Melissa Milloway

The Big List Of Resources For Designing Digital Learning Experiences

Last updated: 5/16/2019

I use a ton of resources when designing a new learning experience. I look to several sites and tools to help inspire me, to teach me, and to support me.

Get inspired by these resources

I integrate learning about beautiful and user friendly designs into my day. I use these tools and sites to inspire me.

  1. Panda - A Google Chrome extension.
  2. Dribbble
  3. Collect UI
  4. Behance
  5. PatternTap by ZURB
  6. One Page Love
  7. Site Inspire
  8. AWWWARDS
  9. Codepen
  10. Mobbin

Collect what inspirations you

As I'm looking through different designs for inspiration, I add the ones I like to a moodboard. I'll download images of the designs or take screenshots and add them into the moodboard. Here are some examples of moodboards to use.

  1. Go Moodboard
  2. Niice
  3. The Matboard
  4. Pocket

Design a mockup and/or a prototype

My main tool of choice for creating mockups is Sketch. Here are some other common tools for creating mockups and prototypes. A pen and paper also works well!

  1. Sketch (Mac only)
  2. Adobe XD
  3. Framer
  4. InVision

Learn all the things

This list of curated courses have all been tested and approved by me. They've been super helpful in teaching me design tools/coding and a bit about web design fundamentals.

  1. Adobe XD CC Essential Training: Design
  2. User Experience Design Essentials - Adobe XD UI UX Design
  3. Adobe XD Essential Training: Prototype and Share
  4. Sketch Essential Training: The Basics
  5. Code School - HTML/CSS path
  6. Code School - Fundamentals of Design
  7. Code School - The Elements of Web Design
  8. EnvatoTuts+
  9. Daily UI - Check out this ID's take on the challenge.
  10. Adobe Daily Creative Challenge (changes month to month)

Get the resources, don't let your dreams be dreams.

I'm always on the lookout for free and cheap resources to help me design a project. These are just a few of the resources I utilize.

Shia LeBouf animated gif of him saying, Don't let your dreams be dreams.
  1. Design Notes

    A free resource library for product designers.

  2. Awesome Design Tools

    The best design tools for everything. Curated by Lisa Dziuba & Valia Havruliyk from Flawless team.

  3. Sans Francisco

    A collection of tools to help designers craft delightful experiences.

  4. All The Free Stock

    Basically, a giant hub for stock sites on videos, images, graphics, icons, audio, color inspo, templates, and more.

  5. Stock Jo

    Another really great hub for many different stock sites.

  6. Designer Lynx

    Tons of resources to help inspire you and support you in designing.

  7. Free Design Resources

    A great repository of all kinds of stock multimedia.

  8. Ui Goodies

    An excellent resource for sites on accessibility tools, animation, audio, content, stock photos and more.

  9. Sketch App Sources

    Resources for design for Sketch (and sometimes Photoshop and Illustrator.)

  10. Sketch Repo

    More Sketch resources, UI kits, icons, and more.

  11. Freebie Supply

    Lots of freebies, especially for UI design.

  12. Pixel Buddha

    Lots more freebies.

  13. Up Labs

    Freebies and inspirational resources.

  14. XD Resources

    Free Adobe XD resources.

  15. Hero Patterns

    Just a bunch of nice subtle patterns you can use for backgrounds and other things.

  16. Subtle Patterns

    More awesomely subtle patterns.

  17. Patternico

    Create your own custom patterns.

  18. Emoji One

    Just some more emoji.

  19. avataaars

    Avatars to use in your projects you can customize them in Sketch or use the web app in browser.

  20. unDraw

    Open-source illustrations for every project you can imagine and create

  21. The Badass List of Free Stock Photos Websites for Designers

    A massive list of stock photo sites.

  22. ImageOptim

    Reduce your image file size, without losing quality.

— Mel