Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. Typography is where most non-designer products quietly fall apart, and this free online book fixes that with plain rules. Start... practicaltypography.com Book · Free online book, start with the 10-minute summary · Starting Up Butterick's Practical Typography Matthew Butterick
2. A logic-driven handbook aimed at developers who no longer want to depend on a designer, from someone who has designed products... practical-ui.com Book · Book plus Figma design system kit · Starting Up Practical UI Adham Dannaway
3. Color is where founders most often go wrong, and this walks you through a simple, safe system: one primary, a set of neutrals,... DEV Community Article · 12 min read · Starting Up A beginner's guide to applying color in UI design George Francis
4. A free video series from a designer who spent years teaching developers, walking you from fundamentals to real screens over... DesignCourse (YouTube) Course · Multi-video playlist · Starting Up Learn UI/UX in 30 Days Gary Simon
5. 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
6. 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
7. 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
8. Video · Approx. 40 min · Starting Up How to Think Like a Visual Designer Steve Schoger
9. Video · 9 min · Starting Up Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics (video) Nielsen Norman Group
10. Video · ~1 hr · Starting Up The Design of Everyday Things: 25 years later (BayCHI talk) Don Norman
11. 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
12. 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
13. 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
14. 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
15. 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
16. 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
17. 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
18. 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
19. 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
20. 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
21. 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
22. 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
23. Video · Approx. 25 minutes · Starting Up Figma Tutorial For Beginners AJ&Smart
24. This turns a written description of your flow into an interactive prototype you can click through and refine. For a founder who... Figma Tool · Tool · Starting Up Figma Make (prompt to prototype) Figma

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