User Interface (UI) design is one of those things we encounter daily, and many do not seem to appreciate the difference they make, the ease they create, or the uniqueness of the UI designer.

However, as a UI designer, you adopt User Experience (UX) principles to create astounding UI designs, bequeathing it every ounce of knowledge of color and typography you have.

When you are ladened with the responsibility of creating attention-grabbing application interfaces that convert, are responsive, and alluring, then you have to stay witty and at your A-game. 

How to Be a Better UI Designer

1. Be Emphatic

Put yourself in the users’ shoes. It takes a good UI designer to create a UI design, but it takes a better UI designer to create a UI design based on user empathy. So, put more clearly: a better UI designer considers the users’ feelings and, overall, the expected effect of the design on the user during interaction. Additionally, develop your knowledge of User Experience (UX) and stay on top.

2. Have an Apt Sense for Good Design

Similarly, you must have a well-developed sense of good designs as a UI designer. Learn to appreciate good designs as much as you create them. 

3. Adopt a Strategy

Yes, adopt a strategy. While having an idea is a prerequisite, a working plan or strategy is the real deal. So, now that you have a great design idea, you have to decide how you want to achieve it. What comes first in your plan? What follows? What goes where?  Have a plan and keep it tight.

4. Understand your Tools

A UI designer, like every other creative, has tools for achieving and bringing to form the art that lines within. Besides, know and understand your platforms. Additionally, when you comprehend them, you treat them as extensions of yourself, you bend them toward achieving your goals. 

5. Be Consistent

Study your designs closely and carefully, identify patterns and mannerisms peculiar to you and embrace them for consistency. Consistency puts you forward as a professional UI designer that you are.  

Equally, you can take it up a notch to identify the reasons for the repeating patterns in your designs. You could be known for them, so you should know why they exist.

6. Know the Art-of-Steal

It’s probably not what you think it is. As you may have figured, all new ideas are reflections of already existing ideas. So, it’s okay to copy, but do it like a professional. While you are copying ideas, don’t go about stealing other peoples’ products-of-sleepless-nights; that would be so wrong. However, let your creativity run wild, own it, and infuse originality. Be an original UI designer.

7. Be a Learner

Learning never ceases. Every great UI designer is a life-long learner. To be a better UI designer, you, too, must understand the need to keep learning new things. Read books on UI, find resources by other UI designers, and appreciate their designs. Don’t ever stop learning.

8. Share your Genius

Don’t be scared to share your designs. No one would ever see or acknowledge them if you don’t share them. Equally, to keep sharing consistently, you can create a daily or weekly design challenge. So, share your genius.

9. Talk to Developers

You may have some developer friends. If you don’t have any friends who are developers, you can make a few. Talk to them about your projects or ideas for design and get inputs. While some projects require out-of-the-box designs, some others require regular or generic designs. So consult them. I bet it would be free so, no worries.

10. Do Prototyping

UI designs don’t suggest Static; a better UI designer understands prototyping. So, it is important to add some motion to your designs. 

Introducing motion to your design to show how the elements would respond when users interact with them is a very important part of UX. Also, it gives the developers ideas on how best to achieve it. To do this, you might consider tools like Origami Studio, Marvel, and so on.

11. Build Connections

There are communities of UI/UX designers in your locality, find them. Meet other creatives and grow your network. You could have the opportunity to work with teams and learn new stuff.  

Most importantly, communities regularly have meetup and ideation sessions to share ideas on recent methods, processes, and tools.

12. Embrace Feedbacks

As you share your work and put yourself out there as a UI designer, there’d be a lot of constructive criticism and feedback. So, stay agile by embracing and responding to feedback. Also, there would be negative and destructive criticism, however, learn to separate the signal from the noise.

Wrapping Up

Now, you have the tips you need to upgrade yourself, do not forget the commonly neglected tip, which I have decided to put in this part of the article (I’m not sure why, but it’s good you got this far). That tip is Regular Practice.

Conclusively, practice a lot and have fun doing it. Until next time, keep doing it right.