explore color psychology. Use tools like Adobe Color to create a color palette.
  • Day 4-6: Typography – Study font types, pairing, and readability. Practice with Google Fonts to experiment with typography.
  • Day 7: Recap and Practice – Analyze a few designs and identify color and typography choices.
• Week 2:
  • Day 1-3: Layout – Learn grid systems, alignment, spacing, and composition. Practice designing layouts in tools like Figma or Adobe XD.
  • Day 4-6: Visual Hierarchy – Study hierarchy principles and apply them by arranging elements in a mockup.
  • Day 7: Recap and Critique – Review your layouts for visual hierarchy and seek feedback from online communities.

Weeks 3-4: Prototyping and Wireframing

Goal: Gain hands-on experience creating wireframes and interactive prototypes.

• Week 3:
  • Day 1-3: Introduction to Wireframing – Learn wireframe basics, focusing on low-fidelity (simple, skeletal) wireframes.
  • Day 4-6: Tool Practice – Practice wireframing with Figma or Adobe XD, using a sample website or app.
  • Day 7: Complete a low-fidelity wireframe for a basic project (e.g., a simple app screen).
• Week 4:
  • Day 1-3: Interactive Prototyping Basics – Learn how to create clickable prototypes. Study how interactions guide user flow.
  • Day 4-6: Tool Practice – Create a prototype from your wireframe and add interactions like button clicks or screen transitions.
  • Day 7: Review and Test – Share your prototype with friends or online groups for feedback.

Weeks 5-6: User Research Basics

Goal: Understand user research methods and practice gathering user insights.

• Week 5:
  • Day 1-3: Introduction to User Research – Learn about user personas, empathy mapping, and the importance of understanding your audience.
  • Day 4-6: Methods Overview – Study methods like surveys, interviews, and usability testing.
  • Day 7: Create a persona or empathy map for a hypothetical user of your choice.
• Week 6:
  • Day 1-3: Conducting Interviews – Develop a basic interview guide. Practice with friends to simulate real user interviews.
  • Day 4-6: Usability Testing Basics – Learn usability testing fundamentals. Set up a simple usability test for your prototype.
  • Day 7: Run a usability test on your prototype and gather feedback.

Weeks 7-8: Bringing It All Together

Goal: Apply what you’ve learned to a real or hypothetical project, from research to a polished design.

• Week 7:
  • Day 1-3: Choose a Project – Pick a small project (like an app or a webpage redesign) and outline its goals, audience, and key features.
  • Day 4-6: User Research Application – Revisit user research findings, refine your personas, and update your design plan.
  • Day 7: Start creating mid-fidelity wireframes based on your findings.
• Week 8:
  • Day 1-4: Refine and Prototype – Develop high-fidelity wireframes and a polished prototype. Add all essential interactions.
  • Day 5-7: Testing and Feedback – Conduct usability testing on your final prototype and make adjustments.

Note: This is just a sample plan since every person has their own learning speed. So, adapt it to suit your needs.

30-Day Design Practice Challenge

Okay, this is the most interesting and important part. If you can do this, you can call yourself a UI/UX designer. So, what’s the part? It’s a challenge: you have to design something every day for the next 30 days. It can be a login page, a contact page, different types of button designs—anything.

Why do you need to do this? Because if you do this consistently, your design skills will go from 0 to 100 in a month. If we take a typical business website as a reference, there are approximately 10 pages and around 30+ sections on those pages. If you design a different type of page every day, it will not only improve your design skills but also increase your design knowledge.

So, what do you have to do? First, create a 30-day calendar with what you will design each day. Don’t know what to design? Just go to ChatGPT and type: “Give me a 30-day UI/UX design challenge with a new design each day. The designs should be easy and take a short time to complete.” Done! Your calendar is ready.

Now, post on any of your social media—Facebook, Instagram, or anywhere—that you are taking the 30-day UI/UX design challenge. By doing this, you’ll be accountable not only to yourself but also to your friends. I recommend posting on LinkedIn and Instagram. Then, do the design work and post it on your social media every day. Try to explain something about your design and use hashtags like #30dayschallenge and #day1of30dayschallenge. So, go for it!

Real-life work:

After completing the 30-day challenge, try to design 5 real-life projects. Make sure each project checks all of the following points:

1. It must be a real business.
2. It must already be operational.
3. It should be a big project, with more than 15-20 pages or screens.
4. It must solve some type of problem.

With these checkpoints in mind, choose some projects for yourself and try to complete them with proper steps. For example, you could redesign Amazon. It’s a real, operational business; it’s a big project; and it solves human problems. Now, create similar projects—it could be a local e-commerce store or an ed-tech company website. Do it in your own way.

I hope you now have an answer on how you can learn UI/UX design for free in 2025. Please try to follow all of these steps. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below. If there’s anything else you want to know, do leave a comment. Save and share this article with your friends, as I will share many resources and make regular updates to this article.
Thank you for taking the time to read this!