UX Design: What is it?
Do you often hear the terms UI and UX, but don’t understand what they are? As our world becomes more and more tech-centered, UI/UX is getting increasingly relevant. It is easy to get overwhelmed with all these different terms if you’re new to the design world. You might not know what steps to take first as you start your design journey and may also be wondering what skills a UX designer needs. In this blog, we will help you understand and guide you through the world of UX. 🪄
What is UX design?
User experience (UX) design is the process of designing products and services that are user-friendly, easy to use, and meaningful to the users. It refers to design elements that shape the user’s experience with a website or an application. UX shapes the products we use on a daily basis and aims to provide pleasurable experiences to users when interacting with them.
In the design process, user experience, or UX design, comes first. UX designers create the architecture of a website. Their job is to ensure that the user can easily find what they're looking for by laying the basis for UI designers to build on. Product research and the creation of user personas are important aspects of a UX designer's daily tasks. To fully understand their customers, they produce wireframes and prototypes that are tested.
What do UX designers do?
UX designers come from many different backgrounds, such as psychology, visual design, and programming, since UX design is a multidisciplinary field. The typical tasks of UX designers usually include user research, prototyping, designing wireframes, and design testing. They seek to make it easy for the user to seamlessly interact with the elements on the page and ensure that the process is simple and intuitive. They use design thinking to meet the user’s desires.
In terms of skills, UX designers must not only have the technical skills and knowledge of how websites and applications work, but they must also have empathy and understand how people think to give them the best platform experience possible.
Hard Skills for UX Designers 👩💻
UX researching
Prototyping
Wireframing
Design Thinking
Visual communication
Soft Skills for UX Designers 🤝
Empathy
Communication
Curiosity
Collaboration
Adaptiveness
On a daily basis, UX designers will spend a significant amount of time working and ideating with other designers and stakeholders. They need to have an open mind and be able to accept constructive criticism and be innovative, not scared to express a fresh concept, even if it appears unachievable.
How do you get into UX Design?
The best thing to do if you don’t have any experience is to learn as much as possible. Understanding fundamental design rules and principles can assist you in developing an eye for design and understanding what makes an app or website pleasurable to use. You can begin by reading design books, listening to podcasts, enrolling in a UX design BootCamp, or viewing design videos on YouTube.
When you’re ready, you can apply for entry-level UX designer jobs. Check out our Junior UI/UX Designers Job Board (0-2 years of experience). We post fresh junior UX jobs every week for you to check out! Our job board currently has 200+ beginner-friendly jobs and internships posted. We also like to highlight companies led by women, minorities, and BIPOC because of our mission and values.
Subscribe to our junior jobs newsletter for regular updates on the hottest jobs in the market.
How much do UX designers make?
UX designers increase in demand, as user experience is becoming more and more important in every industry. The average annual salary for a UX designer is approximately $91,000. UX designer salary varies depending on your experience, location, education, and title.
Here is the list of the top 10 highest paid cities for UX and UI Designers in 2022 — UX designer salary by city:
Take the first step in starting your UX career!
Once you’ve learned the skills you need to be a good designer, it’s time to start your career! Sign up for our 4-month MBA cohort and become a skilled UX designer in just three months. Our courses are hands-on and tailored, putting you on the path to success. We meet one on one with students each week to work through any problems they’re facing. Unlike other programs, we let students pick their own project topics that they can turn into a side hustle to demonstrate valuable senior leadership skills.
This video covers everything you need to know about the Ideate Labs Live UX UI course. We even include a promo code during the presentation to help you get $100 off the course registration. Check it out now!