UI Design is often (especially nowadays) considered a speciality. After all design, user experience, concepts & input are all a certain kind of knowledge that comes under the initial stages of developing an app. But although a developers job is to code the app given to us…is it all we do?
I see people asking whether they should learn UI Design…is it important? Well the simple answer is yes, you should learn UI Design. There are actually quite a few reasons to add UI/Ux to your skillset.
But why should you learn UI Design whilst being an iOS Developer?
Well first off the most simple scenario for any iOS developer is a new job at a small start up company. You are maybe, if you are lucky 1 of 5 developers of the entire team. The budget is tight…there is no UI/UX department. Quite simply the design of the app falls under “tech” so one of you five developers better know how to design an app well. After all your job depends on your app doing well.
Another scenario…you have a genius idea for an app. You are either going solo or maybe teaming up with a fellow developer but you don’t exactly have a budget. If you want your app to do well, you better know how to design it in the first place.
UI Design is not something to be taken lightly. I have personally taken many steps to learn design & a lot of my general design knowledge comes from my animation & graphic artist background. But design truly is extremely important. In a certified UI/UX Course I took a while back, the importance of design was explained to me & this specific story has never left me.
A bad design can be deadly.
A simple map app…one deadly flaw. A mother (if I remember the true story correctly, albeit condensed down for this post) wanted to visit her son in another country. She used this map app to look up the address. Like many countries, the same named road was used in different areas. Just like New York. The app failed to warn the user that the area they were showing her was known gang land flagged by the government. This failure to alert the user, ultimately ended in her death as she was in the wrong part of town & not anywhere near her son.
You see design truly matters not just for the user to enjoy your app & have a non-frustrating, pleasant experience that makes them want to come back time & time again. But to keep users safe. Users can be daft, they don’t always understand our intentions & this is why in larger companies, a UI/UX team is so important. But that team may not always be at your disposal as a developer. So it is your responsibility to have at least some basic knowledge of good UI.
Some good resources for learning UI are:
Google’s Certified UX Design course on Coursea
Code with Chris – CWC+ has some great design modules as well as iOS Dev modules.
Books I recommend on Amazon & Kindle (some may be affiliate links)
