Hey Eila! I remember you talking about how you are an UI/UX designer without having learned about anything like that in school. How did you get interested in this? And how did you learn more and get experience? Any good online resources to suggest?
How to Become a UX/UI Designer - A Comprehensive Guide
I’ll just do a comprehensive guide on this :D
Is UX/UI designing right for you?
You’ll love User Experience Design if…
1. You love analyzing & solving problems
As a UX designer, your job is to deliver the most effective way to solve users’ problems and achieve business goals through design.
To accomplish this, you must understand:
The business: The nature of your client’s business and what they want to achieve.
The users: Who are they? What do they need to solve their problems?
The overlap: How can you provide a user experience that aligns users’ needs with the business goals?
When you have insights into these key factors, you can translate them into an optimized, implementable design solution. It can be anything from an improved user flow or information architecture, more focused messaging, or new features.
2. You love psychology (cognition & behaviors) — To design for usability, you need to understand how different types of users behave, think and process information.
3. You love researching — It’s a huge advantage to know what the competitors (of your clients) are doing and what works for them. Stay on top of trends among your target users and what’s new in the design & tech world. These insights will help you make design decisions.
4. You value functionality and efficiency as much as aesthetics — Sometimes you must sacrifice beauty, but if it boosts sales by 20%, so be it. A good designer can balance the best of both worlds.
5. You are attentive to details — There are more components to a website or app than its primary features. You must make sure to cover all scenarios that users may need, even rare ones, like error messages, forgot password popups, on-boarding, etc. You don’t want users to get stuck in limbo somewhere, become frustrated, and quit forever. This comes with experience and from studying other people’s products.
You’ll love User Interface Design if…
1. You love to communicate visually
As a UI designer, your job is to design the best way to visually communicate a clear message at first glance. You’re not just a “pretty-maker.”
Your design’s purpose is to communicate:
The brand: What is the brand image? Fun & young, sophisticated & classy, or formal & reliable? How is it different from the competitors?
The goal: What can users accomplish on this website or app? What is the most important call to action? Is it to sign up, subscribe to a newsletter, or buy something?
2. You love psychology (perception) — You have a huge advantage as a designer when you understand how visual elements affect people’s perception. How does certain colors, typography, or layout make people think and feel? You can guide users to take the actions you want, or even increase their perception of the product’s value.
3. You love consistency—A website or app is much more memorable and easy to use when the design is consistent. Pick a visual style that fits and stick with it. The same elements should be linked the same function (e.g. everything related to signing up is orange).
4. You are adaptable — Aesthetic is subjective. And your clients know more about their business than you do. What is beautiful to you may get a huge backlash from their users. You should make recommendations based on your expertise as a designer, but it is ultimately your clients’ business, and they have the final say.
Continue to the next sections on design resources, how to get started as a UX/UI designer, and tips on becoming a better one.
I moved the full post to my design blog on Medium and rewrote it to be 100x better. Here’s the [link right to the post].
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