Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

What founders use most, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

1. Instead of guessing hex codes, you pick text, background, primary, and accent colors and see them applied to a realistic... realtimecolors.com Tool · Free web tool · Starting Up Realtime Colors Juxtopposed
2. Mismatched, blown-up, or clashing icons make a product look amateur fast. Heroicons gives you one consistent, professionally... heroicons.com Tool · Free icon set · Starting Up Heroicons Steve Schoger and the Tailwind Labs team
3. Give it one accent color and it generates a full range of shades, from very light to very dark, that stay balanced across the... uicolors.app Tool · Free web tool · Starting Up UI Colors: Tailwind CSS Color Generator UI Colors
4. Video · Approx. 40 min · Starting Up How to Think Like a Visual Designer Steve Schoger
5. Video · 9 min · Starting Up Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics (video) Nielsen Norman Group
6. Video · ~1 hr · Starting Up The Design of Everyday Things: 25 years later (BayCHI talk) Don Norman
7. This is the how behind reduce the thinking to zero. It names the three levers you actually control: cut visual clutter, build... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 9 min read · Starting Up Minimize Cognitive Load to Maximize Usability Kathryn Whitenton
8. Tognazzini built Apple's original interface guidelines, and this is his deep list of principles: anticipation, autonomy,... AskTog (Bruce Tognazzini) Article · 40 min read · Starting Up First Principles of Interaction Design (Revised and Expanded) Bruce Tognazzini
9. Crisp, opinionated principles from the team that made government services genuinely usable at massive scale. Start with user... GOV.UK (Government Digital Service) Article · 10 min read · Starting Up Government Design Principles UK Government Digital Service
10. Error prevention is one of Nielsen's ten heuristics, and this unpacks how to actually do it: match the user's mental model,... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 8 min read · Starting Up Preventing User Errors: Avoiding Conscious Mistakes Page Laubheimer
11. An Indian product team writing about how they think, not just how they draw. Zomato argues that good UX starts from... Zomato Article · 10 min read · Starting Up Product Before Pixels: a product thinking workshop for designers Zomato Design
12. A behind the scenes look at how an Indian company built consistency into a fast moving product with a shared design system. It... Zomato Article · 8 min read · Starting Up Zomato's Sushi Design System Zomato Design
13. The quality of your test depends entirely on the tasks you give. This piece shows how to write realistic scenarios that do not... Nielsen Norman Group Article · ~9 min read · Starting Up Turn User Goals into Task Scenarios for Usability Testing Marieke McCloskey
14. This is the free hub the short answer points you to. It walks you through frames, shapes, text, and prototyping by building one... Figma Learn Course · Approx. 2 to 3 hours, self-paced · Starting Up Figma Design for beginners (official course) Figma
15. Wireframing is the skill the short answer says you actually need, and this explains it without design jargon. It covers low... Figma Article · 12 minute read · Starting Up What is Wireframing? The Complete Guide Figma
16. The short answer says the real work is thinking through the user's path, and mapping the flow is how you do that before... Figma Article · 10 minute read · Starting Up What is a user flow, and why it matters Figma
17. This chapter argues you can think through a whole flow with words and crude sketches before any real design tool. Breadboarding... Basecamp Essay · 20 minute read · Starting Up Shape Up: Find the Elements (breadboarding and fat marker sketches) Ryan Singer
18. Before you even open Figma, this shows you can test a flow with paper cutouts and catch most usability problems. The research... Nielsen Norman Group Video · 40 minutes · Starting Up Paper Prototyping: How to Create and Usability-Test Simple UI Prototypes Nielsen Norman Group
19. Video · Approx. 25 minutes · Starting Up Figma Tutorial For Beginners AJ&Smart
20. An India-focused program on going from an idea to a working prototype using AI and modern tools. It is aimed at founders here... Google for Startups Course · Short program, self-paced · Starting Up Startup School: Prompt to Prototype (India) Google for Startups
21. This is the book behind the whole idea that good design is affordances and feedback, the exact language in our short answer.... Don Norman Book · Book, approx 350 pages · Starting Up The Design of Everyday Things (Revised and Expanded Edition) Don Norman
22. This backs up the first three seconds claim with research: people judge a page in milliseconds, and that snap verdict is hard... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 10 min read · Starting Up First Impressions Matter: How Designers Can Support Humans' Automatic Cognitive Processing Therese Fessenden
23. A crisp reference on the research finding that people perceive attractive products as more usable and forgive their small... Laws of UX Tool · 5 min read plus reference library · Starting Up Aesthetic-Usability Effect Jon Yablonski
24. Airbnb's cofounder shows how deliberate design decisions convinced millions of strangers to trust each other enough to share... TED Video · 16 min video · Starting Up How Airbnb Designs for Trust Joe Gebbia

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