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What Scopes Do UX/UI Professionals Have in the AI World
Responsive and great web design is critically important to the smooth function of both mobile applications and websites. This is where UX/UI development can make all the difference between a positive and negative user experience. UX or user experience is focused towards the interaction of the audience with the web page or application while UI (user interface) has more to do with visual navigation.
Nowadays, you cannot maintain a successful website without UX/UI design so it is becoming quite essential with the growth of industries such as Artificial Intelligence or AI. There is a rising demand for designers or professionals who have specialized in UX/UI. According to a report published by LinkedIn, UI/UX design is among the top five most in-demand skills among recruiters.
In this article, you will find out about the scopes of this field and how it could be an exciting and secure path for your career.
UX or UI Designer?
Before we discuss UI or UX designers, let’s clarify one of the biggest confusions that you could have regarding these and web designers. Sometimes, the terms UX/UI and web designer may be used interchangeably. If someone is not aware of the technicalities, they might also think that a professional in web design has a similar job to an interface or user experience designer.
While on the surface, it could look like these are all the same but they have some major differences. A UX/UI designer is more of a specialist and has a broader set of skills than a web designer which is why there is more scope for them. Those who are familiar with UX/UI create a customized experience for the user and are deeply involved in each of the processes from data collection to behavior analysis and marketing.
Their skills are focused on presenting a viable solution and creating a website which is responsive, easy to navigate and have all the suitable elements such as sliders, buttons and icons. On the other hand, web designers are concerned with the appearance and conceptualization of the website. So their area of work is focused upon typography, graphic design trends such as minimalism and the color psychology.
Now, these three can all combine and work together to deliver one great product. The reason why UI/UX has a wider scope is that their expertise is quite diverse and they have complex knowledge of various processes which lead to the development of a web page.
Moving on, you may be wondering about which one is better or whether you should go with UI or UX design.
UI or UX design career path?
As mentioned, UI is about the interface and how the consumer interacts with a web page. UX designers are concerned about constantly making improvements to the website to upgrade user experience. So the work of a UI designer is focused upon the visual elements that you see on a page such as the colors, layout, grids and adaptability to screens.
For a UX developer, it goes beyond that and involves prototyping, content strategy and meeting a set of goals. The term was actually created by Don Norman during the 1990s. He gave the example of a movie website to describe the difference between UI and UX.
According to him, the UI of the web page could be ideal for finding movies but if it doesn’t have the relevant information regarding all blockbusters and small indie movies then the experience will be bad for a user looking for their preference.
Should you specialize in one or the other only?
This can be a tricky question. At the end of the day, your career depends on which specialization you choose. Before you make a choice between UI or UX, you should know that you don’t always have to pick any one between them. While they both have great scopes on their own, you can specialize in UI/UX designer.
In UX, you are expected to come up with problem-solving strategies that boost the usability of a website or application. Take the example created by Peter Morville below. He has highlighted the factors that a UX designer needs to be aware of while testing and delivering the final product.
With UI, the designer specializes in creating a highly interactive and aesthetically appealing web page that allows consumers to communicate with it easily. If you combine the two, not only will you be able to expand your skill set but even demand a better pay.
Increased Scope with Both UX/UI
By specializing in both UI/UX, you can benefit from an increase in scope and take advantage of better opportunities in your field. The two divisions are almost interconnected and UX designers usually work very closely with UI ones. In fact, sometimes, their work can also overlap with each other.
The user interface designers create the look and feel of the product based on the data and analysis provided by UX professionals. Those who can do handle all of the procedures together can certainly give themselves an edge in a highly competitive industry.
If you take them individually, the scope of a UX designer might be more than that of a UI. This is because UX requires extensive critical thinking, research and covers project management as well.
Scopes
When you are looking to pursue any career, you want to know their full scope in the world. It can help you make a smart and informed choice and chart the path ahead too. These are some of the scopes that you should consider while assessing the field of UX/UI design.
- Full stack UX/UI Developer
If you choose to take up the profession of a UX/UI designer, you will be considered a top potential hire. Those who specialize in both these designs have a wider skill set and are equipped to handle front-end and back-end development. So that’s the full stack framework of a website. As a full stack UI/UX developer, your scope is quite broad.
You can take up different roles ranging from hosting and network setting to logistics and user experience. For an employee, this is very valuable and they actively look for such individuals who can work on the interface as well as user experience. Full Stack UI/UX developers can both create an appealing website and evaluate technical data to deliver a smooth end-user interaction.
- Design Compliance with Google Ranking Factor
It has been established by Google that user experience is a crucial aspect of their ranking system. The search engine ranks websites on the basis of their usability and user-friendly elements as well. If you pursue UI/UX design, you are likely to keep the factors which increase the visibility of web pages in mind.
These include the page’s loading speed, mobile-responsiveness, image tags, website’s structure, URL and image tags. This design compliance with the ranking factor can help you get a bigger paycheck and become an irreplaceable member of the team.
- Product Design Knowledge and Business/Organization Requirements
In UI/UX, it is crucial to have a basic knowledge of product design. This way it becomes easier to market the final product and create an experience for the user that meets their needs. So when you pursue the path of a UI/UX designer, you become equipped with the elements of high quality product design.
Organizations and businesses require skilled designers who can understand the technical demands and limitations to complete a given project.
- Evolving industry environment such as AI
AI or artificial intelligence is the future of both technology and design. When it comes to the field of UI/UX, Artificial Intelligence has already been making waves. It’s bringing about a big transformation that you can see in the various industries such as automobiles and entertainment.
Certain AI powered generators are being used by UI/UX professionals to design elements of a website and analyze preferences as well.
So as a designer, you can use these to code prototypes and integrate categories into e-commerce websites or blog pages. AI can reduce the minor tasks that UI/UX designers have to deal with and make their work more effective.
- Pay Scope
It has been stated above that the pay grade or scope for UI/UX designers is higher than most. On a global scale, you can make in between €20,000 to €50,000 a year. If you consider Netherlands specifically, the average pay scope is around €52,191.
According to Glassdoor, this is the base salary of a UI/UX designer in Amsterdam and Netherlands area. You can find designers being paid a higher amount in the United States or Norway for instance.
- What hiring managers look for
When hiring UI/UX designers, there are certain skills which hiring managers or recruiters look for. Since they have to use technically advanced programs and work with AI systems as well, they should have working knowledge of programs such as Sketch, Webflow and Axure.
Other than that, these are technical skills that a hiring manager would ask or evaluate:
- Wireframing
- Prototyping
- Visual Interaction and Communication
- Content Strategizing
- Basic Coding Like Java or CSS
- Information Architecture
If a recruiter gets an idea that you have a range of different skills and can integrate various components for delivery, then your chances of getting hired can increase.
Conclusion
In this day and age, UX/UI is a great career choice and should be considered by individuals looking to make it big in technology. As AI continues to evolve and change the world, UX/UI scopes could increase even further. UX/UI design would become more crucial to improving the user experience within artificial intelligence, so you should focus on those generators and elements.
The future is quite bright for UX/UI professionals and there are new opportunities opening up every day with the progress of mobile and web design.
Author Bio
Tarif Kahn is Head of Design at Logo Design who loves sharing his diversified pool of knowledge in graphic design, web design and development, and print design. He enjoys experimenting with new technologies and has a knack for photography. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.