Are you curious to find out about UI design? In this ultimate guide, you’ll learn the key processes, principles, skills, and job roles in this creative and engaging field that defines human-computer interaction.
The field of UI design, which is concerned with the optimization of design elements within a digital interface, has been attracting a lot of attention in recent years. This is due to the growing awareness of how a user’s experience with a digital product significantly shapes their impression of a brand.
If you’re considering a career in UI design, or you’d like to learn how it works for your own business, this guide walks you through everything you need to know. We’ll be covering the UI design process, key UI design concepts, the top skills of UI design professionals, and job roles in the field. We’ll also be letting you know about a range of powerful UI design tools for both beginners and advanced users.
Here’s what the article will contain:
- What is a user interface?
- What is UI design?
- What’s the difference between UX design and UI design?
- The UI design process
- Key UI design principles
- Important UI design skills
- Jobs available in the UI design space
- Conclusion
Are you ready to learn about UI design? Then let’s dive in!
1. What is a User Interface?
A user interface, often abbreviated to “UI”, is the point at which humans and computers interact. This could be a computer keyboard, a display screen, the appearance of a desktop, the icons on a desktop, or a touch screen. In fact, as a user, any technology that you interact with is considered to be part of a user interface; it is simply the word for the medium used when humans work with digital products.
There are a number of different types of user interfaces designed for different audiences and purposes. These include graphical user interfaces, touch user interfaces, voice user interfaces, and menu-driven user interfaces.
A user interface typically contains the following elements:
- Navigational elements such as search fields and back arrows that assist users as they navigate a platform.
- Input controls such as text fields and checkboxes that enable users to contribute information themselves.
- Informational components such as progress bars or error symbols that communicate a message to the user.
- Containers such as an accordion menu that reveals or hides content.
2. What is UI Design?
UI design, short for user interface design, is concerned with a digital product’s appearance, usability, interactivity, and general feel. It is responsible for how users experience their interactions with digital interfaces and for making design decisions that improve these experiences. A user interface can be visual, auditory, or sensory, and typically contains a large range of functional elements which enable users to successfully interact with and navigate it.
3. What’s the Difference Between UX Design and UI Design?
While UX and UI design teams often work closely together, the two design methodologies have distinct responsibilities and concerns. UI design stands for “user interface design” and is responsible for the design and effectiveness of digital interfaces, whereas UX design stands for “user experience design” and is concerned with the entire experience a user has with a product, service, or even brand.
For a full rundown of the differences between UX and UI design, take a look at our in-depth article on the subject here: UI vs UX Design: Differences and Similarities
4. The UI Design Process
The UI design process is used by UI designers to build icons, elements, and interfaces that effectively support users in their navigation of a website or digital interface and assist them in reaching their goals. Let’s take a walkthrough of each step in the process!
Step 1: Perform your user research
While it can be tempting to start designing UI elements or screens straight off the bat, the very first thing you’ll need to do in the UI design process is to learn the context of the project and perform user research. You and your team will be asking questions such as: “Who is this function for?” And “What’s our desired outcome?” By starting with these fundamental questions, you can ensure you don’t lose the focus of the project.
To kick off your user research, you’ll need to start asking questions of your target user. This can be done through surveys, interviews, and focus groups which will help you identify pain points and understand user expectations. In addition, it will be important to look at what your competitors are doing and see how you could do it better. This crucial data will be what informs your interface design and ensures you are creating digital interfaces and elements that meet the needs of the people who use them. For a deeper understanding of how user research is applied to projects, take a look at the Callisto Readers Cafe project by Aromal Jose Baby.
Step 2: Outline your goals
The statistical data and anecdotal insights you collected during the user research phase will help form a good basis for creating clear design goals. You can create these goals by highlighting in the collected data the functionalities that your interface should be able to assist with (according to the people who will be using it) and drawing up a list of the design elements that will bring about these key functions. You should be able to link back each element on your list with the user research to back it up. The main benefit of establishing goals is that they provide a benchmark for the team that helps see how successful the end design is. It will also guide decision-making throughout the design process.
Step 3: Generate wireframes
Wireframing is the creation of simple outlines for the layout and structure of your digital interface. It supports UI designers as it enables them to get a good understanding of where elements might go, how information might be organized, and how a user might move through a website or page before committing to the visual design of the interface.
Many UI designers collaborate with other team members on wireframes so that everyone related to the project can give their input before anything is signed off. Having a wireframe also gives key stakeholders, such as managers or clients, the opportunity to have their say before a final design decision is reached.
Step 4: Create your visual strategy
Creating the visual strategy involves choosing your color scheme, deciding on fonts, and designing a unique collection of on-page elements that complement the company’s established look and style. When the whole team and key stakeholders are on board with the visual design, more detailed wireframes can be created that reflect these design choices. You may find that you need to complete several rounds of designs before everyone agrees upon the final design.
Step 5: Build interactive prototypes
With your user interface designed, you’re ready to build interactive prototypes of your visual elements. The purpose of building interactive prototypes is to demonstrate to all stakeholders the true functionality of your design and how all the elements will work together. It’s also the perfect opportunity for you to test your work before anything goes live. We’ll be outlining some popular prototyping tools later in this article but whichever one you select should enable you to fully interact with the elements and interface as if you were the user. This will give you the chance to iron out any issues and polish your design before it goes to the development team.
Step 6: Testing and iteration
Similar to the UX design process, testing is an extremely important part of the UI design process. This is because you’ll need to see if your design solves the problems of real users. In the testing phase, you have the chance to identify any user challenges or issues that you may not have noticed when just testing among the team and address these challenges before your design gets handed over to the development team.
You may want to simply observe users interacting with your design, ask them specific questions while they use the interface, or interview them afterward. You’ll want to gauge the ease with which they can solve their problems, the intuitiveness of the design, and the speed with which they can perform tasks. It’s also worth asking them how well the design meets their expectations and if they have any general feedback or suggestions.
Step 7: Hand over to the development team
Your final step in the UI process is to hand your design over to the development team. In order for this handover to be smooth and for the end result to be as close to your envisioned design as possible, you’ll need to create clear design specifications. You might also consider creating documentation such as a style guide that tells developers and future designers how elements and components should always appear. This helps to establish consistency across a product and its brand.
5. Key UI Design Principles
To gain a broader understanding of how UI design works in theory as well as practice, it’s important to get to know the fundamental design principles at its core. This includes familiarising yourself with common UI design patterns that provide solutions to recurring design problems and help create intuitive interfaces. Let’s look in some detail at the principles of UI design and how they might be applied.
i) Accessibility
An important part of any designer’s job is to ensure accessibility for all users. This is no less the case for UI designers, making accessibility one of the key principles of the profession. What’s important here is to remove all assumptions and to remember that no user is the same as another.
While it would be impossible to take into account every single variation in the social and cultural conventions of your users, it’s important that you don’t assume that everybody does things the same way that you do them. You’ll also need to take into account physical and learning disabilities, differences in educational backgrounds, and variations in the technical know-how of your students.
This is where user research and testing comes to the fore. By starting your design process with a questioning outlook and abandoning your assumptions, you can create products that are accessible to the largest number of people.
ii) Efficiency
Efficiency is a key consideration for every UI designer, which in practice means creating an interface that requires the user to take the fewest steps to reach their goal. This involves the designer learning how to predict what the user needs to do at every stage in their journey and preventing any unnecessary clicks or scrolls that will mean it takes them longer to complete their task.
Thorough user testing is an effective way of learning how your design could be more efficient. So, even though you may know the quickest way to get the job done, if it’s not as obvious to the user you will need to change the design.
iii) Flexibility
This principle aligns closely with both efficiency and accessibility in that flexible UI design is centred around making your user interface as adaptable as possible to users of every experience level. For example, a more technologically-minded user will likely navigate a website or app faster than someone new to it. The more advanced user will know shortcuts and features, while the newcomer will be taking everything in for the first time and be conscious of making a mistake.
As the UI designer for such an app, your job is to ensure that both of these users have a good experience, are clear about the steps they need to take, and aren’t hindered by a site that is designed for those with a different experience level. A UI designer needs to ensure that, irrespective of experience, knowledge, or equipment, all users are catered to when interacting with the interface. The designer is expected to achieve this flexible result without creating a chaotic experience or overfilling the space.
iv) Familiarity and predictability
As we’ve discussed, newcomers to a website or app may at first be cautious as they navigate an interface as they will not want to make a mistake. This is even more true of a brand-new concept or product.
In such cases, the UI designer can assist users and make navigation a less daunting process by creating signposts and controls that are already familiar to users and lead to predictable outcomes. The design team can do this by following known conventions and commonly used imagery for design elements, making them instantly recognizable to users irrespective of whether they have used the site or app before.
v) Consistency
Following on from familiarity and predictability, a UI designer should always aim for consistency across an interface. This means adhering to the established branding and tone of the company or product, keeping a consistent visual hierarchy, and using the same icons and signposts for the same purposes throughout the interaction. This helps users, both newcomers and regulars, to quickly attune to how the site or app works which in turn speeds up the time it takes users to reach their goal. It also reduces confusion, decreases levels of frustration, and creates a more positive overall user experience.
6. The Most Popular UI Design Tools
Now that you have a clear idea of the UI design process and the key principles UI designers follow to create seamless and efficient digital interactions for their users, let’s take a look at some of the most popular tools used by UI designers to bring about these positive experiences.
i) Sketch
A powerful UX and UI design tool used for drawing, wireframing, prototyping, and handover to development, Sketch is an industry-standard platform used by both beginner and advanced-level UI designers to create user-focused, intuitive interfaces. The vector graphics editor enables adaptable and interactive design with features including design presets, customizable grids, and resizing tools, while Variable and OpenType fonts provide designers with flexibility in their interface typography choices. Collaboration is also possible with the tool that makes real-time feedback and sharing available, in turn streamlining the handover to developers.
ii) Adobe XD
Another vector-based tool for UI designers is Adobe XD; a wide-ranging tool that facilitates numerous parts of the UI design process from ideation and low-fi designing to animation and high-res prototypes. The drag-and-drop editor tool is a popular feature as it enables designers to easily bring elements together, while UI kits including premade components from Amazon Alexa and Apple Design foster the swift creation of interface mockups.
iii) UXPin
UXPin is another popular choice with UI designers as it requires no coding skills to create aesthetically pleasing and interactive prototypes at speed. With an easy-to-navigate interface that includes built-in libraries for iOS, Google Material Design, Bootstrap, and User Flows, as well as ready-to-use design elements such as fonts and desktop icons, this is a platform that can be utilized by designers throughout the design process.
iv) Marvel
An intuitive tool for UI beginners, Marvel includes wireframing, prototyping, and design specification handoff features which all work straight from the browser–with no installation or downloading required. With the goal of enabling simple, yet speedy design iterations, the tool is integrated with numerous other design tools such as Jira, Maze, Confluence, and Lookback to provide users with a greater range of functionality and freedom.
v) Figma
With an interface that is a joy to work with, Figma is the perfect tool for every stage in the UI design process from collaboration, ideation, and workshops to wireframing, interactive prototyping, and developer handoff. With Auto Layout for seamless, responsive design and code snippets for CSS, iOS, and Android that further streamline handoff, Figma is a comprehensive tool that every UI design team should consider investing in.
7. Important UI Design Skills
UI designers have a unique set of essential skills that enable them to research, ideate, and create interfaces and elements to assist users in reaching their goals swiftly and intuitively. Let’s dive into what these key design skills are.
i) Visual design skills
A UI designer will need to be proficient in design principles, color theory, typography, and layout, to successfully design interfaces that enable aesthetically pleasing, intuitive, and seamless user interactions.
ii) User-centric design skills
Knowledge of user psychology and behaviour is an absolute must in UI design in order to create interfaces that meet user needs and enable them to meet their goals.
iii) Ability to create wireframes and prototypes
As we have seen, wireframing and prototyping are core parts of the UI design process. For this reason, professional UI designers are required to be adept at creating mockups, prototypes, and wireframes in both low-fi and high-res formats to enable them to communicate to stakeholders their vision for the interface.
iv) Understanding of information architecture
A UI designer will need to have a good level of understanding regarding how information is structured and organized on a page. Content should ideally be displayed on an interface in a way that enhances user comprehension of the product or service and enables navigation.
v) Understanding of programming
Although it’s not mandatory for a UI designer to know how to code, having a fundamental understanding of HTML, CSS and other popular programming languages is of huge benefit in this profession and helps collaborate better with development teams.
vi) Knowledge of responsive design
With users accessing content from a variety of devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and laptops, a UI designer must know how to design interfaces that provide a consistently good experience across different devices and screen sizes.
8. Jobs Available in the UI Design Space
The UI design space is populated with a range of rewarding and creative roles for those with the right skills and experience in both design and user behaviour.
i) UI designer
The first role that comes to mind in the UI design space is of course that of the UI designer. This individual is responsible for the visual elements of a digital interface, such as its layout and icons, colour schemes, typography, and the overall visual aesthetic of a product or platform.
Who is suited to this role?
This role is suitable for empathetic, creative individuals who love learning. Due to the fast-paced nature of changes in the digital landscape, these design professionals need to stay ahead of industry trends, learn new tools, and be aware of changes in user behaviour.
ii) Interaction designer
An interaction design is concerned with creating interactive elements on an interface or digital product to produce user experiences and interactions that are seamless, intuitive, and engaging. Often responsible for helping to mould a company’s design strategy, this individual will help to pinpoint key user-interface interactions, build prototypes for testing assumptions and concepts, and stay knowledgeable about the latest technology and trends in interaction design.
Who is suited to this role?
This is a role suited to analytical yet empathetic thinkers who can understand complex problems and deconstruct issues using creative, user-centric solutions.
iii) Product designer
The product designer oversees and manages the entire design process involved in the creation of a digital product or service, from conception through to execution. The role involves extensive cross-functional team collaboration to ensure a positive user experience from every angle. Both reviewing and refining designs based on user and team feedback are another facet of the role, as is building working prototypes for testing.
Who is suited to this role?
The role of the product designer is ideal for designers with strong collaboration skills and the ability to communicate complex topics to those of different knowledge levels, teams, and backgrounds. A solid education and background in user-centred design and design thinking are also essential.
iv) Usability analyst
A usability analyst seeks to assess how effective and usable a UI design is by performing user tests, conducting market and ethnographic research, conducting surveys, and interviewing users. Basis this collected qualitative and quantitative data, they consult with the rest of the design team, highlighting areas for improvement and making informed suggestions that will bring about a more user-centered experience.
Who is suited to this role?
For this role, honed analytical skills are required, including the ability to gather and interpret data, conduct testing, and analyze feedback. Empathy for users as well as an understanding of human-computer interaction are also necessary.
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve provided a detailed guide to user interfaces and UI design, leaving you with a solid foundational knowledge of the process, principles, job skills, and tools that are needed to succeed in the field.
For those of you who are curious about launching a career in UI design, you can try out some of the UI design tools we’ve listed and create some simple wireframes, prototypes, or mockups of an interface to hone your practical skills and build up hands-on experience. You could also cast your eye over the list of UI job roles we’ve covered to see which role best complements your talents and professional background.
To find out more about UI design, head over to our blog for more articles like this one, or check out our in-depth, certificate courses in UI design that will support you as you embark on your new career.
Next Steps
We hope this guide to UI Design could provide you with the guidance and direction you were seeking. In case you need further help, here are some additional resources you can consider:
- Watch this session by Shiva Viswanathan, Design Head of Ogilvy Pennywise, and Naman Singh, Product Experience Designer at RED.
- Talk to a course advisor to discuss how you can transform your career with one of our courses.
- Pursue our UX UI Design courses - all courses are taught through live, interactive classes by industry experts, and some even offer a Job Guarantee.
- Take advantage of the scholarship and funding options that come with our courses to overcome any financial hurdle on the path of your career transformation.
Note: All information and/or data from external sources is believed to be accurate as of the date of publication.
