Ways to refine UI/UX design skills
Have you ever heard anyone saying- “My UI/UX design skills are great!” or “I’m a perfect UX designer”, particularly not. Here’s why…
The fact of matter is that, the more we are in a practice of particular job, the better we view ourselves as to be best at that job. So, in the journey of practicing UI/UX, we are actually improving our skills at designing. Thus, we have to keep few things in our mind which are going to be discussed in this article so as to help you in refining your UI/UX design skills.
To improve our designing, the simplest way is to keep on working and it will be better if we work with other designers by finding or hiring them in UI/UX world so as to have daily interaction and feedback about the design we produce. “Whether skills required today necessarily meet the future demands?” — No, it’s not necessary as human needs are increasing day by day and we have to refine our skills in order to meet the future demands of users.
Now, let’s see few key ways by which we can improve or refine our UI/UX design skills-
- Utilize your time in Sketching
Whenever free, try sketching with pen and paper so as to improve your designing skills. While sketching, you can express your ideas more clearly and structure your design easily by considering each and every detail you have collected from your Team/Clients. So, just think and implement whatever comes in your mind as it gets you closer to best design which finally leads to success in the UI/UX world.
2- Design for Mobile devices
All UI/UX designers should be capable of designing user experiences for different Smartphone’s and Tablets. As nowadays, these mobile devices become much demanding by users than desktops. Thus, we cannot manage the same UI/UX design for mobile devices as for desktop.
Since the screen sizes of mobile devices vary, we have to design accordingly but this is not the only limitation in designing for mobile devices. We also have to understand the needs and usage of different kind of customers. Hence, the detailed study is required on the user behaviour and surrounding environment as well.
3-Test your design
Every UI/UX designer should test their designs at all times. If you have enough time test your designs, A/B testing is the best way to get better performing designs but if you don’t have enough time then you can give your design to others and let them find the errors. This will clear more prominent errors which you will not see yourself. Once you get feedback on your designs, it’s important to analyze and identify the feedback which can help our design to improve and lead to an effective product.
4-Reprocess your designs
Redesigning your applications again and again helps a lot in getting effective results. It allows you to see the complete flow of your application before reaching the final stage. Even well established enterprises like Instagram and others reprocess their designs often. Check out below, how Instagram reprocessed their UI/UX in their last release.
5-Communication practice
As said by Daniel Szuc- “A UX designer should be…. a clear communicator at all levels– Not just speaking about the design itself, but communicating with the people who have a voice in the design.” Thus, while communicating with our clients or customers, we have to use their language instead of technical terms that we use in our UX design. One should clearly communicate the idea behind the design of particular product and the reason for choosing such design. All explanations should be clear and incisive as communication is the most important part of being a good designer.
From the above shown diagram, we can easily identify that our aim should be to widen the intersection part having relevant information which we have to convey to our clients/customers.
6- User Interaction with designed product
This refers to the understanding and engaging users with your product. We have to research about the scenarios in which users interact with your designed product, how they are interacting and what are the motivations behind their interaction.
Concluding:
In my experience, these are the skills which lead to a good UI/UX designer. I hope this blog helps you in getting some idea of how to refine your UI/UX design skills. The most important part to remember in the journey of designing is to perceive the user needs and design in such a way that leads to simplicity and intelligibility.
