The UX UI designer makes products, services, and technology usable, enjoyable, and accessible for humans.
UX designers work as part of a wider product team and often find themselves bridging the gap between the user, the development team, and key business stakeholders.
Whether designing a new product, developing a new feature, or making changes to an existing product or service, the UX designer must consider what’s best for the user and the overall user experience.
As a UX UI designer, it’s your job to advocate for the end-user or customer.
At the same time, you are also responsible for ensuring that the product or service meets the needs of the business. Does it align with the CEO’s vision? Will it help to increase revenue or retain loyal customers?
Ok, but what kinds of projects can you expect to work on, and what is your role within a company?
On a typical day, a UX designer will likely be designing websites, mobile apps, and software or even designing for voice, AR, and VR devices.
Some UX designers focus on service design rather than tangible products, such as designing the overall public transport experience or staying in a hotel.
It is important to be aware that UX UI designers are not typically responsible for the visual design of a product. Rather, they focus on the user’s journey and how the product is structured to facilitate this journey.
Tasks and responsibilities
As a UX designer, you’ll go through each step in the UX UI design process to ensure that all products are designed with the user in mind. Let’s take a closer look at daily tasks.
- Conducting user research
- Creating user personas
- Determining information architecture
- Creating user flows and wireframes
- Prototyping and user testing
1. Conducting user research
The initial stage in the UX design process is where the research (magic) happens. Generally, a UX designer will get a brief from the client or their manager asking them to do some project research.
Let’s use the fictitious fast food chain “Foodies” as an example. Imagine Foodies approach you because they want to design a new app.
Firstly, it would be the UX designer’s role to combine desk-based and field research to get a full picture of who they are designing for. This might include reviewing what the current website has to offer, interviewing existing users to identify opportunities and pain points, and doing competitor research to see what else is out there.
These tasks enable the UX UI designer to pinpoint the core features needed for the Minimum Viable Product (in other words, the first iteration of a product that you’ll release) and to start creating some initial user personas. For Foodies, the core features might be a menu, the ability to make online reservations, and a local branch finder.
In a nutshell, the user research phase is when you scope out the project, identifying exactly who you’re designing for and what the users’ goals and challenges are about the product. You can learn more about the importance of user research and how to do it in this guide or by exploring this set of free UX research tutorials.
2. Creating user personas
Based on extensive user research, UX designers might then create user personas. This is where you delve deeper into what tasks each persona wants to perform and why. Personas are key in the process.
A typical persona for Foodies might be Samantha, a go-getting 20-something who likes eating artisan salads on her lunch break. An example task for her persona might be:
“Samantha likes to pre-order the Moroccan Lamb Salad via the mobile app as it saves her time between meetings.”
Another popular approach that might be used in conjunction with (or as an alternative to) user personas is jobs-to-be-done (JTBD). You can find a full comparison between personas and JTBD elsewhere on the blog.
3. Determining information architecture
Next, you’ll start thinking about the kind of content needed and how it will be structured across the website or app. This is what’s known as information architecture; working out the most logical layout and organization of the content.
Good information architecture makes sure that the user can easily find what they’re looking for and intuitively navigate from one page to the next without too much thought.
4. Creating user flows and wireframes
UX UI designer use a range of tools to map out the user’s journey through a product, including user flows and wireframes.
User flows are basic flowcharts that visualize the complete path a user takes when using a product, from the entry point right through to the final interaction. You can learn more in this introductory guide to user flows.
While user flows map out the entire user journey, wireframes provide a two-dimensional outline of a single screen or page. We’ve covered the wireframing process in more detail in another piece—and if you’re keen to get started, you can find a guide to the best free wireframing tools.
5. Prototyping and user testing
With the product layout mapped out, the UX UI designer will then create prototypes and run some user tests.
A prototype is simply a scaled-down version of your product; a simulation that enables you to test your designs before they get developed. Prototypes range from the simplest of paper models to the more realistic, high-fidelity interactive prototypes that closely mimic the final product.
Testing your prototypes on real users helps to highlight any design flaws before you create the final product. Several rounds of testing could take place before the design is completely right.
Once you know the design is meeting users’ needs, the new product is finally ready to go into development.
UX designers also attend sprint meetings, overseeing product development to make sure there aren’t any feature creeps (which often happens in my experience!) and helping to make small refinements to the design as and when necessary.
6. Visual design
You’ll notice that none of the above tasks are concerned with the visual design of the product. While some UX UI designer will also specialize in visual design, it tends to fall under user interface (UI) design.
So, the final imagery, color schemes, icons, and typography will usually be taken care of by a UI designer. If you’re confused about the difference between the two roles, read our guide explaining the differences between UX and UI design.
One final point to make is that a UX designer’s work is rarely finished after the product launch. There will be refinements, small changes, new releases, feedback to gather, and analytics to discuss with the team.
The UX design process is highly iterative, and a career in UX is as much about collaboration and coordination as it is about design.
