Ask HN: How to learn design and UI/UX

Your first designs are going to be horrible, no way around it, just keep going, compare, reflect, learn, and things will get better over time.

If you can get feedback from experienced designers that will help a lot.

As to resources; Others mentioned Don Norman's book (and nngroup.com), great suggestions. I would also spend time looking at good designs and trying to figure out what makes them good. Just ask "why" about everything. "Why is this button this color, why is it this size, why is it placed here? etc etc".

Good design is about achieving goals, the better you get at focussing on those goals, mainly by asking "why", the better your understanding of design and your own designs will become.

Use a desktop PC, not a laptop, and unplug the mouse. Learn to navigate solely with the keyboard. This is perfectly doable, works very well on Windows and some Linux desktops, and it will give you a good appreciation and understanding of good vs. bad UI design -- because there are a thousand small things that aren't noticeable when pointing and clicking.

This doesn't mean just using the shell. Any competently-written GUI can be navigated by keyboard alone.

It'll make you faster, you'll learn a lot of "power user" shortcuts and things, and it makes you better at designing software that is accessible to users with sensory or motor disabilities.