How to Become a UI/UX Designer?

In the age of digitalization, everybody wants the latest and best version of the technology. Whether it is technological advancement in automobiles or electronics, everyone wants to have the best experience while using them. When it comes to websites or mobile applications, user experience is one of the important aspects. All of us want to have a smooth experience while surfing the website or browsing through an application. UI/UX Designers ensure that the users have the best experience while interacting with websites and applications. Check out this blog to understand UI/UX Designer and how you can become one:

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What is UI Design?

UI Design stands for User Interface. User Interface is the graphical layout of an application. It is a subset of UX Design. It focuses on the user’s visual experience. It determines how a user will interact with a mobile application or a website or even a video game. How the user will navigate from point A to point B with the help of different visual touchpoints.  It consists of the buttons users click on, the text they read, the images, sliders, text entry fields, and all the rest of the items the user interacts with. This includes screen layout, transitions, interface animations, and every single micro-interaction. It includes any sort of visual element, interaction, or animation.

What is UX Design?

UX Design stands for User Experience. User experience is the process of designing the products in such a manner that they are useful and easy to use. It is all about enhancing the experience that the users have while interacting with websites or applications. User experience is determined by how easy or difficult it is to interact with the user interface elements that the UI designers have created.

What Does a UI/UX Designer Do?

From gathering user requirements to innovative designs are some of the job responsibilities of a UI/UX Designer. Given below is a list of duties and responsibilities of a UI/UX Designer :

• Gathering and evaluating user requirements, in collaboration with product managers and engineers
• Illustrating design ideas using storyboards, process flows, and sitemaps
• Designing graphic user interface elements, like menus, tabs, and widgets
• Designing UI elements such as input controls, navigational components, and informational components
• Communicate with product and engineering teams, as well as business stakeholders and executive leadership
• Ensure the voice of the customer is present by incorporating customer feedback, usage metrics, and usability findings into the design to enhance the user experience
• Continuous monitoring and conducting numerous audience studies to understand user profiles
• Being aware of the latest design innovations
• Identifying and troubleshooting UX problems (e.g. responsiveness)

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Eligibility 

For pursuing an undergraduate degree in UI/UX Design, students must have passed from 10 + 2 from a recognized institution and board. The students from any stream, science, art, and commerce can pursue a career in UI/UX Designing. For further studies such as a masters or PhD, the student should have an undergraduate degree from a recognized university. To become a UI/UX Designer, the student must have at least certain technical skills and experience in working with UI/UX Designer tools. They should also have basic knowledge of certain programming languages. 

How To Become A UI/UX Designer?

Get A Professional Degree or Certifications

Students who wish to pursue a career as UI/UX Designer can either go for a proper professional undergraduate degree in UI/UX Designing such as BDes in User Experience Design, BDes in Communication Design, BDes UX, BSc in UI Design and Development, BSc in UI and Graphic Design and many more. Many certification courses are also for students who want to be UI/UX Designers such as Google UX Design Certifications which gives basic training in the field of UI/UX Designing. 

Read Books and Other Resources

Many books can help you to pursue a career in UI/UX Design. This allows you to have a better understanding of the field and also develops your interest in becoming a UI/UX Designer. You can also watch videos on how to create a user interface and a better user experience. There are numerous resources on the internet that can help you in the journey to becoming a UI/UX Designer. Certain suggested books for the same are “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” by Nir Eyal, “The Elements of User Experience: User-centered Design for the Web” by Jesse James Garrett, and “A Project Guide to UX Design: For User Experience Designers in the Field Or the Making” by Carolyn Chandler and Russ Unger. 

Work Under a Guide or a Mentor

Working as UI/UX Designer is not always easy. It requires tremendous effort on the part of the student to understand the various elements as well as user expectations. It is always better to work under the guidance of a professional guide or mentor who has years of experience as a UI/UX Designer.  They can provide proper guidance on how to go about designing and creating the various elements of UI/UX Designing and point out any mistakes on your part. 

Go for Internships

Internships can give you the practical exposure to become a better UI/UX Designer. Working under notable companies as a UI/UX Designer intern can help you immensely in understanding the duties and responsibilities that come under this job role. It can also give you practical knowledge of how everything works and what tools you require to make a good UI/UX Design. If you are a beginner, you may face difficulties but an internship can help you to overcome such difficulties and set you on the path to becoming a successful UI/UX Designer. 

Create a Portfolio of Your Works

It is always better to create a portfolio of your previous work as it serves as proof of your experience and capability. It also increases your chances of being hired by your prospective client or employer, since they will be on the lookout for candidates who have previous experience and knowledge of being UI/UX Designers. 

Master the Tools of UI/UX Design

Various UI/UX Designing tools are available online. The perfect usage of these tools makes your UI UX designing process easy and efficient. Select the best one you feel is good and learn about the same in-depth. But it is advisable to not master just a single tool but multiple tools and become more efficient. Some of the popular tools include Sketch, Adobe XD, ReFramer, Figma.

Apply for A Job

After gaining sufficient experience and mastering the various elements of UI/UX Designing, you can apply for jobs. You can also go for freelancing which gives you the freedom to choose your clients. You can always keep trying through various mediums like LinkedIn, job portals, etc. There are even UI UX design agencies that hire interns for their client projects. Notable companies that hire UI/UX Designers include Google, Apple, Microsoft, SAP, and many more. 

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Soft Skills Required for UI/UX Designers 

A UI/UX Designer requires both technical and soft skills to be successful in their career. A list of soft skills that are required are as follows :

• Empathy
• Communication
• Collaborations
• Curiosity 
• Active Listening
• Open-Mindedness
• Adaptation
• Problem-Solving

Technical Skills Required for UI/UX Designer

Technical skills are an essential part of every UI/UX Designer. Given below is a list of technical skills required :

• UX Research 
• Wireframing and Prototyping 
• UX Writing Skills
• Interaction Design Skills
• Visual Communication
• Coding 
• Information Architecture 
• Analytical 
• Application Development
• User Research and Usability Testing

Essential UI/UX Designing Tools

Every UI/UX designer must be quite adept at using a variety of UI/UX designing tools. Proficiency in multiple tools will be preferred since each of the tools have its own unique advantages and disadvantages. Some of the UI/UX designing tools include :

• Sketch
• InVision Studio
• Axure
• Craft
• Proto.io
• Adobe XD
• Marvel
• Figma
• Framer X
• Origami Studio
• Webflow
• VisualSitemaps
• Treejack

Top Colleges in India 

There are several colleges and universities in India that provide courses in UI/UX Designing. Here is a list of top colleges in India:

INSTITUTE	LOCATION
National Institute of Design (NID)	Ahmedabad
IDC, IIT Bombay	Mumbai
Department of Design, IIT Guwahati	Guwahati
Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology	Bangalore
MAEER’S MIT Institute of Design	Pune
Indian School of Design and Innovation	Mumbai
D J Academy of Design	Coimbatore
École intuit.lab, French Institute of Design and Communication	Mumbai
NICC, International College of Design	Bangalore
Symbiosis Institute of Design	Pune

Top Universities for UI/UX Design Courses Abroad

You can also pursue your dream of being a UI/UX Designer. Apply to the top universities Abroad for UI/UX Design courses. Check out the list of top universities for UI/UX Design courses:

University	Location	QS Ranking 2022
Carnegie Mellon University	US	17
Parsons School of Design	US	3
Royal College of Art	UK	1
RMIT University	Australia	11
Pratt Institute	US	10
California Institute of the Arts	US	20
Emily Carr University of Art + Design	Canada	40
Stanford University	US	16
Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT)	US	5
School of Visual Arts	US	28

Popular Job Profiles & Salary

The career scope for UI/UX designers is growing day by day. Here are some of the popular job profiles along with the salary structure:

Job Profile	Salary per annum
User Researcher	INR 9,60,000
Wireframe Expert	INR 6,45,000
Content Strategist	INR 7,80,000
Information Architecture ( UX Designer )	INR 6,29,365
Usability Tester	INR 6,81,000
Interaction Designer	INR 7,64,438
Visual Designer ( UI Designer )	INR 6,55,000
UX/UI Developer ( Involves coding like HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc.)	INR 5,00,486
Product Designer	INR 6,27, 699

FAQs

UI/UX designers are in high demand in today’s world. They make quite the impact in many organizations since they are the ones who ensure there is improvement in the user experience and customer satisfaction. If you wish to pursue a career in UI/UX designing and want to know more, you can always reach out to our experts at Leverage Edu for more information.