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About UI/UX

UX design is the process of creating a valuable, enjoyable experience for users who interact with a product or service.

Who is a UI/UX Designer?

For the next 10 minutes, think of yourself as a User, and not just a ‘Regular Person’.

Before we get into who a UI/UX Designer is, let’s talk a bit about what UI/UX Design is!

UX design is the process of creating a valuable, enjoyable experience for users who interact with a product or service.

Imagine This - Netflix doesn’t provide you the ‘Recommended’ section or Instagram doesn't have the ‘Feed’!

Would be pretty disappointing right?

UI/UX designers build simple but intuitive interactive experiences that solve user problems in a fun, and an aesthetically pleasing format.

With an aim to create a positive experience, designers understand the desires, attitudes, motivations, expectations, and pain points of their consumers or users.

UX designers deep dive into why users adopt products, the key aim they hope to achieve with a certain product, and their attitude towards the product as a whole. With these insights, they create and optimise product functionality and design.

Why has Apple Music dominated the music streaming industry compared to Spotify or YouTube Music?

Because of its User Interface and User Design. Automated Playlists, Curated Music, Suggested Genres, and so much more are some of its offerings that make the music experience better!

Now we know that these careers are new and you may not know everything about them. 

So here’s a sneak peek into a day in the life of a UI/UX Designer:

User Research - User research is aimed at understanding user psychology and behaviour.

Personal Development -  Many designers listen to podcasts and follow UX thought leaders on social media to monitor emerging UX trends and improve their skills.

Wireframing - Wireframes are the blueprints for product development and they focus on layout and the placement of elements in the overall design.

Information Architecture - Ease and Speed. Information architecture runs on this principle to help users navigate products, find information, and complete tasks in an efficient manner.

Prototyping - Prototypes help finalise the interaction design and functionally simulate the final product.

User Testing - User testing allows designers to have a ‘dry run’ of the features and functionalities.

Visual Design - Visual design adds the ‘aesthetic touch’ to enhance user experience and increase usability.

How is UI and UX Different?

UI UX

UI design mostly focuses on the visual aspects of a product.

 UX design focuses on the usability, experience and functionality of those designs.
For example - For example -
Colour elements Addressing questions as to
Icons Who will utilise the platform to understand their values and motivations
Graphics Why they are using the website
Visual elements. What do they expect from it


The ultimate goal of both UI and UX design is to build an end product which is simple to operate and appealing to look at.

Related Departments

Computer Science & Information Technology 14676 Students Shortlisted

Top Colleges

India

Duration: 4 years.

Fee per course/annum: Rs.8 - 11 Lakh Per Annum

USA

Duration: 4 years

Fee per course/annum: Rs.40 - 55 Lakh Per Annum

UK

Duration:  3 - 4 years

Fee per course/annum: -

Canada

Duration: 3 - 4 Years

Fee per course/annum: -

Career Prospects

UX Designer

A UX designer is ‘THAT PERSON’ who knows and understands the customer’s mindset and designs according to their needs.

Their primary goal is to enhance the user experience by considering a person’s emotions and attitudes about using a product. The UX designer must establish a logical flow in the product.

Roles and Responsibilities:

  • Perform user and competitor research Interview users and understand their wants and needs
  • Create product prototypes Develop and test products


UI Designer

The role of a UI (User Interface) designer is often misunderstood.

Many professionals confuse the job with UX design. While some overlap exists, they are two distinct roles.

A UX designer is responsible for the overall ‘look and feel’ of a product, while a UI designer is solely responsible for the interface.

What could be an interface? It could be any point where the user and product meet and interact. An input interface could be a touchscreen, keyboard, mouse, or on/off button.

The job of the UI designer is to create an interface that’s easy to use and understand. They achieve this with an impressive combination of buttons, menus, search bars, and labels.

You may notice a UX/UI designer job title in some organisations, which is the two roles merged into one.

Roles and Responsibilities

  • UI prototyping
  • Build the site or app navigation system
  • User testing
  • Understanding system flow
  • Installing system shortcuts
  • Design the screen and pages that users interact with
  • Translate UX designer instructions by choosing the right screen elements

Visual Designer

Visual designer is the ‘Pablo Picasso’ in this process. They are concerned with aesthetics. These aesthetics include the typography, colour, graphics, visual effects, and layout.

Roles and responsibilities

  • Creating mood boards
  • Drafting pixel-perfect designs
  • Designing pleasing aesthetics through beautiful icons, controls, and visual elements

Interaction Designer

An interaction designer is concerned with how the interaction is between the user and the screen. This includes the transitions between pages, how the menu slides in or out of the screen, and how user interaction results in the change in the appearance of buttons.

This particular job role is usually seen in companies with large projects where various team members work on individual design aspects.

Interaction designers curate a user’s interactive experience with a product. They design the ways in which users interact with products through the dimensions of language, visuals, physical objects, time, and behaviour.

Roles and Responsibilities

  • Create user interaction prototypes
  • Understand and analyse how users interact with products
  • Be responsible for each element a user can drag, drop, click, and swipe

Motion Designer

From Kung Fu Panda, to How To Train Your Dragon, to Wall-E, we’ve seen what Animation has the power to do!

Animation plays a major part in creating an impactful user experience. There are two types of animation designers -

  • Visual
  • Motion

While visual designers are responsible for static elements, motion designers are concerned with the dynamic experience. A motion designer is responsible for creating animated effects when a user interacts with the screen.

Roles and Responsibilities

  • Building product motion prototypes
  • Creation of motion graphics, animations, and moving elements
  • Testing animations and ensuring smooth performance

UX Researcher

Why does Instagram play with different icons for its mobile app?

Or Facebook comes up with new updates on their platform?

Through research about their users.

This is where a UX researcher comes in. They aim to fully understand the user’s wants and needs through thorough research to gain useful insights into the customer’s mindset.

The findings and conclusions are presented to the design team to help make informed decisions on how the product should look and feel. Most large organisations have dedicated UX researchers, however in smaller firms, this role is merged with UX designers.

Roles and Responsibilities

  • Conduct research, surveys, and questionnaires
  • Conduct user interviews
  • Perform competitor analysis
  • Create a user journey
  • Perform usability tests
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Jobs & Salary

Industries hiring UI/UX Designers include -

  • Information Technology and Software
  • Finance and Insurance
  • Consulting
  • Education
  • Government and Military
  • Healthcare
  • Retail
  • Media and Advertising
  • Business

Not only the scope in these industries, UI/UX has a scope in many other fields as well. Moreso, it offers a great ‘wallet’ experience too.

UI/UX designers in India have an average salary of Rs.6 Lakh Per Annum and up to Rs.15 Lakh Per Annum. In the United States of America, designers are paid much higher with an average yearly salary of Rs.60 Lakh Per Annum. However, as a fresher, your yearly pay would be lower than this average.

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Financial Stability
  • Creative
  • Growth Opportunities
Cons
  • Constant need to upskill
  • Lack of adequate resources

Famous Personalities

Luke Wroblewski – Product Director at Google

Luke Wroblewski is among the most recognized digital product leaders in the world. He has designed and built software that is used by billions of people worldwide. He is currently a Product Director at Google. He served as the CEO and Co-founder of Polar that was acquired by Google in 2014, and the Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Bagcheck that was also acquired by Twitter in 2011. In October 2011, his book ‘Mobile First’ was published and became among the best books on UX Design.

Gaurav Mathur

Gaurav Mathur has been extensively involved in the design and User Experience in many softwares and applications. He is currently heading the design at Flipkart. He has been key to developing the Myntra mobile application, and has received laurels for its design and user experience. He also is a co-founder of a design consultancy and product development agency in Mumbai and Singapore.

Bill Buxton

Mr. Buxton has been a pioneer for consideration of humans in the implementation of new products and technologies. He has been among the top researchers for Microsoft Research and also heads a design firm in Toronto. Bill Buxton was a composer and performer and he designed his own instruments! 

Bill Buxton teaches at the University of Toronto, and serves on numerous boards and looks at the UX of everything from films to websites.

Timeline

Before 1955 Henry Dreyfuss’ book - The Art of Designing for People is released.

1966 Walter Elias Disney talks about UI vision for the first time.

1970's Xerox, Apple, and the Personal Computer releases.

1995 UX Designer officially becomes a job title for the first time.

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