Understanding What A UI Designer Actually Do?

Search “UI designer” in Google and you'll end up even more confused than before. It doesn’t help that UI and UX are often lumped together, making it difficult to ascertain where one ends and therefore the other begins.

Whilst the 2 are inextricably linked, it’s important to understand that interface Design may be a field in its title. Of course, there’s some overlap, but finally, UI design comes with its own set of tasks, and thus calls upon a totally different skillset and knowledge.
Perhaps you’re considering a career in UI and need to understand what awaits you. Maybe you’re already within the industry and just need some clarity on the matter. In this post, we’ll set the record straight once and for all. Here’s what we’ll see.

UI Design in simple explanations!

Let's know first—what is UI design?

User Interface Design may be a crucial subset of UX. They both share an equivalent end goal—to provide a positive experience for the user—but UI Design comprises a completely separate leg of the journey.
Put simply, UI is what you employ to interact with a product, while UX cares about how this overall interaction feels. If, after reading all about the role of a UI designer, you are feeling inclined to become one, make certain to maneuver gracefully over to the below step-by-step guide on how to do that exactly.

UI Design: The Visual Aspect

UI design focuses on the user’s visual experience. It determines how a user interacts with an interface—be it an app, a computer game, or an internet site. It’s all about how the user goes from A to B via different visual touchpoints. Think tapping a button or swiping through pictures.
The job of a UI designer is to style all the screens through which a user will move and to make the visual elements—and their interactive properties—that facilitate this movement.

User Interface Design: The Human Aspect

At an equivalent time, a UI designer works with human behavior in mind.

How so?

Look at it this manner. an honest interface requires barely any thought from the user. Consider your favorite app: it’s easy on the attention and straightforward to use, right? once you first installed it, you didn’t spend ages understanding the way to get from A to B—it was just obvious.

The UI designer is pivotal to the present. They believe in the human user and the way the mind works. They use things like patterns, spacing, and color to guide the user.

“Intuitive” is that the keyword here. Not only is that the UI designer an ingenious creature; they also put themselves within the user’s shoes, anticipating what they expect at each stage. They then use this empathy to style visual, interactive elements that respond in a way that feels natural to the user.

Let’s say you’re using an app to seem for a replacement apartment. One listing especially catches your eye, so you click to look at the gallery. A full-size image takes over your screen, captioned 1/5. you recognize there are more pictures, so you employ your finger to swipe through the gallery. there have been no instructions to try to do so—somehow, you only knew.

This is the work of the UI designer. They believe what the user will expect, and style the app’s interface accordingly.

What skills does a UI designer need?

When it involves the talents UI designers got to thrive within the field, it’s tons more diverse than you would possibly think. Sure, a UI designer needs a keen eye for detail—but, as we’ve discussed, being a UI designer is such a lot quite just sitting ahead of a screen. Having soft skills that will see you thrive during a team setting is equally important as mastery of the proper tools and methods.
Let’s take a glance at a number of the core soft and hard skills every UI designer should have:

Soft Skills

• Communication is key in UI design. As you hand off your designs to the developers, you would like to effectively communicate the intended function of every element you’ve designed. Communicating with your client and other stakeholders/partners is a big part of any UI design role. You often got to explain—and even justify—your design decisions in the maximum amount of detail possible.
• From UX designers to web and mobile app developers, customers to clients—UI designers collaborate at every level. Working well during a team is an important skill, which involves listening and troubleshooting together to urge to the basis of the matter. UI designers should be as comfortable taking creative direction as they're with giving them. You tend to all or any share a standard goal, and teamwork really does make the dream work!
• Remember once we touched on the human aspect of UI design? Putting yourself in the users’ shoes requires empathy. Keeping accessibility and inclusivity at the forefront of your mind is significant for creating interfaces that each user will enjoy. 

Hard Skills

• Even entry-level UI design positions expect proficiency in a minimum of one among the industry-standard design and prototyping tools like Sketch, Adobe XD, and prototyping tools like InVision. Once you’ve learned your way around one, going to grips with the others may be a lot easier. For the complete list of popular UI design tools, inspect our combat the 7 essential tools every budding UI designer should realize.
• UI designers require a solid understanding of the elemental methods, theories, and practices that form the idea of UI design. These include color concepts, typography, icons, and UI design patterns, also as fundamental design approaches like the Gestalt Principles which will assist you to realize a deeper insight into how users perceive and interpret your work.

Closing of my words

A job in UI design offers much variety and can require you to wear many hats. Of course, UI designers need a keen visual eye, but the psychological aspect isn't to be underestimated. To design user-friendly interfaces, you would like to know how people work - and the way each visual, interactive element shapes their experience.