Responsibilities

• to design user interfaces of products with emphasis on user experience
• to enhance user interfaces with creative visual design and illustrations
• to implement the design thru front-end development
• to abide by the design process accordingly
• to value research and testing as part of the design process
• to be creative, experimental, innovative in approaching design as a solution
• to share our knowledge with other teams

Specializations

1. Webtool design (webtools)
2. App design (web and mobile apps)
3. Illustration (characters, icons, typography)
4. Communication design (branding, social media, websites)
5. Front-end design (HTML, CSS, JS)
6. Information design (data visualization, presentations)
7. Usability (usability of products, testings, user research)

Team Levels

• Intern/Probie/Associate – focuses on design process
• Supervisor – focuses on project management, design process
• Manager – focuses on systems, processes, standards, guidelines, skills-management

Team Roles

• Visual Designer – leads the creative direction and hi-fi production
• UI Designer – leads information architecture and interaction design
• Front-end Designer – leads the production of mock-ups into prototypes
• UX Researcher – leads UI reviews, usability testings
• Data Analyst – leads the processing of data as catalyst for product improvement

3 main focus of the team

User interface design

User interface design is

User interface design or user interface engineering is the design of computers, appliances, machines, mobile communication devices, software applications, and websites with the focus on the user’s experience and interaction. The goal of user interface design is to make the user’s interaction as simple and efficient as possible, in terms of accomplishing user goals—what is often called user-centered design.

Source: User interface design on Wikipedia

• the design of a product should help users in achieving their goals in the easiest way possible
• it should cater to experimentation/innovation in UI design
• it should cater to creativity in visual design

Visual design

The process of using words, symbols, images to communicate a message to an intended audience.

In the context of product developent, visual design enhances the user interface of a product using imagery, typography, colors in the purpose of making the product visually appealing and more usable to a targeted user.

• consistency with the brand using the style guide
• adherence to the creative brief and communications brief
• creativity in the context of the designed user interface (function over form)

Front-end design

Front-end development is the first level implementation of the design into code.

As designers of websites and applications, the technology behind the front-end development of such designed products must be ingrained because it sets the boundaries and possibilities of what we could actually design.

• portability – the usability of the design across platforms
• optimization – the employment of best practices in front-end development to produce a lean code without the unnecessary clutter
• scalability – the capability of the design to adapt to changes–towards a smaller or a bigger scale
• accessibility – the independence of content from its container; content must be usable to different users

User experience design (auxilliary)

User experience design in general is

The creation and synchronization of the elements that affect users’s experience with a particular company, with the intent of influencing their perceptions and behavior.

Source: A Project Guide to UX Design, Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler, p. 3

• user experience focusing on the brand’s digital assets
• integrate usability testing in the process
• user research, interviews, personas

Key aspects of the team

1. innovation
2. creativity
3. experimentation
4. balance of users’ and business goals
5. open sharing and development of knowledge

Strategy

Current Focus

Where are we now?

1. User interface design: the technical aspect – information, navigation, interaction
2. Visual design: the creative aspect – branding, style, “look and feel”
3. Front-end design: the first-level implementation aspect – interactivity, prototypes

Future Focus

Where are we going?

1. User experience: the other half of marketing strategy in a product development context – usability testing, user research
2. Front-end development: the broader aspect of front-end design – includes JS, CMS, repositories

Path

How do we get to the future focus?

1. We start by including research and testing in our process
2. We share our knowledge with others thru workshops and articles/blogs
3. Each one begins practicing front-end design