“How many designers does it take to change a lightbulb?”
As part of a digital content team, a designer plays a crucial role for the team, but people sometimes get confused about the job title around that world. The word "design" would usually make you think about a graphic designer, but in today’s world, the definition of "design" has changed throughout the technology evolved into something more significant; printed into software and all things digital. This article will help you identify and differentiate the role of Graphic designer, UI designer, and UX designer.
Graphic Designer
Graphic designers pour out their imagination and idea through the print, web, or visual design. The way every graphic designer can visually communicate to customer plays a vital role because it is the first thing that will let your business connect to the customer. A graphic designer will get their idea and directions from marketing or advertisement team of the business/startups. The primary role of the graphic designer is to attach emotions and feeling to the product that can connect to the customer throughout every visual design element that is used.
UI Designer
User Interface (UI) designers concerned more with the look and the feel of the digital product. They make sure that the transference of business branding is attractive, guiding, and responsive experience for users. UI Designer should also make sure and handles the designing of each screen or interfaces where the user interacts and is responsible for communicating the path that UX designers have designed visually. Tools and elements such as buttons, colour scheme, form input fields, animations, typography are the primary things that every UI designer use to help them interact with the customers. Being consistent in every screen or interfaces is the job that every UI designer needs to maintain. Software that are commonly used by UI Designers are:
- Adobe XD,
- Sketch,
- Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop,
- Zeplin, and
- Invision App.
UX Designer
User Experience (UX) designers work involved in the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability, and function. UX designers need to focus on the logic and the structure behind the interface that the digital content will interact with the customers. The process that is used by every UX designer is research and validation. In the research process, UX designer will find and understand the information architecture, and human factor to relate and create a flow for the application. The validation process is needed after the product is launched. At this process, UX designers analyze the usability (strengths and weaknesses) of the product to know if the end product is providing the desired result or not. Software that can help UX Designer are:
- UX Map, Woopra,
- Mouse Stats,
- User Testing, and
- Naview.
There are many other designer jobs niche in this era, due to the needs of many kinds of designer, aside from what has been mentioned. We can take some example:
- A web designer is a person who creates web interfaces and website pages for the internet.
- A visual designer is a person that focuses on the aesthetics of a website or any other digital platform, having to know and decide whether the finished design product is visually appropriate or not is the question that needs to be answered by a visual designer.
- Motion graphic designers are responsible for creating a moving motion from a still image or text.
- Interaction designer in the digital context plays a role that focuses on how humans interact with the product; their objective is to understand the user goals and behaviour.
There are still many types of designers that you can research to meet your company's needs.
Conclusion
Knowing and understanding what kind of designer available out there will help you in hiring the perfect fit for your design needs. Hiring an all-around designer is nice, but remember, having a team that includes specific job description designer will create a harmony in the teamwork. Having the right person for the right job create effectiveness and efficiency to obtain business goals. So, what kind of designer you need to be one part of your team?
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References
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/ux-design
https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ux-design/the-difference-between-ux-and-ui-design-a-laymans-guide/