3 New Skills Designers Need To Land Better-Paying Jobs
In a previous article, we looked at the best app builders in the market. Today, we talk about what complementary skills designers need to get the best out of the no-code revolution.
Scott Galloway, co-host of New York Magazine’s business podcast Pivot, recently declared: “When you’re in a VC pitch meeting, the VCs all say: “who’s your tech guy or gal?” I think pretty soon they’re gonna say: “who’s the UI guy or gal?”
That’s a simple and brilliant way to describe the current “code to design” priority shift that we’re seeing in tech.
Releasing apps isn’t extraordinary anymore. No business stands out just because they have a website. We’re now beyond the digital transformation of business, which means it’s time to step up our game with better interfaces.
What’s particularly interesting for UI/UX designers is that this new era coincides with the emergence of no-code tools. Simply put, code-writing can now be fully automated, and you don’t need traditional developers to build sophisticated apps and websites. Just designers.
Why it’s worth becoming an app maker
This is a unique opportunity for designers to take control of the digital creation process. Instead of handing off their work to developers mid-project, creatives can now publish their work directly to the web or app stores. No code-writing involved.
If you’re a design freelancer or an agency owner, getting rid of custom code can help you increase your margins by more than 40%. Clients will pay you more for a fully-functioning app or website than they will mockups, and you won’t have to spend time and money getting your app custom coded.
If you’re an in-house designer, this is an opportunity to take on more responsibilities and get more recognition for your work. Both can lead to career advancement and higher salaries.
In other words, becoming an app builder allows you to be more valued and get better paid for the work that you’re already doing.
What You Need To Learn To Become An App Maker
Indeed, you don’t need to work more to build apps with no-code tools. But you do need to approach the work differently with a few new skills.
1. Responsive Design and Relative Positioning
As a UI/UX designer, you probably already spend a lot of time working on responsiveness. But chances are most of your energy is spent creating multiple designs for multiple screens.
You probably work with absolute-positioning mockup tools where you can “draw” mockups in a specific format. Then you hand it off to a team of developers, who are in charge of recreating the design and having it adapt to the screen size.
When you build apps and websites with responsive no-code builders (warning: not all of them are actually responsive), you approach things differently. You only design things once, but you decide from the get-go how you want your content to flow depending on the space available.
It’s called relative positioning, where elements on the page each have a relation to the others. You can also apply row & column layout rules and assign minimum and/or maximum sizes to elements, so that your page content will automatically adapt to different screen sizes.
Relative positioning requires a different mindset, but it’s way less time-consuming than re-designing the same page again and again for dozens of screen sizes. And less painful than seeing your design break on mobile. With enough attention, you can make a single interface work for any screen size in the world, from a watch to a jumbotron. Talk about design value!
Where to learn about responsive design and relative positioning
- The Lowdown on Absolute vs. Relative Positioning — The Design Shack
- How to Design Apps & Websites Using Relative Positioning — YouTube
2. Databases
The second aspect of “bringing your design to life” is through databases.
Let’s say you’re in charge of creating a community app for a new start-up. Traditionally, as a designer, you would create mockups for each different page of the website: home page, forum page, profile page, etc.
But when you’re in charge of actually building the app, you need to think about the way the information populating the app is going to be collected, stored, and displayed. In this case, you would want users to post content and interact with other users. It means you need to collect data and display it dynamically.
What you need is a database — or in simpler, visual terms, a set of spreadsheets — that connects to your app. To support your forum pages, you would typically create a table with a column for the posts’ titles, content, author’s name, date of publication, and URL.
Then you would add input fields to your interface so that users can post content that will get automatically saved to your database.
Finally, you would add dynamic content blocks to your page, which grab and display content from the database. You can typically have filters to only display the most recent or popular content.
Where to learn about databases and dynamic data
A Guide to Dynamic Content Applications — Toptal
How to Design Your First Database — YouTube
3. Testing
Last but not least, everybody’s favourite topic: QA 😅
This one is straightforward but crucial. Before handing your client/boss the key to their new app, you need to make sure it works properly. Using no-code builders will considerably reduce the number of bugs, but testing is still very much a mandatory step. Are all links working correctly? Are pages loading fast enough on mobile? Is Safari messing up the formatting for some reason?
I strongly recommend writing down your own process or checklist to make sure no stones are left unturned.
Where to learn about QA
The Ultimate Launch Checklist For Apps & Websites — Designware
Mobile Responsive Testing in Chrome — YouTube
It’s a new world for designers
The role of designers in the digital industry is bound to grow significantly.
And it’s exciting news for everyone, starting with end-users: when creatives get more control, you end up with interfaces that feel more interesting, more diverse, and simply more fun. And it’s great for businesses too, since more creativity often leads to differentiation and innovation.
I think that’s what Scott Galloway and many other tech leaders are realizing now. So, designers, I hope you’re ready to shine. 🌟
