What is UI design and how to become a UI designer
If you want to start a career in software or app development, becoming a UI designer is a relatively easy way to do it. UI (user interface) design is the art of creating the look, feel, and usability of apps and websites. You don’t need to know how to code, but you do need to be curious, creative, and understand how users think and behave.
UI design involves many technical-design skills that you need to learn to work well with a development team. In this article, we will give you a brief overview of what UI design is, what tasks it involves, what tools you need, and what to consider if you want to work as a UI designer.
The user interface (UI) is the part of a digital product that the user interacts with. A good UI allows users to enjoy and benefit from a program, app, or software product. A bad UI makes it hard or impossible to use.
A good UI design should not distract or interrupt the user’s goals and natural behaviors. It should also reflect the company’s brand and help build trust and confidence in the website or platform.
The UI designer is responsible for designing, improving, and creating a smooth and attractive UI. Without a good UI design, the user may feel doubtful or skeptical about the product. The UI designer plays a key role in the long-term success of development projects.
UI designs are based on user data. Usually, the UI designer works on wireframe concepts that other design and product team members have created until they have a polished look.
Complex UIs may look impressive in your design portfolio and may attract potential clients. But if the interface is hard to use, it fails.
A UI designer has to combine several important factors to make sure customers have an easy, satisfying time using an app or website. Concretely, UI design involves
- Using typography, color theory, and design principles appropriately
- Creating a style library based on brand guidelines and code bases
- Managing design files and versions as the design changes
- Creating a consistent interface design
- Balancing design elements and media in a clear, pleasing, and informative way
- Representing the company’s brand
- Establishing trust and professionalism with users
Some of the roles that top UI designers can apply for are:
- User Interface (UI) Designer
- Interaction Designer
- Visual Designer
- Information Architect
- Web Designer
The UI design process includes creating
- Initial wireframe designs—the “bones” of the UI that show the basic layout and elements
- User flows—the step-by-step process the user will follow as they use the UI
- Homepages, feature pages, and other digital properties that require input
- Responsive web design and device compatibility
- A style library that carries branding throughout essential elements to more complex components
- Handoff to development teams with design files, color codes, images, font files, and anything else needed to turn the design into code
The last tasks may require more knowledge of how code works which requires insight into front-end development.
The visual and interactive elements make up a “graphical user interface” (GUI). When done well, the whole interface has a highly intuitive feel, making sure users can quickly start enjoying a product as intended.
Examples of GUIs include web forms that need data entry, file uploads, and similar actions—but almost any website or software these days has a GUI.
Sometimes, UI designers have to create a “voice user interface” (or VUI) for better accessibility. A VUI requires deep use of
- Sound effects and verbal feedback or cues
- Consistency and clarity of syntax
- Language choices (such as balancing conversational vs. functional wording)
- How audio matches with interface navigation controls
Menu-driven interfaces are another common type of UI. They give users a list of commands accessed from a pull-down, pop-up, or static menu. They’re a very consistent way of giving users a simple method of operation. An ATM is one of the most common types of menu interfaces.
Pulling all this design work together involves creating and testing UI design prototypes. Throughout the UI design process, UI designers have to work closely with other development team members, making sure the UI integrates all the necessary features as planned.
A final UI should be reliable, accomplish a purpose, and give users an easy and enjoyable experience. However, technically speaking, UI design is different from user experience (UX) design.
UI design is a part of UX, but UI designers and UX designers have different roles—it can be a bit confusing because UI design is an aspect of UX design.
UI design is more specific, related to the interface’s particular elements, what they do, and how they work. So it’s a bit more concrete than UX design, which is more abstract.
When working together, UX and UI designers work as a team to achieve two different but related goals.
- The UX designer wants the experience to be data-driven and as smooth as possible.
- The UI designer focuses on aesthetics and visual components, such as branding, following, and creating style guides or UI libraries.
UX designers do qualitative studies that result in wireframes that UI designers can then use and build UIs over them.
UX Designers can then take those designs and do user testing with them, resulting in suggestions and tweaks. Finally, UI Designers make the changes and hand off the final designs to development.
UX involves measuring key aspects of a product’s interface and how it affects the user experience.
This requires analyzing
- How effective is the interface for users
- Customer surveys and feedback
- Real-time use observations
- Advanced analytics about how users interact with a product
The UX Designers take this data or sometimes review it with UI Designers and make revisions and tweaks based on the findings.
The main difference between UI and UX design is that the UI designer creates the interface (they are the U-I designer, after all). The UX designer looks beyond the product’s interface, studying the users’ direct experience.
UX designers are focused on results, research, and data, while the UI designer handles the details of the design and interface itself.
You shouldn’t be too surprised to see a lot of overlap between UI and UX design resources, and the two roles will often overlap at different stages of product development.
Dedicated analysis of UX is still relatively new, so it’s common to see different ideas about the exact role of a UX designer.
By contrast, UI design has always been essential to creating usable digital products.
Yes. UX and UI designers share the following skills.
- Creative analysis of how users experience a program
- Ability to improve a UI based on customer feedback
- Thorough knowledge of research methods
- Unique ability to change design and research without bias even though they created the design
- Unique ability to remove their own needs from the design and put themselves in the users’ shoes
It’s useful to know how to code, given the significant role of UI designers in the development process. Understanding the concepts of HTML and how it interacts with your CSS will help you work without friction when delivering designs to development. At the same time, UI design tools are more WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) than ever, allowing UI designers to focus more on the graphical and intuitive side of designing digital product interfaces. Of course, it depends on the company and how much you want to grow your career. With development advancing more and more, it’s becoming less common that UI designers are expected to code.
There are various programs for creating wireframe models, mockups, prototyping, and managing system designs for UIs. Some of the more popular UI tools include:
- Figma—Web-based interface that handles wireframing, prototyping, and system design
- Sketch—All-in-one graphic design platform built with collaboration in mind (MacOS only)
- Adobe XD—Numerous plugins for faster template editing, plus a wide range of ready-made templates; easy to handoff to others in the development pipeline
- InVision Studio—Great support for animations, micro-interactions, and plugins for more expansion of UI and other development purposes
- UXPin—Comprehensive web-based UI design, incorporating feedback processes that can instantly validate ideas; also transitions wireframes to functional prototypes quite easily
Most of these platforms allow real-time editing and collaborations via drag-and-drop interfaces, all without knowing much about coding. Many UI design platforms are also very versatile, allowing designers also to handle:
- Desktops design
- Websites design
- App interfaces
- iOS vs. Android patterns
- Overall graphic design
