Decided to become an interface designer, climbed to read public pages and found out that this is a stupid idea? We decided to deal with the misconceptions that non-professionals breed.
Myth: Interface design is boring and repetitive work for introverts.
The working day in the IT industry is rather vague: you work under a team. If it is convenient for the team to arrive at 11-12 – this is quite ok Usually from 12 to 17 you must be in the office, because there can be meetings. The rest is all on your conscience. Plus, you work for tasks. And if you made them quickly, you don’t have to sit in the office.
Interface design is a team effort. You need to communicate with the manager, and with developers, and with analysts, and with stakeholders, and with top managers. Or you will not control the result.
I try to get to work no later than 10 am. The working day depends on my working week, because we work in sprints – every Friday we plan tasks for the week. My every day begins with breakfast in the company: this is how you can meet with colleagues and communicate outside of work. A product designer has an average of 3-4 appointments per week.
The work process looks like this: the designer quickly drew something, went to discuss it with the manager and the developer, finalized it. Then he drew again, showed and modified it.
It is a misconception that the designer himself gets to the end. That you can come in the morning, sit down to work and in four hours give the ideal option. The actual rendering of the interface takes 70% of the time, and the rest is discussions and meetings.
We also do a bunch of UX research in which designers are also involved. We are trying to understand what is generally going on in the market. If we are doing something new, we need to understand where to go. If this is an existing product – what do people want in general, what can we offer for these requests.
For example, we are now asking people how they use our mail in a travel situation. Because we know that many people keep their tickets for the post office. And what do they do next with them: save, print, then return to them when they go to the check-in counter?
When we receive the information, we will start a rough drawing, not even in a graphics editor, but, for example, on a blackboard. Because first we need to clearly understand how and what we will do, estimate the insights that came with this study. And then we go in small steps: draw, show, finalize.
Myth: A designer doesn’t have to be creative and have good visual taste.
Previously, an interface designer had to know the basics of usability and understand how technology works. Now it is also necessary to understand how the product develops, how the market develops, how the needs of people and culture as a whole develop. The designer must be able to offer more than just technical expertise to their product.
We have already reached our consumption ceiling. If you look at the latest trends, people do not install more applications and consume more products, but, on the contrary, want to get rid of unnecessary things.
Now we choose products not only for functions, but also for emotional interaction – do we associate ourselves with them, can we express ourselves through them?
Have you noticed that when you choose something in the store, you look at it and think: “it looks like it is functional, and it costs ok, but it looks just disgusting”. Very often, in order to make a choice, we need additional value, which can also be created by design. There are many good performers now, but the market has long awaited creative and creative creators.
A good designer should be able to be sensitive to the world and be open to new things, because his perception and experience leave a very strong imprint on the product he creates.
It’s hard to create value without understanding the visual culture and wanting to make it better. Therefore, good taste and observation are very important.
If a person has excellent usability, but his taste is poorly developed, he will create ordinary things, like hundreds of his colleagues – this will not give him an advantage. Such a specialist can easily be replaced by frameworks and design kits.
A good designer should not only cover existing needs, but also create attractive images of the future. The designer’s mission is to show how cool the world can be. Even if the audience of his product doesn’t know about it yet. Therefore, drawing “pretty pictures” is also important. It just needs to be done meaningfully.