Understanding UI Design

UI Design looks familiar…
If you’ve been looking around the digital sphere, you may recognize the term UI Design, or perhaps you might know its counter part, UX Design.

You can learn about UX Design here.

Whilst both UX Design and UI Design work closely together, each role refers to extremely different processes when it comes to designing and building a website. Though this does not stop people from misrepresenting or misunderstanding both roles.

Rahul Varshney, co-creator of the site Foster.fm describes this difference in the first of many metaphors people like to use when discussing both terms:

“A UI without UX is like a painter slapping paint onto canvas without thought; while UX without UI is like the frame of a sculpture with no paper mache on it”

This metaphor doesn’t necessarily explain the role of UI Design, but it does highlight the nature of the relationship between UX Design and UI Design.

Put simply.

User Experience Design focuses on how the user thinks and feels.

User Interface Design looks at how the content is organized and used.

A door handle is UI Design. The fact you need a door is UX Design.

Which one is more important?

Both are crucial and play an important role in building a site.

Of course there are millions of websites, apps and software programs that may contain one without the other. But consider how much better off they would be had they taken advantage of both.

What does a UI Designer aim to do?

To compliment the work of a UX Designer by translating their research and requirements into an attractive, guiding and responsive experience for users.
To make sure all visual elements are consistently displayed and adhering to a style guide.

In an example:

The UX Designer decides that there needs to be a ‘thank you’ box that appears after a customer has registered their details.

The UI Designer decides that this box appears in the top left in blue in Helvetica.

A better example?

A UI Designer will design each page on a website in accordance with the UX Designers recommendations.

They might be transferring some analytical data into a graph or dashboard on one of these pages. They might decide to move the more important information to the top of the page, or it might make more intuitive sense to include a zoom or sliding function to adjust the graph.

That’s sounds like a Web Designer.

There are a lot of overlapping responsibilities between a Web designer and a UI Designer, and often a UI Designer can fulfill the role of a web designer as well as a graphic designer, brand designer and a frontend developer.

But there is a distinctive separation.

Most of those roles focus on translating design into code.

But a UI Designer is responsible for translating the brand’s strengths and aesthetical values into a usable and attractive interface.The interface is what a customer will be navigating around and interacting with. It’s the visual composition of the page.

It’s everything the customer will be looking at.

A UI designer looks at branding and visual design principles as oppose to cognitive analysis.

They’re designing graphics, constructing the layout and introducing appropriate typeface.

Think of UI like a tool.

It’s a medium of communication between a person and a company. By presenting your websites information in a well-formulated and attractive layout, you are allowing your customer to interact with information and your company.

You are causing them to behave with your company. As such, it means it is observable, measurable, and testable.

How do they know what works?

Like any designer, a UI Designer will keep their eye trends in their field. Just like a furniture designer will keep tabs on new developments and ideas, a UI Designer will look at other interfaces and designers to see other ways a website can be maximized.

What’s cool in the UI World?

Content chunking – This is way to break up large information, by separating them into chunks by using sub headings, new paragraphs and pictures. Like what we have done here. It makes it a lot easier to digest.
Laser Focus – This is when a design of a page will cause someone to complete an action by making it really obvious. Like when you sign on to Google, there is a blank bar to write in. Immediately you are drawn to think that this is the most obvious and prioritised task to complete.
Context Sensitive Navigation & Collapsed content – This is just asking the question, what items should be seen all the time and some hidden. Like how you don’t see a ‘like’ or ‘next’ option until you cursor drags over an image. Or you don’t see the full menu until you click on that little icon in the top left.
Minimalism – No longer are we interested in multi-colour or rich gradient buttons or text. It’s all about being simple and colour minimal.
Long pages – we used to like having everything sorted into different pages, using our mouse and a menu bar to navigate through everything. But this requires a lot of work from users. It works better to keep things simple and easy by building it all on to one page.

In short, what are a UI Designer’s Responsibilities?

Customer Analysis
Design Research
Branding and Graphic Development
User Guides
Prototyping
Animation and interactivity
Transference for all devices and screen sizes
Implementation with a developer

In a sentence:

A UI Designers responsibility is to build an attractive interface in order to enhance the relationship between the customer and the brand.