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What Skills Do You Need to Be a UI Designer?

What Are Essential UI Design Skills?

Becoming a UI Designer requires developing a mix of hard (technical) and soft (transferable) skills. Let’s take a closer look.

Hard skills

To start developing the technical knowhow a UI Designer needs, you’ll want to focus on wireframing and prototyping, responsive design, and widely used industry tools, including Sketch and InVision, to bring designs to life.

There are also certain skills that are specific to UI design, including the principles of interaction design—the ways in which users navigate and interact with flows of information

As well as an understanding of user research and testing models, and how to create and use personas as a guide to design planning.

FInally, you’ll have to build a strong foundation of design knowledge, including basic design principles such as branding, typography and color theory, and how to develop and use style guides.

Soft skills

A successful UI Designer draws on a few soft skills as well. Given the collaborative environment that development takes place in, an ability to work well as part of a team is an obvious asset. So too are communication skills. UI Designers need to communicate not only with their fellow employees; they’re also frequently called on to interact with people outside the team, including soliciting feedback from test user groups or delivering presentations to stakeholders.

Perhaps the most elusive skill, and the one most unique to UI and UX Designers, is the need for an intuitive understanding of how other people think. You might call it “empathy”; what it boils down to is a clear sense of how the mind works, and especially which design strategies will translate into a successful product. The shorthand might be, how to use your intuition to develop an interface that end users can navigate without even thinking about it, using their intuition.

Layout, color, typography, and other design elements all come into play here. Making them look appealing is only half the battle; the other half is anticipating how users will respond to them, then deploying these elements to achieve a desired reaction from the user. To extend the metaphor of the user journey: a UX Designer draws the building’s foundation and plans the route through it from A to Z, while the UI Designer decides where the windows and doors will be, creates the wayfinding signs an

Do You Need a Degree to Be a UI Designer?

You do not need a degree in a specific field to become a UI Designer. Certainly, a background in design can help you get started, but in reality, anyone can learn the necessary skills to land a career in UI design.

That said, looking at job postings for UI Designers, you’ll probably notice that most do require a degree—but there are two important clarifications that go along with that statement.

The first consideration is that, because UI design is so interdisciplinary, there isn’t a single academic area that covers everything that goes into the field—a computer science degree won’t teach you design skills, and an arts degree won’t teach you tech skills. Wherever you start, you’ll need to make up those skills somewhere else.

A second, related consideration is that, while many employers may want someone with a degree, none will expect that degree to be in UI—for the simple reason that there’s no such thing as a Bachelor’s of User Interface Design. This also relates back to the fact that most people enter the field of UI design from either the design side or the development side, sometimes—but not always—through Bachelor’s programs like graphic design, human computer interaction or interaction design; many others simp

In short, a Bachelor’s is quite often secondary to demonstrable UI design skills and an eye-catching portfolio—and even when a degree is required, it’s usually insufficient in and of itself. Essentially, what a Hiring Manager’s criteria come down to is whether or not a candidate demonstrates the requisite skills for the job.

Is a Certificate in User Interface Design Worth It?

Few roles in tech combine creativity, stylistic flair, and technical savvy like user interface design. A User Interface Designer isn’t just responsible for creating beautiful digital products, but also understanding how brand, typography, and layout need to smoothly interact to create a responsive and efficient experience for users. It’s easy to understand why so many have been compelled to join the rapidly growing field. Whether you’re new to the field or looking for more competitive credentials, read on for reasons why earning a UI design certificate could be a valuable career move.

Companies focusing on user experience

Wisely, companies are becoming more consumer-focused and design-focused than ever.

According to 2018 digital trends study conducted by Adobe and Econsultancy, the organizations polled identified optimizing the customer experience as the single most-exciting opportunity for their companies.

Meanwhile, the same study showed that user interface and user experience design was also the biggest self-identified weak spot for the companies participating. Where 74 percent of respondents said they had a strong company culture, only 50 percent felt confident that they “have well-designed user journeys that facilitate clear communication and a seamless transaction.”

Well, those companies are doing what they can to catch up. The Adobe/Econsultancy survey found that 73 percent of companies were “investing in design to differentiate our brand,” up from 59 percent in 2015.

But they’re struggling to find the right people. Only 61 percent of respondents felt they had the people needed to engineer good customer experiences.

Perhaps that’s why an Emsi study found an average of 4,900 new job postings per month for user interface designers in 2016, with Oracle, Creative Circle, Amazon, and Pegasystems standing as the companies hiring the most in this area.

Naturally, that shortage has led to robust salaries. User Interface Designers on average make $84,435 annually, while Senior User Interface Designers on average receive $107,002.

eCommerce continues to grow

These days, companies simply can’t expect customers to interact with an unattractive, confusing, or unresponsive digital product, and they can’t afford to lag behind the competition. eCommerce/digital now influences up to 56 percent of in-store purchases and represents almost 10 percent of all U.S. retail sales, a figure Absolunet reports is growing 15 percent annually. Mobile-specific eCommerce, meanwhile, is growing at a pace that’s almost too fast to keep up – that report forecasts that mobile will represent 70 percent of all eCommerce traffic by the end of the year.

UI design is crucial to creating a worthwhile app

As companies try to catch up to the mobile transformation, it’s important to keep in mind that quality is crucial in the mobile realm. Users simply won’t bother with an unattractive mobile app with a confusing customer journey. A 2016 Localytics survey found that across all app users, 80 percent do not use the apps they download after three months. AppsFlyer meanwhile found that 30 days after download, roughly three percent of iOS and Android apps were still actively used. Mobile app users may became only more discerning in the years ahead. eMarketer reported last year that while Americans are spending more time using apps – 19.9 percent of average daily total media time – they are at the same time using fewer and fewer apps.

Certificate courses ensure your skills are current

The famous designer Neville Brody once said, “digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries.” Similarly, User Interface Designers should never stop growing and adapting. With employers demanding deep and up-to-date skill sets, a certification course might be the best way to ensure that your toolbox contains everything industry leaders are looking for. Emsi’s study found that user interface design positions will want a candidate who is versed in the essentials of web design – such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript – but User Interface Designers should also possess other tools needed for prototyping, wireframing, and designing digital products. BrainStation’s part-time User Interface Design course, which can be completed online or on our campuses in New York, Toronto, or Vancouver, helps students master industry tools including Sketch, Invision, Flinto, and Zeplin. By the end of the course, students graduate from learning the fundamentals of visual design, brand consistency, and typography, to creating their own clickable prototype of a mobile app, complete with its own UI scheme.