I would study the practical, and then practice and innovate. That means, some theoretical stuff [0, 1], design some boring stuff according to it, and then colo

I would study the practical, and then practice and innovate. That means, some theoretical stuff [0, 1], design some boring stuff according to it, and then color outside the lines and try to push the field forward a bit by finding a better way to do a common thing (according to you, a fresh set of eyes in the UX world). Look at example projects on codepen [2] for a ton of examples of each of these. For instance, you're going to find really common ways of making input boxes, but some wild new ways too. I think that's what a good UX person knows -- a little of both. You don't need to know how to code them unless you get interested in coding -- this is to learn what to design by getting inspired at some other people's work. Soon enough, you are going to know what is good UX and bad UX, even if it doesn't correspond to the official rules of UX. Also read some about how the big dogs are doing UX (good and bad/dark) to get a lay of the corporate land. [0]: http://thehipperelement.com/post/66097606120/10-ways-to-pretend-you-know-ux-when-you-dont http://thehipperelement.com/post/66097606120/10-ways-to-pret... [1]: https://trydesignlab.com/blog/where-ux-design-5-years-predictions/ https://trydesignlab.com/blog/where-ux-design-5-years-predic... [2]: https://codepen.io/pens/ https://codepen.io/pens/