Product
What is a UI Designer?
Here is the job description for the UI Designer. What is the role? The missions? The salary? What training is needed? What career paths are possible?
A UI Designer organizes the visual and textual elements of a website or application, meeting both technical standards and the brand's identity principles by following its visual guidelines.
The UI designer's role is therefore to make the product attractive and pleasing to the eye. They handle the design and creation of the user interface. Their role is to produce web mockups for each page of the product. They ensure visual consistency with the user journey defined by the UX designer. UI designers work closely with Front-End developers.
The point isn't to know how to code — that's not their job — but to know how it works and what is or isn't possible to make development smooth and efficient.
Which companies hire UI Designers?
Just like Front-end developers, all companies looking to deliver an IT project that requires a high-quality, ergonomic user interface.
Why do companies need this role?
This role is sometimes absorbed by front-end developers when the visual quality of the user interface isn't a priority. However, as soon as it becomes one, it's necessary to separate the front-end developer's technical skills from the UI Designer's creative and artistic skills.
The aim is to deliver a high-quality interface that will play a major role in distinguishing one solution from another offering roughly the same features.
What happens if the company can't recruit this profile?
If several competing companies offer roughly the same solutions at similar prices, then your visuals will drive new customer conversion. An attractive, pleasant visual will also play a major role in retaining users.
Let's not forget that, even subconsciously, visuals are a hook. Who has never been seduced by a beautifully designed app or site, only to realize that the functional side behind it wasn't at the same level?
Who does the UI designer work with?
UX designer: often combined into a single UX/UI Designer role, we have chosen to separate them to clearly distinguish the UX (more ergonomic) and UI (more visual) jobs. Working on the same artifact — a site's mockup — they need to collaborate very closely, hence the merging of the two roles.
Product Owner: the one who assigns them tasks and organizes their work.
Frontend Developer: the UI designer (and the UX) provides the visual mockup to the front-end developer so it can be translated into code readable by the client's browser, with the goal of displaying a usable user interface.
What is their role in the team?
The UI designer's role is to make the product attractive and pleasing to the eye. They handle the design and creation of the user interface. Their role is to produce web mockups for each page of the product based on the company's visual guidelines, often created by themselves. They ensure visual consistency with the user journey defined by the UX designer.
What technical problems do they solve?
Not really being a tech role, they don't directly solve technical problems but rather problems around how users interact with the interface. They take care to design an interface that is visually easy to use, so all the developers' work behind it doesn't go to waste!
What are a UI designer's skills?
The UI designer must be creative and innovative. They will also be expected to have knowledge of programming, sociology, and psychology. They must also have technical skills in interface prototyping, knowledge of wireframing (site structure), and web mockup design.
Soft skills
Curiosity, empathy, and communication are essential for being a great UI Designer.
Their tools
We're talking design and mockup tools rather than technologies. Here are a few:
- Miro and Zeplin for visual collaboration
- Figma, Axure, Marvel for the prototyping interface
- Sketch for design
- Adobe XD, Sketch, Framer, Invision Studio for design
- The Adobe Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator)
- Balsamiq for wireframes
What training is needed to become a UI Designer?
To become a UI designer, you can follow a multimedia and internet trades program, then move on to a Master's in digital creation and engineering or in interface and multimedia design.
What is the salary of a UI designer?
What career paths are possible?
After several years of experience, a UI designer can choose to move into other creative roles such as: Product Designer, Head of Design, or Art Director.