User Interface (UI) Designer | Responsibilities, Skills and Career Outlook

In this growing world of technology, UI designer plays a very important role in making a seamless digital experience for users. The UI designer helps the user to build the UI (User Interface) of applications which is a path for the user to interact with software applications or websites. The UI designer ensures that while interacting with UI the user experience should not only be practical but also visually appealing. UI Designers help to shape the user interface for various kinds of software to make seamless user interaction and experience.

UI Designer

What is User Interface Design?

User Interface (UI) design acts as a way of communication between users and various kinds of software applications or websites. UI design includes screen layout, pages, buttons, color coordination, responsiveness on different devices, etc. which makes user interaction visually appealing. The main goal of UI designers is to build user interfaces with the help of users’ requirements so that the built application will be easy to use and understand for users. UI design ensures that the navigation to different features in an application is easy and practical for the user.

In simple words, we can say that User Interface Design refers to what a user can see on screen while using an application. UI design not only refers to the screen layout, buttons, colors, etc. but also the experience for users which feels visually appealing and pleasurable. The designer’s role is to think about the user needs and how to make UI design easy to use and navigate.

What is UI Designer?

User Interface (UI) designer is a professional who designs the user interface of any website or applications. When we access any software application, user interface helps us to navigate through the application. The role of UI Designer requires the understanding of the user requirements, different design tools and techniques with creative design skills. UI designers work by collaborating with various teams and ensures that the final product should not only meet user expectation and requirements but also business goals.

UI designers decide how the layout of an application should look like, what color palette should be used and what kind of buttons, navigation bar etc. should be used to provide seamless experience to the user. UI designers make sure that with visually appealing interface it should also be easy to use for the user. In the role of UI designer various tasks are involved like testing designs on different devices ( like mobile, PC, tablet etc.), converting user requirements into UI design, managing prototype, communication with team and many other tasks which makes UI designer as an important asset in creating websites or applications and framing overall user experience.

Tasks and Responsibilities

UI designer has the deep understanding of user requirement and expectation. There are various kinds of tasks and responsibilities which UI designer have to perform which includes:

• Conducting usability tests and gathering user feedback are the important steps in the design process.
• Wireframing, the basic plan which shows how an interface will look like by using different elements.
• Managing the prototypes which are a tool for improving the user experience.
• Working with cross-functional teams which includes development teams and product teams.
• UX designers, ensures that the final design is not only user-friendly and visually appealing, but also aligned with business goals.
• Converting the user needs into user interface design.
• Designing layout for the application and choosing color palette, buttons, visual elements, icons, fonts etc.

UI Designer Workflow

UI designers need to have the knowledge of design and prototyping tools with creative skills to create seamless user experiences for websites and apps that are not only pleasurable but also aligns with business goals. Working as an UI designer gives opportunity to solve real world problems by converting the user needs into an interactive user interface design.

Tools Used

User Interface (UI) design mainly focuses on the experience a user is getting while accessing a software application. To start working as a UI designer we should have a knowledge of various industry based design tools which helps to create UI design for the digital product. There are many kinds of tools like Sketch, Adobe XD, Figma etc. helps to convert the ideas into UI designs. These tools helps UI designer to create prototypes of user interface design. There are some tools like InVision which helps UI designers to work easily in collaboration with other teams by providing platform to communicate between team members. Visually pleasurable design is essential for seamless user experience and to achieve that let’s look into various design tolls that allows UI designers to provide creative user experience.

Examples:

1. Sketch: It is a powerful and widely used UI design tool which uses vector-based approach for prototyping, drawings and creating scalable and responsive design. It can be used by both beginners and professionals which makes it the best choice for creating user interfaces. It is compatible with only MacOS.
2. Figma: It is also a vector based graphic design tool which provides platform for creating, prototyping, designing and gathering user feedbacks. In Figma designers can reuse the design elements and also the designs in Figma are responsive according to the screen size.
3. InVision: It is a prototyping tool with functionality of collaboration so that team members and clients can directly comment on the design to share their ideas which helps designer to make improvements in the UI design. InVision has an additional feature where we can upload the static design files and it converts them into interactive designs.
4. Adobe XD: It is also known as Adobe Experience Design. It is a part of creative cloud family which offers seamless integration with various Adobe applications. It creates an Adobe ecosystem and compatible with both Windows and MacOS. It helps designers to model and share their interactive designs with the Adobe ecosystem.
5. UXPin: It is a powerful design tool with inbuilt interactive components which helps designers to easily use in their designs by dragging the components. To use UXPin there is no requirement of coding skills and it is compatible with Windows, MacOS and also browser.

Skills Required

UI designers are responsible for creating user interfaces through which a user interacts with the application. In order to create a pleasurable interfaces for user designers need to have both technical and creative design skills.

• UI designer must have a empathy skill to understand the user requirements and then design the user interface by following user point of view.
• User research plays important role in describing a good UI designer because it allows designer to understand the target audience and preferences of the software application.
• Effective communication skills are essential so that designer can discuss the ideas within teams and explain the design choices to the client which allows designer to make improvements in the application without any communication gap.
• Knowledge of various design tools helps designer to create more effective designs with the help of various features provided on these design tool platforms.
• UI designers must stay up to date with the latest technology and continue learning new design skills in order to make a place in the industry. UI designers must be fast learners to keep up with the new design trends.
• Color theory is important for UI designers, the color palette a UI designer chose will form the idea of the software application and plays a great role in providing seamless experience to the user.

Salary and Career Outlook

In this dynamic world of user interface (UI) design salary is an important aspect that reflects the industry and its consideration of skills and experience. UI designer salary depends on the creative design skills, experience and knowledge of industry based design tools. On average, a UI designer in the US earns a salary of $74,291 to $80,004 per year with an additional $5,714 in bonuses or commissions while in India it ranges between ₹ 2.0 Lakhs to ₹ 13.9 Lakhs with an average annual salary of ₹ 7.1 Lakhs.

Factors Which Shapes Salary Range of UI Designers:

• Demand for expertise: The growing demand for UI designers, which is expected to increase by 8% has made this field an important area for companies to enter the digital space, we can say increased demand is associated with higher prices.
• Education and experience: Educational qualifications and experience can have a significant impact on salary negotiations. A strong portfolio which is combined with both relevant certifications and continuous improvement of skills through web design courses shows the value of the designer and the market which is crucial for salary negotiations of UI designers.
• Geographical influence: Salaries for UI designers also differ from region to region like with some tech hubs like London, San Francisco, US and New York offering more competitive rates. For different regions the cost of living and the need for skilled UI designers is different.
• Industry and Company Dynamics: The type of industry and the specific company a UI designer works for will also affect the salary. Tech giant companies like Apple, Google and Amazon are known for their strong payrolls and understand the important role UI designers play in creating seamless digital experiences for users.
• Types of work: There will be salary differences according to the type of work. Remote UI designers, including freelancers, who work from home often have high salaries which exceeds the national average with an average annual salary of $117,925.

The above factors forms the salary of UI designer. It depends on industry dynamics, individual technologies, skills, the evolving nature of UI design etc. all creates a compensation or salary landscape for the UI designers.

Conclusion

In this advanced technology, UI designer helps to create visually appealing experiences for users while accessing various software applications. They are creating user interfaces not only with interactive functionality but also interfaces aligned with business goals. UI designers decide the layout, design elements which fulfils the user needs and provide a seamless experience. UI designer plays a great role in bridging the gap between the technology and user interaction by designing User Interfaces which acts as a way of communication for user to applications.