What Does UX/UI Design Entail?
As can be inferred from the explained concepts, UX/UI Design is the combination of both disciplines to achieve the design of a product or service that functions and fulfills the objectives for which it has been created: to meet a user’s need.
To carry out the task of creating a product, specialized UX profiles will always be involved, defining how the user should experience the product/service interaction. This preliminary research work is known as UX Research and includes various techniques and tools.
In the same process of creating a product or service, specialized UI profiles will also be necessary, designing the interface through which the user will interact to achieve their goal, following the guidelines defined by UX.
Last but not least, there is the field of Service Design, which encompasses processes related to the creation of a product or service, the complete ecosystem that makes the product viable and develops it as efficiently as possible. It also ensures that it fits into a specific market, corresponds to certain stakeholders (our target audience), and communicates effectively.
What is UX Research?
UX Research, or User Experience Research, encompasses all the analysis and research work done before finalizing a product and creating a User Interface (UI). Some of the key processes involved in UX Research include:
- Research (with the target audience, through interviews, focus groups, etc.)
- Evaluation (heuristic evaluations, benchmarks, usability testing)
- Data analysis (observations, metrics, etc.)
- Information Architecture creation
A professional UX Designer or Researcher typically possesses knowledge in fields such as psychology, sociology, digital product development, communication, business development, graphic and interactive design, as well as various techniques and tools.
Within UX Design, there are various tools and methodologies that facilitate the design and research process, including Design Thinking for UX research, analysis, and implementation, Agile and Business Design techniques for optimizing creation processes, Benchmarks for market and competitor analysis (where SWOT analyses play a significant role), as well as a wide range of techniques focused on studying the target audience and defining user patterns.
What is UI Design?
After completing the UX Research work, the next necessary stage in creating a product is designing the interface through which users will interact with it. This task, focused on the finalization of design and giving it a visual and experiential form, is the main purpose of UI Design.
As previously explained, UI serves as the means to make the User Experience tangible.
A UI Designer is responsible for visually designing the interface of the product or service in accordance with the User Experience. They create elements that respond to user interactions and ensure that the intended experience remains consistent, regardless of the location, device, or channel used (easily understood through the design of different interfaces for an app: mobile version, tablet view, large screen, etc.).
The work of a UI Designer is closely tied to the development or product design team, providing style guides and the design of elements to be used in the interface.
Some activities performed by a UI Designer include:
- Interaction Design (determining the system’s response)
- Interaction guidelines (different states of each action)
- Visual element design (menus, buttons, forms, etc.)
- Style guides (defining the style, color palettes, typography, etc.)
To carry out all the design and interface definition work, especially in the digital field, UI Designers rely on various prototyping software tools.
Techniques and Tools Among the primary tools used in interface design, Figma stands out as the most common among all existing software for UI Designers. This tool and its various plugins are essential for any professional when developing any prototype. Figma is a cloud software (developed 100% online in the cloud) that has revolutionized prototype design work for any digital device thanks to its user-friendliness and almost limitless possibilities, especially when testing how an interface design would look on different types of screens. When working as a UI Designer, it is highly likely that you will use Figma to design a prototype for any application and even bring it to life by easily animating its content and creating complete interactions.
