Over the past 6 months I’ve been gaining experience in my first UX/UI design role and let me tell you it has been an educational and challenging experience. As an intern, I will share a few things that I have learnt in my role and hopefully they will inspire those who are just starting out!
7 things I’ve learnt in my first design role.
1️⃣ Consistency
Only now I truly understand how important reusable components are. When designing a user interface, components are an integral part of the process. I remember when I started at Hinge, I was struggling a lot, not understanding how to make a design consistent. However, now I am starting to realise that if I see that a block is going to be reused in the design, it’s worth making it into a Figma component. This means I would not have to go back and make changes to every single instance, instead I can make the update in one place. Working in this way helps the design process become more efficient for me as a designer and also more predictable for the user.
2️⃣ Less is more
It is important to keep clutter to a minimum and not overwhelm the user. For instance, removing some elements may be necessary, or giving users less choice to avoid cognitive overload. The simpler it is to use interface the better it is for the user.
3️⃣ Documenting design decisions
During these past few months at Hinge, I have learnt that having a documented style guide is key for both designers and developers as it allows for more efficient communication. When working on the design, I need to remember to design for system statuses. This involves having error, success, hover, focus or disabled states in place. Inn the development process the developers will need to know what they have to do in case the user makes a mistake in an input field or if a file has been uploaded. Not only it is beneficial for designers and developers, but also users will always be informed about what is going on through appropriate feedback.
4️⃣ Different scenarios
These days people use various devices, sometimes even a few devices at a time. Every screen has different size, so it is key to remember to make your design responsive. Every case needs to be considered, because the user’s experience will be different.
Within design we also need to take into consideration the what-if scenarios. What happens if we have less or more text in a card, what if only one image is being displayed in a carousel, or what if we have only one user review now, but will have more than 20 in the future, how is that going to look? One aspect I try to always keep in mind now is to design for both ideal and worst case scenarios.
5️⃣ Typography & Hierarchy
Hierarchy is important as it defines how users should read through content on web pages. With people being busier than ever and life becoming faster and faster we all have less time to actually read through content. Instead people tend to scan. Introducing hierarchy helps users to differentiate headers and body text. This plays a big part in how scannable a layout is and allows users to locate the most important elements on a page quickly.
6️⃣ Should designers code?
It is very important for any UX/UI designer to understand basic development, as it hugely helps when creating designs that will:
- Be in line with the budget and time allocated for a project
- Be achievable to implement
Even a few months ago, I have to admit I was thinking that not understanding development will not affect the design process…but I was wrong, big time!
7️⃣ Feedback
If you ask me what would be my most important advice…I would say learning to accept and act on all feedback from team and clients, as these are the people who give you valuable feedback, be it positive or negative. It might be difficult at times, but it will definitely help to improve your skills much faster. So don’t be stubborn and listen to experienced people, because they are only trying to help!
The UX/UI designer role is definitely challenging, but so interesting and rewarding at the same time and there is definitely a lot to learn. Hopefully, for those of you who are starting out in the industry, this little article will give you some ideas on how to progress your design skills.