User Interface Design
Authored by Rohan Vachhani
Under Software Design Knowledge Area
7 min to read
Table Of Contents #
Name of Skill #
User Interface Design
User Interface design(UI Design) is the process of crafting a visual language and hierarchy that allows someone to use and engage with an application. User interface is part of software and is designed such a way that it is expected to provide the user insight of the software.UI provides fundamental platform for human-computer interaction.
UI can be graphical, text-based, audio-video based, depending upon the underlying hardware and software combination. User interface design requires a good understanding of user needs. It mainly focuses on the requirements of the platform and its user expectations. UI design improves site’s ornamental value by strategically implementing elements such as fonts, colours, and images among other things.
When professionally done, UI design makes a page elegant without compromising on its function or content.
Classification of Skill #
UI designing is a Hard skill as it involves prototyping or coding with use of design software. However, in terms of creativity it can be considered as a soft skill.
Prerequisites for Skill #
A person should have these skills to be a good UI designer:
- Understanding of user requirements, Creative thinking, Logic and Reasoning, Attention to the details
- Wireframing Prototyping tools such as Figma,Adobe XD, sketch etc., Graphics Design creation and manipulation software such as GIMP, Photoshop or illustrator, and markup programming language like HTML with styling language like CSS.
- Fundamental knowledge about UI design Principals
- Fundamental Knowledge regarding the Basic elements in User Interface Design such as Color, Typography and Shape.
- Understanding of various software architecture models and principals.
- Ability to understand common human behaviour regarding interaction with the UI.
Related Software Engineering Area(s) #
Software Testing - Usability Tasting #
Usability testing is the practice of testing how easy a design is to use on a group of representative users. It usually involves observing users as they attempt to complete tasks and can be done for different types of designs, from user interfaces to physical products.
User Experience Design #
User experience (UX) design is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. This involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability and function.
Rationale for Skill #
"Great UI design is not just a solution, it is the elimination of the problem." - M. Cobanli
User Interface Design is one of the aspects to bring the organic traffic to the website or app. It droves the people and keeps them there. UI design is a crucial to get website in recommendation and make loyal customers.
Even very small adjustments in UI design can make a lot of impact on website's acceptance by general users.
User Interface is what with users interacts primariliy when they use our website or app. In that case easy to understand and intuative user experience will satisfy user's emotions and expectations. Meticulously designed user interface plays major role to achieve this purpose.
A Good UI will surely make it easier for target audience to clearly see the what your product is. When you scratch beneath the surface you realize that UI is quite an intricate field that involves anticipating the user preferences and then creating an interface that understands and fulfils those preferences. The UI does not only focuses on the aesthetics but also maximizes responsiveness, efficiency, and accessibility of a website. In other words UI design will help improve conversion rate on your website.
Great user interface is like great architecture. it fits beautifully with its environment and its purpose, with room for creative flavour and artistry.
Simply put, UI Design is important because without it you’d probably have to resort to printing flyers and making cold calls. People make snap judgments and when they visit your site, they’d rather spend 30 seconds opening a new site than meddling around on a difficult one. User Interface Design is important because it can make or break your customer base. It creates fewer problems, increases user involvement, perfects functionality and creates a strong link between your customers and your website.
Roles for Skill #
UI designer #
User interface designers are particular about how the product is laid out. They are in charge of designing each screen or page with which a user interacts and ensuring that the UI visually communicates the path that a UX designer has laid out. For example, a UI designer creating an analytics dashboard might front load the most important content at the top, or decide whether a slider or a control knob makes the most intuitive sense to adjust a graph. UI designers are also typically responsible for creating a cohesive style guide and ensuring that a consistent design language is applied across the product. Maintaining consistency in visual elements and defining behaviour such as how to display error or warning states fall under the purview of a UI designer.
Job responsibilities of a UI Designer include:
- Making wireframes
- Creating prototypes
- Designing mock ups
- Working with a team
“Concept and implement the visual language of Airbnb.com. Create and advance site-wide style guides.” -UI Designer job description at Airbnb
Graphics Designer #
UI designers and graphic designers do work on similar types of projects, as it is their goal to create an optimum customer experience and response. However, UI designers are focused more in digital visual displays such as those found in the web and various apps. Their main concern is on how easy it is for users to interact with the content as well as where it should be laid out on a page. Graphic designers, on the other hand, work with an array of design layouts, both for print and the web. They are primarily concerned with aesthetics and often work in studios with other graphic designers.
Graphic designers work both on the web and in print to create layouts that draw the attention of consumers. They usually use computer software programs that can manipulate photos or illustrations and lay out different digital elements into a design. Because they usually incorporate text into their designs, they often work on a team with writers, although the graphic designers usually make decisions about the font, size, and color of the text. Graphic designers meet with their clients or employers to decide how a layout should appear. They usually work full time, and designers who are self-employed often work at odd hours to meet with clients' terms and schedule.
Job responsibilities of a Graphic Designer include:
- Thinking of ideas for designs
- Presenting their ideas to clients or employers
- Adding any changes their clients or employers need
- Checking their work for errors before turning it in
- Staying current with new trends in this field
Interaction Designer #
The role of an Interaction Designer is to focus on designing engaging interfaces with well-thought-out behaviours. Understanding how users and technology interact together fundamental to this role.
As in Information Architect, you would use this understanding to anticipate how someone might interact with the system, fix problems early, as well as invent new ways of doing things.You are the primary designer of the operational components of the website or application.
UX Designer #
UX designers are primarily concerned with how the product feels. A given design problem has no single right answer. UX designers explore many different approaches to solving a specific user problem. The broad responsibility of a UX designer is to ensure that the product logically flows from one step to the next. One way that a UX designer might do this is by conducting in-person user tests to observe one’s behaviour. By identifying verbal and non-verbal stumbling blocks, they refine and iterate to create the “best” user experience. An example project is creating a delightful onboarding flow for a new user.
“Define interaction models, user task flows, and UI specifications. Communicate scenarios, end-to-end experiences, interaction models, and screen designs to stakeholders. Work with our creative director and visual designers to incorporate the visual identity of Twitter into features. Develop and maintain design wireframes, mockups, and specifications as needed.” –Experience Designer job description at Twitter
Work Related to Skill (Related Activities and Artifacts) #
UI designing incorporates certain primary activities in software design process.
These activities commence with understanding the concept of interaction design wherein the goal of interaction design is to create products that enable the user to achieve their objective(s) in the best way possible. The interaction between a user and a product often involves elements like aesthetics, motion, sound, space, and many more. This is followed by applying the idea of Visual design which aims to improve a design’s/product’s aesthetic appeal and usability with suitable images, typography, space, layout and color. Visual design is about more than aesthetics. Designers place elements carefully to create interfaces that optimize user experience and drive conversion.
Furthermore, analyzing the flow of Information architecture and implementing it is a consequent activity. Information Architecture is all about organization of information in a clear and logical way. Such organization follows a clear purpose - helping users navigate complex sets of information. This allows users to understand where they are - and where the information they want is - in relation to their current position. Each and every above mentioned activities preliminarily require meeting user specifications and ensuring that the interface has elements that are easy to access, understand, and use to facilitate those actions. These activities are aided by prototyping designs. Prototyping is an iterative development technique in which users are actively involved in the mocking-up of the UI for a system.
Real-World Example/Scenario of Skill (Text, Graphic, Audio, Video) #
Latest UI trends #
- Inspiring Examples Of Great UI Design - https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ui-design/inspirational-ui-design-examples/
Case studies on UI design #
- UI design importance - New Gmail vs. Old Gmail Ui design Case study - https://medium.com/@madhurihebbal/gmail-redesign-and-the-ux-5f2d81b62a7a
Role of Academia or Industry in Cultivating the Skill #
Role of Academia #
In academics there are many course choices offered for fundamental knowledge of designing a software which incorporates the knowledge of User Interface designing. Projects required by academia plays a major role to sharpen the UI designing skills for any individual. Moreover, due to the project work, other aspects such as understanding the requirements, Usability tasting, user acceptance of software can be mastered which are some of very crucial needs to be better at UI design.
Role of Industry #
Modernization in the User interface is driven by current software industries as well as new behaviour acceptance from the general users are reasons for the continuous changes in design trends. Industry is the main reason for new and optimum procedures and tools in UI design field.
Tools Supporting the Skill #
- Tools such as Sketch and Adobe XD are used for wireframing and prototyping
- Software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrate are used majorly by UI desiners to create and manipulate illustration and vector resources
- Tools like Webflow and InVision studio provides functionality of live moke-ups for websites.
- Figma is a very popular tool For collaborative Ui designing and prototyping .
Skill Self-Assessment #
6
Reason: I have a less experinece with UI designing, especially with Web Ui design. I mainly done mobile computing and small portable device software development which has a whole separete notion of UI design compared to Ui design for web and desktop applications.