If you love creative and artistic freedom, UI/UX design is not the career for you.
Negative space, consistency, minimalism, card-based layouts, and let’s not forget about the hamburger menu, are just a few of the many features, trends and best practices that have become the unspoken rule and a form of standard in the world of user experience design.
These unspoken rules in UI/UX design are guidelines that are not explicitly documented but are widely accepted and followed by designers to create effective and user-friendly interfaces.
Take for instance, minimalism. Minimalism is now the standard for creating a modern interface that is clutter-free, easy to navigate and visually appealing because its clean look is believed to reduce the cognitive load on users.
When it comes to visual elements like icons, generic elements are always used. For example, a house icon is used to represent the home page, a magnifying glass icon signifies the search function, a cogwheel represents settings and a trashcan? The delete action.
These elements have become the standard for representing various actions and cues that users can take when using an interface, because users tend to look out for patterns and familiar elements that can help them navigate a novel interface. Since these generic icons are used across different platforms, they are easily recognisible by a wide range of users.
These patterns and unspoken rules exists to appeal to the user’s need for an intuitive experience that lowers their learning curve; in other words, users look forward to interfaces that does not require an excessive amount of effort to understand.
This is where UI/UX design is spectacularly different from other artistic form of design, like graphic design.
A UI/UX designers' goal is to design interfaces and tailor experiences that are functional, user-friendly and fulfils the need of the user and the buisness, which is why several platform guidelines, best practices and accessibility standards need to be put in place and adhered to, in order to fulfil the user/buisness requirements and optimize the usability and accessibility of a design.
Artistic design, on the other hand, prioritizes aesthetic freedom, individuality, authenticity and may not often adhere to the same functional or user- centered constraints that UX design does.
Artistic design implores experimenting with unconventional, subjective and alternative ideas, which could make the standards that seem to be set in stone in UX design, feel like a restriction to the flow of the creative juice of these type of designers.
In UI/UX design, there’s the need to embrace adaptability, empathy and open-mindedness.
To a good extent, UI/UX designers' need to let go of their personal preference and indulge in conformity and relatability because UI/UX design is not a form of self-expression.
After all, User experience design is so called because it is all about the user. The user must be placed front and center in all stages of the design process from the ‘empathize' to the ‘test’ phase. Even after launch, it’s important to keep iterating on the design, receiving feedback from users, updating features and improving the overall user experience.
Designing a user centered interface is making sure they fulfil, if not all, most of the user’s needs and none of your own. Being on the look out for how your own biases are being incorporated into your designers is a huge requirement for UI/UX designers.
Is your choice of font/typeface a personal preference or does it deliver the brand’s message and meet the guidelines for legibility and accessibility for the user’s?
In User experience design, there is hardly anything as a personal discovery. Confirming is the way to go. What is in place is definitely what works. This is why there are design systems for UI/UX designers to work with. No UI designer is out there designing a different element for what the homepage icon should represent. Novelty in UI/UX design is to further foster functionality and not because the designer hates conventionality and is seeking a way to stand out.
UI/UX design is a selfless art. UI designers do not treat their portfolio like a museum. Their designs are not some form of abstract art which reflects their personality and peculiar experiences and thought patterns.
Being a UI/UX designer is understanding that users are not supposed to search deep into their souls to understand what actions they are supposed to take when experiencing your designs. Users are not meant to uncover the complexity of the designs.
Our job as UX designers is to understand the behaviour and expectations users have when they experience a product/interface, and design accordingly.
The concept of guidelines, user centered designs and patterns in UI/UX design , may in some ways limit the freedom and creativity that other types of designers may enjoy.
Asides the standards and guidelines, UI/UX designers collaborate frequently with cross-functional teams especially when they work in large organizations. At the end of collaborating with other designers, developersand product managers, each with their own idea of how best the design can meet the needs of the users, your designs/ideas are barely yours. You only become a contributor to the design process, rather than the designer.
Sometimes, your ideas for a design might not even make it past the ideation phase.
In summary, if you are someone who likes to have a good amount of creative and artistic freedom, work independently, enjoy a vast level of exploration and even challenge design norms, then UI/UX design might not be the career for you.
