With COVID-19 accelerating the digitalisation of everyday activities like shopping, food delivery and entertainment, businesses have to make their websites and / or mobile apps more appealing for consumers. To enhance consumers’ experience on these platforms, businesses have to employ the expertise of UX and UI Designers to build a great user-centric digital experience that keeps customers coming back for more.
This has meant that many businesses are now hiring UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) Designers, making these tech employees among the most sought-after professionals alongside their more established programming counterparts.
What Do UX And UI Designers Do?
UI and UX respectively stands for user interface and user experience. User interface refers to the point at which human-machine interaction or communication occurs. On a digital interface, this might be your phone’s home screen or application icons. In contrast, user experience refers to the experiential or affective aspects of the same interaction. This might concern the utility and ease of use of the phone itself and can even extend to product ownership.
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As UI and UX govern different areas of design, the strengths of UI and UX designers and the nature of their work differs, even though they are closely intertwined. Businesses that recognise these differences understand which designer is better positioned to help them further their goals.
| UI Designers | UX Designers |
| Govern the point at which human-machine interaction or communication occurs | Concern the experience and emotions resulting from the human-machine interaction or communication |
| Focus on aesthetics and interactivity | Focus on structure and functionality |
| Helps businesses to construct and reinforce brand identity | Helps businesses increase user engagement and conversion |
| Improve user experience with intuitive and responsive interfaces that are visually appealing | Improve user experience by helping users navigate information and perform desired actions efficiently |
| Creative approach to design | Analytical approach to design |
Why UX And UI Designers Are Coveted Right Now
Good UX design can increase the company’s revenue by 100x to 1,000x. A very interesting experiment related to the ROI of UX was conducted by the Geoff Teehan, Director of Product Design at Facebook in 2006. They called it the “UX Fund.” The $50,000 fund invested in companies that focused on delivering great user experiences. The hypothesis was that the ROI of UX should be reflected in their stock price over time.
Over a ten year period, from 2006 to 2016—including a major financial crisis in the middle of it—the “UX Fund” returned 450% VS the Nasdaq’s 93.2% return (that’s 45% annual return over ten years which beats any other asset class).
Good UX and UI Designers can make a massive difference in any business that is going digital today, and will continue to be builders and movers in the tech world.
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3 Ways UX And UI Designers Can Improve Your Company’s Digital Solution
#1 The Onboarding Of New Customers Will Be Digital
It is no surprise that digitisation is necessary for businesses to succeed. More importantly, how businesses bring in new customers will determine their success in the markets.
User onboarding, which is a designed series of introductions and / or instructions that help the user ease into the product’s experience, is necessary in order to make users feel more at home with the product or service. In order to differentiate themselves from their competitors, businesses need to invent or re-invent new ways of letting customers engage with their brands in order to retain their interest within the first few seconds of experiencing their product or service.
Take StashAway for example, the user onboarding process is clean and simple; simply create an account and indicate which source of funds you intend to invest with. It should not take more than a few steps but should contain as much relevant information as possible in order to capture the user’s interest.
#2 Digital Branding Makes A Bigger Difference
With the digitisation of just about everything, gone are the days that namecards, posters, magazine ads and billboards make a brand. Advertising and branding has gone digital, and businesses have to compete for consumers’ attention in order to get them to convert and buy products and services.
With this trend comes the necessity for UX Designers to create differentiated core functions and UI Designers to help unify businesses’ digital brand assets and accentuate brand personalities in order to make a deeper impression on customers.
Brands such as Shopee recognise this and successfully unify brand assets in a harmonious and cohesive manner in order to improve brand recognition across multiple digital channels.
#3 Personalisation Of Commerce
Consumers are also becoming more savvy with choosing where they want to shop, and the demand for a personalised experience with online retail is also increasing. This means that businesses have to build their digital channels not only to serve customers’ basic needs, but also tailor recommendations to each customer’s preferences.
What good UX and UI Designers are able to do is to combine personalised features with the interactions from the user in order to create a highly intimate and customised experience.
The popularity of the Charles and Keith brand in Singapore is partly due to its clean and chic branding. On its website, it not only has product categories and listings for customers to view its products online, the brand also features a set of curated look books for customers to search for recommended products that are segmented according to preferences.
Cost Of Hiring UX And UI Designers
| Average Salary (SGD) | UX Designer | UI Designer |
| Entry Level (< 1 yr exp) | $37,000 | $42,000 |
| Mid-Level (1-4 yrs exp) | $51,000 | $52,000 |
| Senior Level (5-9 yrs exp) | $62,000 | $54,000 |
Source: Payscale
According to UX Designer Salaries, a live database of UX Designer salaries globally, the global average annual salary of a UX Designer is US$52,683 (as of Jan 2021). This database has a sample size of about 3750 submission.
In Singapore, the average salary of a UX Designer is US$51,684 (about $68,000 or $5,600 a month). Interestingly, the highest average being US$100,890 in Switzerland.
While the sample size may be limited, this average also coincides with other job portals like Glassdoor and Indeed that post similar salaries for both roles.
Qualifications Of UX And UI Designers
It is a common misconception that technology-related qualifications — or at least a background in tech — are prerequisites for a good UX / UI Designer. Their backgrounds can be varied, from graphic design, computer science, psychology, industrial design or even business. When it comes to interaction design (UX and UI), having a diverse experience and background can help bring different skillsets to the table.
Probably the single-most common background for UX is some kind of visual design, whether it is graphics or web design. This makes sense because many of the deliverables for UX is UI, and UI is visual design.
Designers who are well acquainted with prototyping software like Sketch have a keen eye for style, can quickly visualise ideas and are used to working in an iterative process. Those who come from a product-based environment can be highly specialised but siloed in their field of UX. Whereas, those who come from an agency background are used to dealing with clients from different backgrounds, juggling various projects and are more likely to be all-rounders; able to communicate and design well but may not be as specialised.
For firms that are looking for UX / UI Designers, the portfolio is often more important than paper qualifications. The more relevant experience a designer has, the more added value he / she can bring to the table. Other auxiliary skillsets like project management, digital marketing, programming and technical writing can also allow the designer to take on leadership roles in teams and direct software development more effectively.
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