Create Your Path as a UI/UX Designer

UI/UX designer is quickly becoming one of the most demanding job titles in the field of technology. Being a UI/UX designer is highly challenging, rewarding, innovative and lucrative.
UI/UX designer requires an impressive mix of technical, creative, and social skills. You need to be as comfortable with Sketch and Adobe as you are when interacting with a live group of users and analyzing their interactions with your prototypes and wireframes.
Guidelines to become a UI/UX designer
Below given are some of the guidelines that you need to become familiar to start your career as a UI/UX designer

1. Update yourself with UI/UX principles
Before practising UI/UX design you need to master the basics of web and visual design. Here are some basic and key design principles you should know about.
Colour
The three-part series on colour theory colour vocabulary, fundamentals and the psychology of colours.
Balance
Be familiar with symmetry and asymmetry principles, what they are and how they can be used in your design process.
Contrast
Learn using contrast to organize information, build hierarchy and create focus.
Topography
Determine how to choose fonts and create readable text on the web.
Consistency
This is one of the most important principles creating intuitive and usable designs.
2. Understand the creative UX design process
Another important aspect of becoming a UX designer is to understand the UX design process. Below given are the different stages of design thinking which a UI/UX designer need to understand

Research and gather ideas
In this design thinking stage, we need to know about the users, their needs and expectations. This can be done through engaging and observing users, understanding the issues involved. The information gathered at this stage can be carried to the next stage.
Define the key problems
Based on the information gathered, you can analyze the problem and can define the problem statement. Then you can progress to the next stage of design thinking.
Ideate to generate solutions
This stage generates potential solutions to the problem statement you have defined. There are different types of techniques that allow you to generate solutions. The main purpose of this stage is to generate as many solutions as possible.
Prototype stage
This stage is mainly about experimentation and turning ideas into tangible products. In this step, each solution will be tested highlighting any constraints and flaws. In the prototype stage, the proposed solutions may be accepted, improved, redesigned or rejected.
Test to validate your product
The Testing stage is all about validating your product before finally developing it. However, the results generated at this stage may often lead you back to the previous stages of the process.
3. Develop your design skills
The most effective way to develop your design skills and creativity is through research. Especially when you’re a beginner you have to look at other designs to start creating your own, as always you may not get ideas on your own. Just knowing the design principles is not enough, you also need to gain knowledge to differentiate a good design and bad design.

So keep reading design news and blogs everyday. Explore new trends, use cases, and something relevant to your project on websites. You can also go through different inspirational articles on Medium or Smashing magazines. You can save it and make a note about it for your future reference. This way, you will have a collection of useful and best designs to start your path as a UI/UX designer.
Below given are some of the useful websites to find design patterns for your reference
- pttrns.com
- onepagelove.com
- ui-patterns.com
- dribbble.com
- webdesignernews.com
4. Work on fake projects
To improve your UI/UX design skills you should start working on fake projects. Working on fake projects is fun, as you get total freedom to play around with different design ideas, layouts, colours, etc.

Pick a website or app you have already used and try to redesign it differently. This way you can practice and improve your design skills These projects will help you to build a great portfolio and help you find a client or a job.
5. Learn the latest UI/UX design tools
A few years ago, there were not many design tools available on the market. Designers do not have much choice and started using Adobe Photoshop as a primary design tool. Nowadays there are tons of efficient UI/UX design tools on the market. The good news is that you do not have to learn all the design tools. Just give it a try to a few of them and then stick to one or two design tools and master them.

Here is a list of latest design tools that you should give it a try:
- Sketch for leading design tool (for Mac users)
- Figma for collaborative interface design
- Invision App for prototyping and collaboration
- Adobe XD for interface design and prototyping
- UXPin for design, prototyping, collaboration (web browser-based app)
- Framer for interactive design and prototyping tool
6. Find a design mentor
There is no better thing than learning many new things from experienced designers. So you must find out a design mentor who is willing to help you and speed up your learning process. Your design mentor will review your work and give feedback which helps you to find the areas you need to improve. They will also provide tips and tricks which they have learned from their experience. So go ahead and email or contact a designer and ask them for guidance. Discuss designing concepts with other people which allows you to get interested in designing more and more. Also, there are many free software learning resources available online.

Being a UI/UX designer is certainly not an easy job as it requires a lot of creativity and you always need to get updated with the latest skills to withstand any kind of challenges. NextbrainStudio is one of the best UI/UX design studios offering unique designs providing an ultimate user experience.
