Understanding how people think, how we respond to design elements, and our cognitive abilities and limitations, so learning the basics will enable you to make effective decisions about content organization, task flow, labeling, color choices, interaction design everything.

2) Research Methods:

Making informed, user-centered design decisions is what separates traditional UI design from UX design. Traditional UI design was (and still is) based on design guidelines and assumptions about what people need and expect. UX design is evidence-based.

3) Information Architecture:

Structuring content so that it matches users’ expectations and helps them achieve their goals is a critical skill. Information architecture involves organizing, structuring and labeling all elements of the design and including copy and graphic content.

4) Wireframing / Prototyping:

Creating low-fidelity and high-fidelity layouts of content based on research helps you (and the team) draft various design concepts and quickly make changes. Wireframes are skeleton design concepts (low-fidelity) that do not include aesthetics or content details while prototypes include detailed information architecture and aesthetics.

5) Interaction Design:

Facilitating user interactions that are clear, timely, and predictable is vital for designing great user experiences. While the goal of graphic design is to convey a message or inspire people to take action, interaction design builds on that by supporting way finding, decision-making and goal achievement.

6) Inclusive Design:

Designing for diverse abilities, cultures, identities, and context of use is often overlooked, or considered niche, but it’s actually imperative for designing great user experiences.

7) Basic UI Development:

This is actually a bonus. Understanding the basics about user interface markup is not required but extremely helpful for having conversations with developers about styling and content presentation.