I don’t think there’s a single designer out there that thinks he or she can’t get any better. Design and designers are constantly changing, growing and evolving. Some of it is technology, some of it is trendy; but all change starts with you.

If you want to be a better designer, you have to do something about it. Whether that’s learning something new, trying a different type of project, or thinking about feedback and criticism. Let’s start getting better, today!

1. Learn a New Technique or Skill

Growing as a designer starts with continued education. Whether formal or on your own, there are plenty of ways to learn a new skill or freshen up on a technique that you’ve been wanting to master.

Here are a few ways to get started:

• Take a class as a local college or online.

• Ask a colleague to show you how to do something he or she does well.

• Attend a professional training event or conference.

• Use online videos, or tutorials.

2. Take on a Fun or Personal Project

Sometimes the daily grid of work does not allow you to grow in the ways you want. (Maybe you’ve been wanting to test your hand in a minimalist style, but that’s not something your boss is interested in.) So take that concept on as a personal project.

Refresh or update your portfolio using a new style or technique or offer to help a friend with a small project. Some of these smaller, side projects are a great way to test out some of the ideas and techniques you want to experiment with in a more informal environment.

3. Read, Write or Pursue Other Creative Endeavours

To help keep your creative juices flowing, take part in other creative activities. Most designers agree that creativity comes fairly naturally. It is important to foster that part of your brain outside of work as well.

• Read a book

• Take photos

• Visit a museum

• Write or draw in a journal

• Listen to or make music

• Get out in nature

4. Collaborate

When you are working with other designers or any other coworkers, try to collaborate as much as possible. Sometimes we get too stuck doing our individual parts at our own desks and forget to see what else is happening around us.

Engage more in every aspect of a project. Learn what others are doing to contribute to the project and how to do it. You’ll get a better overall understanding of the complete process, respect the jobs of your teammates and maybe learn more about the process yourself. As many of us were told in school: There are no stupid questions.

5. Get Organised

This may sound overly simple: Get organised.

Organisation will help you feel relaxed and comfortable in your workspace and will help you work more smoothly and efficiently. It will give you extra time to think about projects, work on details and focus on the job (not where files are located).

If your desk or computer is already chaotic, this might seem a little daunting. But you can get organised in as little as a week by creating three sets of files (paper or digital) – current, finished (or to file) and throw out work bi-product. Create a system for keeps files in these folders (grouped by project) for easy access.

6. Set Goals that Will Challenge You

If you are not in the habit of setting design goals for yourself, start now. It often happens naturally in the annual review process where you work, but if not it is important to do it on our own.

Goals should be something achievable but challenging. Set deadlines for these goals and even a reward for yourself when the goal is met.

7. Create a ‘Cover’ of an Iconic Design

Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know, right? That’s where this fun trick comes in. Create a “cover” design of something iconic. Try to replicate – adding your own design flair, of course, something that people know well.

Before you poo - poo the idea, here’s how it helps:

• It will make you design elements that you might not commonly use.

• It will help sharpen your skills for identifying and matching typefaces and colour.

• It will help you think about and recreate pieces of art.

• It will help you explore what works about the design you are covering and what does not.

• It will help you see trends and techniques that applied to certain periods and how they have changed over time and impacted the work you do today.

One little side note here: This is a design exercise for you to expand your creative thought. Don’t recreate a design for a project or plagiarise another designer’s work.

8. Focus on the Story

The best designs come from projects where the team really understands the story behind the final product. When you are thinking about the design, immerse yourself in the story of the brand or message of the project. Learn as much as you can about it before you even start to sketch out an outline.

And then tell that story with the design. (Every project has one; you just have to find it.)

9. Seek Feedback and Constructive Criticism

Ask for help and feedback regularly. In some environments this comes rather naturally. If you work as a freelancer or in a small office, it may not.

Constructive criticism and feedback should come from multiple sources:

• Employer or supervisor (if you have one)

• Clients

• Coworkers

• Peers and colleagues

• The design community

You may have to seek out this feedback. There are plenty of online resources to help; start with posting a portfolio and sharing the link. Behance appreciations and Dribbble shots are a good way to see what others think about particular projects.

10. Keep It Simple

Just as you would with the design itself, keep it simple when thinking about how to expand your horizons. You don’t have to quit your job and go back to design school to get better. Take small steps every day to refine your design skills.

You are already taking one step in the right direction by reading an article like this one. Reading about design and looking at what others are doing and saying about design will cause you to think about what you are doing and how it relates. Sometimes it is the little things that can make the biggest impact.

Conclusion

What have you done over the course of your career to improve you design skills? What do you plan on doing moving forward to continue to grow as a designer? These are questions every designer should ask internally every so often.

Just as design is constant changing so are the tools and techniques to create it. Continued learning and experimentation will help keep your skills fresh and your talent in demand.

Blog courtesy of: https://designshack.net

Website Design

We spend a lot of time online reading news, navigating websites and using web apps. In some cases, our experience online is not the best that we could have.
And all this is due to poor design that didn’t take user experience into consideration. It’s easy to look from afar and notice these errors, but it’s a bit trickier when you are the one handling a project.
As website designers, it’s our duty to create design with great user experience. And it isn’t easy.
Here are some best practices for UX for website design projects.

1. Website Design Should Concentrate on User Experience

Making the experience of the website memorable is more important than what the website says. Website users often forget the data and salient points of content, but they will remember how it made them feel. It works in advertisements, why not use it on website content?
Website graphics, layout, text, and interactive elements work in synergy to present the user with an experience, not just present them with information. UX website design is a consequential piece of application and website design work.
Making your website page stand out from the sheer quantity of websites and information on the internet is essential. Modern website designs contain more visual and interactive qualities to strike at more emotional responses to help them stand out in the highly competitive website world.

2. Websites Are Scanned, Not Read

It is a must that your website is scannable because people do not read websites, they scan them. Infographics and visuals have become the way for anyone trying to convey instructions or data.
Making your web page scannable will appeal to your website audience. Most will scan the content for something that strikes them and then they switch to reading when they want to find out more.

3. Website Users Want Clarity and Simplicity

In a half of a second, users evaluate the design of a website, so you need to decide what you want users to do and make it apparent. Don’t make it difficult to find action buttons. Visually focus attention on the main button versus a bunch of buttons on the home page.
Constantly reconsider what your app or site can do to make it easier to use. Part of the website design is making it highly usable for the majority of users and allowing for extra functionality to be hidden and made discoverable as it is needed, not shown all at once.
Also providing a clear, consistent design is simpler for web users. They can then know what to expect when you are reusing colours, behaviours, and aesthetics which reduces the need for them to figure out the interface. When users are familiar with some of the aspects of the web design it makes the process clearer and easier to use.

4. Common Web Design Elements Versus Creativity

When design elements are common elsewhere, don’t reinvent them by becoming creative with new UI patterns. Making users think too hard to figure out your UI interface is not what you want. You want to have a familiar looking interface where standard objects like links stand out as links, and login access is located in the upper right. There is no need to relocate such standardised components.
Creativity with standardised patterns can make your interface hard to work with and not promote website design usability. Although you may think non-traditional is cool, it may make it harder for users to navigate and thus it falls into a problem area. Design, creativity and web usability need to have a balance.
URLs, button, and navigation placement need to focus on usability before web design. Its best to focus on the layout of these first without the design in mind, then add the creative elements.

5. Web Design - Know the Website Design Audience

You must have a good idea of who the web audience is for the intended website or app before you create it. How to best design the interface will come from them.
Once you have a clear idea of the audience for your website or app, you can then find out their needs and wants, and design the perfect design that will meet their desires. The competition can show you some ideas of how this was done. Note the competition’s colours, layout, style, and features.
When you use styles and designs that your audience is already comfortable with, they can be eased into your site. You can then differentiate yourself with your ideas on their needs.
When you’ve identified your audience, remember to incorporate their feedback into your design. Considering end user’s actionable feedback is significantly valuable.

6. Web Design - Visual Hierarchy

When putting the most important elements on the interface, highlight them so that users focus on them. In design, there are a lot of ways in which to highlight things, but the most effective is to make it larger than anything else on the screen.
Making something a focal point by making it larger than anything else, is how several websites achieve the impossible to ignore highlighting of sales or ‘click here’ buttons.

7. Web Design - User Experience Qualities

Peter Moville represents the factors of UX in the User Experience Honeycomb on the usability.gov site. At the core is value in what you are providing to the client, surrounded by hexagonal shapes of the following:

Useful - Website Content should be original and full fill a need

Usable - Website Site must be easy to find

Desirable - Website Design elements bring about emotion and appreciation

Findable - Website Content needs to be locatable and navigable offsite and onsite

Accessible - Website Content needs to be accessible to people with disabilities

Credible - Website Users must believe and trust what you tell them.

There are other schools of thought regarding UX qualities. Here are more things that are related to building UX as well:

Be contextual - Be sure to mark where users are in their path through the interface.

Be human - Be trustworthy, transparent, and approachable with human interaction preferred over machine interaction.

Be discoverable - Be sure users can accomplish their tasks the first time they visit.

Be learnable - Be sure that interaction is easy and moving through product is seamless. Be sure that on subsequent visits users can accomplish their goals.

Be efficient - On repeat visits can they accomplish repetitive tasks quickly and easily?

Be delightful - Be sure that product delights users so that they have an emotional connection to it and champion your product.

Be a performer - Be sure that the system performs well when users are interacting with it.

Web Design - Conclusion

Users need to have an emotional connection to the experience of using your product. If you are merely creating an interface and not an experience, you have limited chance of gaining the following you need to make your product a success.
UIs need to be simple to navigate, easy to use, and created with the proper colours and fonts for your audience. Don’t forget to integrate end-user feedback while remaining consistent throughout the website design.
Blog written by: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/author/Ben-Pines/