UX and UI are quite distinct types of design. It allows you to avoid regular tasks, but you must become an expert in everything.
If you are looking for a good UX/UI Design Firm in DC, for example, for collaboration or employment, you need to understand the basic requirements in this field and the profession in particular.
Understand the fundamentals of digital marketing
Businesses create websites and applications to increase their earnings. A designer must understand what drives consumers to purchase and be able to target any demographic.
The UX Collective blog has lots of practically useful articles about marketing in interface design – they’ll help dive into context.
General Assembly education provides valuable insights and training to help designers stay ahead in this evolving industry, ensuring they are well-prepared to meet the challenges of modern design
Knowing UX methods of research
It is not just a need to conduct your own. Large analytics firms and marketing agencies also conduct user behavior research and publish the findings, which you must comprehend and use.
You can read a brief summary of all the methods on the website of the Maze product studio. To deepen your knowledge, check out the Nielsen Norman Group’s blog: there are plenty of articles and videos on how to properly interpret research results and what mistakes to avoid.
Communication abilities and the capacity to rapidly immerse oneself in a product
Customers will come from many sources: maybe you need to develop a marketplace, an online banking application, or an online movie theater. Each firm has its own unique characteristics and audience; you must be able to listen to the customer and ask the appropriate questions.
Expertise in vector graphic programs
Figma is the most popular application for interface design: it allows you to create wireframes, create icons and buttons, and add basic animations.
Sketch is an alternative software, albeit it is less often used anymore.
Learn the key principles of typography
Fonts are an essential component of the interface. A designer should choose them carefully so that all words are simple to read.
There’s a useful article on Medium that covers the very basics.
Grid skills
To maintain consistency in the interface, all material is organized on a grid. Small items are often arranged by cells resembling millimeter paper (a pixel grid). Major chunks are arranged by columns. The most common grid is a 12-column format.
On the Talent House agency’s website, you can read how it is organized and what other grids are available.
Understanding colorization
Choosing appropriate colors for an interface is also difficult. Color may be used to highlight the primary point and communicate a certain mood.
There is a good guide on colorism on the Toptal website.
Capability to create adaptable versions
Non-adaptive websites are becoming more uncommon; most are designed for desktop, tablet, and mobile platforms. Even when it comes to mobile applications, smartphone displays vary – something you must consider. Nowadays, there are two methods for making the interface match the device: adaptable versions and responsiveness.
You can familiarize yourself with these methods on the Geeks For Geeks blog.
Being able to deal with content
To design an interface, choose photographs, graphics, and icons from stock sources, slightly edit, and recolor them. Photos may be obtained via Unsplash and Pexels, while artwork and icons are available on Freepik, Fraction, and Icons8.
You may also browse for plugins for Figma that provide ready-made pictures. Installing them allows you to add free pictures, icons, schemes, and drawings without leaving the software.
Hindsight
Look attentively at huge company websites to detect effective compositional approaches, typography, and colors. Some businesses have made their design systems, which are a collection of components and layout guidelines with explanations, available to the public. These are virtual textbooks: they demonstrate and describe how the interface was created.
The most popular design system is Material Design from Google, and it will definitely be useful to learn it.
Conclusion
You can already work with this set of skills. It’s not a long list, but it’s manageable. And if you want to gain a competitive edge or two, here are some additional skills that might come in handy:
- Knowledge of basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Programming is handled by the developer, but it’s cool when the designer can speak the same language with him.
- Basic drawing skills – to make a vector illustration or draw a set of icons on your own.
- Ability to create animated prototypes in Figma.
- Proficiency in Photoshop. If there are a lot of photos in the interface and they need to be processed, the capabilities of Figma may not be enough. But in Photoshop, for example, you can set up batch processing: to equally crop and increase the contrast of 100 photos for product cards.
- The ability to independently conduct UX research: to identify UX problems, correctly set tasks for test subjects, and know how to check the results obtained.
Also Read: DiveDesign: Strategically Building Industry Shaping Products and Brands
