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How to Become a UI/UX Designer? [Latest Guides in 2024]

Written By Sidrah Nizami | Last Modified On April 22, 2024

User Interface and User Experience design is willing to give a great experience to help keep the users true to a brand or a product. Nowadays, businesses know how important it is to be customer-centric than being product-centric, which is using correct insights of data and key ux principles of UI and UX to know the needs of the customer and design services and products according to that, instead of just releasing products they think the users will like. UX designers play one of the most critical roles in a business, along with creative directors and graphic designer. 

So, without delaying it more, let’s know what UI UX design is and how to become a UI UX designer?

What Is User Experience Design?

UX design is designing products that give a great user experience to the users while they deliver on the ux design process of a business. UX designers work hard on this as great UX surrounds the whole production design process, including the product’s branding, designing, functioning, and usability. People who choose UI or UX designing as their career have to do the user research and analyze the user’s requirements, among various things.

What Is User Interface Design?

User Interface Design is the process used by designers to build an interface in a computerized device or softwares, focusing specifically on its style or how it looks. 

UI designing is styling the looks of a website or an application. If you think of things such as designing icons or arranged on the web page and how they are related to one another, an aspiring UX designer has the answer to all these answers.

From choosing ux design elements like font style, color scheme, buttons, and graphics, to the styling of the menu are all the things included in UI designing.

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How to Become a UI/UX Designer?

There are various fields of design. UI, UX, product designing, graphic designing, interaction designing, information architecture, etc. It would help if you began by deciding which field you want to choose. 

Here are some tips which are listed below that how to become a ui ux designer.

  • Get Familiar with the UI Principles.
  • Learn the creative UX process.
  • Develop your eye for design.
  • Read UX design articles everyday.
  • Design fake projects.
  • Learn the latest Web Design tools.
  • Mentor and Get Mentored.

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1- Get Familiar With the UI Principles.

Before you practice designing, the first and foremost thing you should do is get familiar with the principles of UI designing. From this, you can quickly enter designing and think creatively. You will know the psychological parts of designing, like why it can not look good and why it can look the best.

Following are some UI principles everyone should know about.

Color

Color psychology, vocabulary, and its fundamentals.

Balance

Asymmetry and symmetry. 

Contrast

With the help of contrast, you can build a hierarchy, create focus, and organize information.

Typography

Picking fonts and creating text on the web which is readable. 

Consistency

The essential principle of creating usable and intuitive designers starts with consistency.

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2- Learn the Creative UX Process.

Now what you need to understand is the creative process. UI/UX designing is a process of phases that every creative ux designer has to go through.

The Creative Process

The creative process is divided into four phases, including Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver. The double diamond is a visual map of the ux design process.

Discover

This is where the project starts. UX Designers start researching, finding inspiration, and collecting ideas.

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Define

This is the defining stage, where UX designers can define an idea taken from the discovery phase. Now, a clear creative idea is created.

Develop

Now is the time to create, prototype, test, and iterate the concepts. This process includes trial and error, which helps UX designers improve and improve their ideas.

Delivery

Now is the time to deliver your final project, finalized, produced, and released.

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3- Develop Your Eye for Design

Knowing the ux design principles is essential, but this is not required. You also have to train your eye to differentiate between good and bad ux designs and identify the strengths and weaknesses in every design. 

The best way to train your eye for designs is through inspiration. Before you open a blank canvas and stare at it for an hour, know that you can only be creative when you discover and user research correctly.

Sometimes the mind can’t create its ideas, so you have to first look at other designs before creating your own, especially at the beginner stage. 

Browse UX Portfolio Websites

So, go through what other UX designers are creating, and whenever you come across cute designs or something related to your project, save it somewhere and mention what you like the most. This way, you can collect all the ideas for you to start.

4- Read UX Design Articles Every Day

The best way to get familiar with designing is to read a few articles related to designing every day. 

Make it your everyday habit to read ux design news and blogs. There are many articles online for you to know about new use cases, trends, and tutorials. All you need to do is find them. There’s nothing better than getting information from the experiences of other people. 

Make Reading Articles an Everyday Habit.

So, every day, read a few articles on Medium or some other place with a cup of coffee as soon as you wake up. Learning new stuff in the morning will broaden your thinking and make room for creativity throughout the day.

Then, every other day, take a break from work to read more. Taking breaks is essential to increase creativity, mainly when you feel stuck and unproductive. Bookmark the websites you like as your homepage to check them out later conveniently. 

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5- Design Dummy Projects.

Practice makes you perfect. And you cannot get clients without any experience. But, without any job or ux projects, we can still practice, right?

Start by practicing yourself by creating fake ux projects for fun as your ux design portfolio. Please choose mobile apps or website you are already using and design it again with your creativity. It could be anything you think should be designed better. You can also design your creative mobile apps idea. From this, you will be building your ux portfolio and practice too.

6- Learn the Latest Web Design Tools.

There are various ux design tools on the internet, but you don’t need to use them. Get to know the best ones available, choose your favorite, and stay updated with the newest trends and features. Further Reading about different tools for measuring user experience.

7- Mentor and Get Mentored.

Another great way to learn ux design is to find a mentor or a ux designer friend who can help you with work. They will help in speeding up your process of learning.

Your mentor can review your work and give their comments wherever they can. It’s like a quick way. They can also give you tips and tricks they have learned in this career path from their personal experience. So, go ahead and get in touch with a designer, ask them questions and discuss your concerns.

How Do User Experience and User Interface Design Work Together?

To sum up, the difference between UI and UX, let’s talk about their work. Depending on the company, UX designers handle various tasks related to optimizing a product for efficient usage. UI designers focus on the final product’s look, feel, presentation, and interactivity.

Depending on the person’s experience level and the team’s size, this could be one person handling both of the tasks. But, where there are two or more two members in the team for these roles, excellent communication between them is essential for a great final product.

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As UI designers on the final look of the project, and as the final presentation has an impact on the UX, UI and UX designers should be working together to make sure the efforts of both of them are in the same direction that is towards meeting the needs and goals of the users and addressing the main pain points in the experience of a user.

Is UX Design a Growing Field?

Honestly, Yes. The UX design field is one of the quickest-growing fields in technology. There are more than 20,0000 positions open in UX designing currently in the US, according to Glassdoor.

As everyday work like shopping is shifting from offline to online, UX is becoming more and more essential. Companies that fully embrace UX principles for all the interactions of customers have benefited a lot in the hardest of times.

More and more, retailers have been offering services and experiences beyond what their product is offering, and UX is at its base. Even in the eCommerce world, brands have been focused on predicting what their users want and when they want it, using the personalization process to cater to the wants of their users and ultimately boosting their sales.

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How Can I Get a Job as a UI/UX Designer With No Experience?

You can learn the central concepts in UX designing yourself. Reading about UX designing can be a great start; read some essential books on designing, product designing, and UX designing. With the help of case studies, you can understand the basic principles of UX, technical skills, design skills, and ux design methods. Get familiar with the ux design deliverables like prototypes, journey maps, and wireframes.

Then, with the help of a UX course, structure your learning by beginning with a beginners design course and then learning UI/UX design boot camp based on building a portfolio and preparing for the career. 

At the end, continue with some work experience in UX designing, product designing, or some other field, and also work on your projects based on UX designing. 

If you want to know if You Can Become a UX Designer With No Experience, check out this article.

Conclusion:

Becoming a UX/UI designer is not something that can be done in just one day. It takes time, determination, and hard work. It can be a complicated task for someone who doesn’t have any prior experience or a design-related degree. But, this doesn’t mean you can’t do it. 

Following these simple steps mentioned above can help you achieve your goals, making becoming a professional UX designer easier. We hope you got the answer to your question of how to become a UI UX designer. Just work hard, and don’t ever give up on your dreams. Follow these steps to learn user experience and user interface design and find a job quickly.

Good Luck!

FAQs

What Is the Salary of a UX Designer?

The average salary of a UX designer in the US hovers from around $85,000 and can be as high as $125,0000 for a professional position.

Is UI UX designer in demand?

Designing has taken a significant role in the modern world that identifies the importance of a user-centered approach to any business. Consequently, a UI UX designer is highly demanded. Designing is one of the quickest-growing fields in the tech industry. Demand for aspiring UX designers is supposed to grow by around 15% in the next ten years.

How much time does it take to become a UX designer?

It doesn’t take a lot of time to learn UX design. You can be an aspiring UX designer in 2-4 years if you don’t have a master’s or bachelor’s degree. Begin with an introductory designing course and then get more into user experience and certified UX design courses focused more on preparing for the career. This will help master your design skills and technical skills including UX researcher, wireframing, product design, prototyping with a prototyping tool, visual communication, and information architecture.

Can you learn UI UX design yourself?

You can learn most of the UX designing concepts yourself. Various online UX design courses will help get started with it and get a UX job, including designing articles and video tutorials. Practicing these concepts is really easy if you take a boot camp online, where you can work on fake projects to create a portfolio.