What is a User Interface (UI)?
UI here refers to User Interface. UI design refers to the process of improving the interaction and presentation of the mobile or web application. The UI design primary focus is on the look and feel of the application. It also focuses on how the application interacts with the users. All the different things like the buttons, pages, screen, and all other visual elements is referred to as the user interface of the application.
In short, User interface refers to the different features of an application or a device, which allows the users to interact with it. It is all about programming the look of the things, with a primary focus on improving the usability along with the user experience.
Why is UI important?
In our daily life, we see many people looking for applications that look appealing, making them feel good when they are using the application. An excellent user interface will help you in creating an instant attraction to your application, which will give a perfect User experience leaving a good impact on the user mind. Hence it is one of the important concepts that will help to make the application successful at the right time.
If you are unable to make people feel happy with your website's look at first glance, you might never be able to win them back. We all know that our primary goal of business is either improvement in this sales aur increase in the business's growth. UI and UX design I will help you reach the goal without any complexities. The UI design is responsible for improving the user experience and customer satisfaction, which will further help you prove or increase the number of uses for specific applications.
The users will have lots of choices or alternatives, and they will be able to select from the different offerings you provide them, in the short span of time that you will have to get the attention and you need to be successful and able to meet the requirements in the short span of time.
The user interface design helps you achieve the customers' confidence and helps you make them use the application or the website by providing them with what they are actually looking for. Hence, the number of customers or consumers you are getting to your application or website will measure the organization's success with the great UI and UX.
On holding the experience with user interfaces, I would say that an exemplary user interface is essential to help your users to have a clear picture of what they are offering. It could be either products or services.
Hence, an exemplary user interface is essential. It is responsible for turning the potential visitors into the buyers, flexible and compatible with providing extensible support by establishing interactions between the web application or the website and the users.
The user interface not only focuses on the aesthetics but also is involved in creating and user interface that would maximize the vision efficiency, responsiveness, and accessibility of the website.
Architecture of UI/UX design:
As we know that the interface is one of the starting points where the user will be interacting with their website that they are using. Good user interface design will be able to present you with a blend of different components in the UI UX design. Let me give you a brief description of the key components of UI.
1. Information architecture: Information architecture, most commonly called IA, refers to the concept that involves strategies by designing the application or the site information structure. The most important factor in IA is that it is flexible to provide the users with easy navigation irrespective of the browser that they are using. It includes the usage of the maximum permutations and combinations to provide the best and top-level navigation menu. This component is specifically designed to help the users in finding out the information that they need to complete the different tasks.
2. Usability: Usability here refers to the user-friendliness of the application apart from figuring out if the users are getting the information that they require and first-time visitors getting the required information, the website needs to be easy to navigate, allowing the usability to be improved.
3. Interaction design: Interaction design as a concept of creating the conceptual design which will allow the users to interact with the products or services or the application. The user interaction can be enabled by using different elements like color, font, images, space, graphics, sound, etc. The active design will help in understanding how the users interact with technology. It also utilizes the understanding of the visual design interactions that will help in creating the interface with the behaviors. It also involves inventing new ways through which the system will be able to interact and respond to the users.
4. Visual design: Visual design of the application or the website involves defining the company's brand. Once the visual design is finalized, it could also affect the user behaviour, getting one of the most important UI design components. Visual design is about selecting the different options like colors, fonts, icons, images and the identification of the appearance of the application, which will impact the interaction with the users.
5. Wireframing: Prem refers to the process of creating a sample of the application to help in testing different features along with usability and look of the application before it is brought into production. It is one of the cheapest ways to perform the testing and functionality, also evaluating if the application is meeting the requirements
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Roles and responsibilities of a UI developer:
UI developer is responsible for creating the software design concepts and ideas into real-time applications using the front end Technology. UI developers understand the user interface design solution in two versions, understanding the practical intent and creative vision, allowing them to convert it into the engineer softwares. A UI developer is referred to as a bridge between the backend layer and the presentation layer who will be able to understand and create an easy on the translational layer.
The User experience designer's primary responsibility is to create a Designer software interface prioritizing the business requirements and the uses over the technology. UI developer role required the following skills:
1. Should have a business understanding and level of design understanding in order to achieve the business goals and client requirements.
2. Should happen in-depth knowledge with respect to the user interface development end frameworks like Ajax, javaScript, HTML, angular, CSS, react js, etc.
Let me help you with in-depth details of the UI developer's skills and responsibilities.
1. UI developers have to be flexible and fluent in web development languages like HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.
2. UI developers should be skilled in modern programming languages like java, Ajax, .net, Ruby.
3. Should be able to use the social network APIs also responsible for connecting the usability testing in order to identify resolve the UI issues, gathering the real-world intelligence from the target users.
4. Should be familiar with the popular content management systems and know using the Adobe creative suite programs.
5. UI developers will need to use responsive web design to perform the application creation and collaborate with the IT and business decision-makers to discuss user interface requirements and the transitions that occur.
Salaries of a UI developer:
The average salary earned by the UI developer is $91,000. There are many positions available, and they are listed below, along with the salaries.
User Interface Designer: $85,000
Front-End Web Developer: $90,000
User Experience Designer: 86,000
User Interface Developer: $91,000
Android User Interface Developer: $96,000
Lead User Experience Designer: $99,000
iOS User Interface Developer: $93,000
Lead User Experience Designer: $99,000
Principal User Interface Designer: $101,000
Senior User Interface Developer: $111,000
Stages in UI design:
A good interface is developed with the ultimate goal to launch the product that is user-friendly, engaging, and useful. There are three main stages of the user interface .they are:
1. User research
2. Design and prototyping
3. Evaluation
Let me give you a brief explanation of every stage in the user interface.
1. User research:
The primary goal in this stage is to define the customers of the product and how they will be using it. In this step, you will need to explore the following details.
1. User challenges, needs, and problems.
2. Different User types, level of knowledge and skills, and their experiences.
3. The set of activities that you need to do in the system.
The user research stage is used in all the organization's differences and the products along with the methodologies. Once you are aware of all the required information, you can start the design of the user interface. If the information is inconsistent or incomplete, then a high risk of complexities arising and user interface creation may not be successful.
2. Design and prototyping:
The best way to begin creating user interface designing is to start from simple sketches and low-fidelity wireframes. And then continue with the high fidelity wireframes, prototypes, mockups, etc.
1. Wireframes: A frame is referred to as a sketch of the system you will need to build. A wireframe Will give you a brief idea about what elements are the different features that are required on the pages or the screens of the product that you are developing without the full details. By reference in the wireframe, the screen design will be produced at a later stage.
This concept of the wireframing stage will not require much effort and time, but it can come in handy when communicating with the users, project team, customers, etc.
2. Prototypes: A prototype refers to a semi-functional layout that provides a high fidelity preview of the actual website or the application user interface functionality. The prototypes might not have the full functionality; however, it provides the customers or the end-users with the ability to click on the different elements available in the interface and navigate to the different screens representing the app on how it actually works. In the prototype stage, the elements and features will be demonstrated and discussed. It helps in testing the ideas and perform some changes within the early stages of the project.
Once wireframing and prototyping are completed, the next focus would be on the elements' visual designing.
3. Mockups:After reviewing the wireframes, producing the mockups is one of the right steps or decisions. The mockup model is responsible for demonstrating the colors, graphics, typography, and other page elements. Mockups would generally refer to images. The primary difference between the wireframes and mockups is that the mockups would represent how the actual product would appear while wireframes are about the functionality.
3.Evaluation:
This step would be included in every stage of the design process. The primary purpose of the evaluation is to assess the quality of the design, perform the analysis if it is meeting the user requirements.
After following these steps multiple times, multiple series of wireframes, sketches, mockups, discussions, prototypes, and many, the user interface's probability would be rapidly going high.
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Characteristics of a good UI:
User interface decides how well the application is attracting the user based on its design of the application. For the business or service to be the best, the user interface must be easily understandable, easy navigation, and comfortable feeling when the users are using the application. You need to keep in mind a few characteristics when you are designing the user interface. A good user interface will help you achieve your business goals efficiently when you focus on user requirements. User satisfaction and good user experience are two essential aspects to be considered while working on user interfaces. Let me give you a brief explanation of the characteristics of a good User Interface:
1. Creative but familiar: The navigation becomes more comfortable when the user is aware of the navigation and the different options available on the website or the application. The user will focus on what is familiar to him or her. Hence, it is essential to understand what the user needs, options they would prefer and integrate them into the user interface. The users also look for how creative the application is, also looking for the familiar components.
2. Clear and Simple: The developers have to focus on providing a good understanding to the users about what is happening in the back end, providing them visibility to the system and its functionalities. The primary focus should be on the design which will enable the user to understand and interact with the system. If the website navigation is not simple, the user will feel hard to understand the website and leave the page very soon with a negative user experience. Hence, it is vital to make sure that the application is easy to understand and navigate through.
3. Responsive: A UI developer has to ensure that the demands of the user are met. If the user demands are not met, the user might end up frustrated when trying to perform an action on the application. Hence, the user interface must be designed efficiently, ensuring that it is in pace with the user. Navigation and responsiveness should be fast. The user will not wait for a longer time if the page does not load fast. Hence, the pages have to be responsive.
4.Intuitive and consistent: The information and the controls should be presented in a consistent way, allowing the interface to be easy to navigate and use. It is also not good if the layout is changed frequently, leaving confusion to the users. Sometimes, the functionality changes will also lead to negative experiences if the users are not aware of it. The developers should also focus on the most used features in the application. The features are more prominent in the User interface, allowing the users to know how to repeat the actions when they re-visit.
5. Maintainable: The developer has to design the user interface so that it should have the capacity to undergo the changes that occur without creating any disturbances to the current application. If you would like to add a new feature to the software, and there is no space for the feature to draw the user's attention, this is considered a failure.
Benefits of a User Interface:
The user interface has come up with some set of benefits that would help you in achieving the business goals within a short span of time. Below are the few benefits that you need to go through.
New customer acquisition: A good user interface will help you in gaining a positive user experience, which is one of the most important goals in the business. Customer or consumer satisfaction is essential when you run a business, application, or a website. A good user interface will definitely attract the customers and will improve the sales, allowing new customers to be involved in your business sales. Hence, user interface is one approach, starting point to attract your customers with good revenue opportunities, leading to the growth of your business.
Increased customer engagement and retention: When the user feels easier to navigate through the application, trying to find out the new options, this will make the users feel comfortable, allowing them to continue their digital experience. Hence, the bounce rate will be low, allowing us to gain new customers with a higher conversion rate. A good user interface will also require good customer engagement in this current environment with competition and technology advancements.
Increased productivity: The developers also need to focus on cost savings and resources as this is one of the essential parts of the productivity perception. With easy navigation and user-friendly applications, there will be a high sales volume with positive user experience and satisfaction, along with customer loyalty and minimal costs.
Lower development costs: There should be a well-defined plan that would help us attain minimal risks, avoiding future problems. A user-friendly interface is required, and it would benefit the business, causing few problems and avoid the additional features or costs associated with it. Hence, it is essential to plan and start the project and determine the required costs and performance in order to avoid problems or confusion in the future.
Low customer support costs: There are instances where the users might get confused, have queries and difficulties while trying to navigate through the website. However, if the interface is designed effectively and intuitively, then the need for the customer support or help will be less. Hence, this would benefit the business as the cost required for customer support will be less. Hence, a simple interface with easy navigation will help in reducing the errors and difficulties, and unwanted actions resulting in less customer support requirements
Conclusion:
As we all know that every business requires an application to represent the business to the users, the value for the user interfaces is also high. In this world of technologies and advancements, we see a high demand for websites or applications. Hence, there is a high need for individuals who are good in user interfaces and design. As there will be many applications to be developed, I would recommend you to get trained and certified in the User Interfaces training, which would help you gain expertise and immense knowledge. This would help you crack the interview and grab an amazing offer.
About Author
Kavya works for HKR Trainings institute as a technical writer with diverse experience in many kinds of technology-related content development. She holds a graduate education in the Computer science and Engineering stream. She has cultivated strong technical skills from reading tech blogs and also doing a lot of research related to content. She manages to write great content in many fields like Programming & Frameworks, Enterprise Integration, Web Development, SAP, and Business Process Management (BPM). Connect her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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