My Design journey Part #2
Part #2: What I did to become UI | UX Designer
Steps I followed religiously to explore fullest of UI/UX design
- Read about design in General.
- Start with observing things around you, why it is good to use, and if not how it could have been better. It can be anything your deodorant, gas stoves, water tab, clothes, types of bottles, Gates, table or chair, guys it can be anything you want. Just observe why it is like that, and could it be any better.
- Start observing apps, websites you already use and also download similar other options available and try to note down points that are different and common in them.
- Watch YouTube videos of UI/UX designer out there explaining Design.
- Read customer reviews about apps and websites, that really helped me out.
- I attended courses from
- Udemy : https://www.udemy.com/
- YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/
- Material Design : https://material.io/design
- Interaction Design Foundation : https://www.interaction-design.org/
- Design Lab : https://trydesignlab.com/
- Coursera : https://www.coursera.org/
7. Books to read
- Don’t Make Me Think — Steve Krug
- Design of Everyday Things — Don Norman
- Emotional Design: Why we (love or hate) Everyday Things — Don Norman
- 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People — Susan Weinschenk
8. Find Inspiration
UX Design is a creative process. Everyone knows that creativity is often an act of combining things. To do this, you have to be inspired first. These are the most popular sites that will let you browse various high-quality content:
- Dribbble - The most popular designers community. You can love it, you can hate it but you cannot ignore it. Most of the shots (posts with images) have got really got visual quality, but there are also plenty of beautiful things that would not work as the real solution.
- Uplabs - Quite fresh, but a very fast growing community. You can participate in multiple UI design challenges there, they are the perfect occasion to practice.
- Behance - If you seek a complete showcase of various products and solutions, then this is a place for the best inspiration.
- Pttrns - The collection of real app screenshots that has got a good design.
- Medium - Its combination of all.
9. Design Tools
- Figma - It is your one shop for designing, prototyping and collaborating that too for free. It is available for both macOS and Windows.
- Sketch - It is for macOS.
- Balsamiq - It is a tool specifically for wireframing.
- Adobe XD
- Adobe After Effects - It is for animation.
- Photoshop
10. Work on Case studies
- Try to think about the few changes to improve it for users.
- Think of different possible solutions & approaches, note down pros and cons of each.
- Is it feasible to do changes if required? If yes, is there any other way to do it.
- Just keep doing it for few weeks, if possible share it with others. This actually is a very good exercise to be followed as feedback improves overall thinking and approach.
- You may also ask people around you about the changes they want to do. They may surely give their view point as users. Because at the end of the day we are designing for them, so user’s view point is the most important.
11. Feedback
Feedback is crucial part of a design process. It is very good if you make it a habit, it can make your design better. You can join groups where you can post your designs and even conduct surveys to get feedback. Be open as it can be a positive as well as negative.
In my next blog Part #3 : What is Design Process and how to execute
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