Nothing in this world is fixed. Everything is constantly changing and developing. The software is constantly updated. The first version of Word software, which was introduced to the world in 1983, is completely different from today’s version. Word software became more advanced according to the needs of its users. Design software is the same.
Design software is the main work tool of designers. It doesn’t matter if the designer wants to create a motion design or design a logo. In any case, it goes to one of the design software, which is a specialized tool for making motion design or logo design. The main tools of digital product design, UI/UX design of websites and applications are some very important and powerful software (such as Figma).
User interface and user experience design software must meet the professional needs of product designers. Needs that change rapidly and become more complex, as digital products and user demand for those products change rapidly. For this reason, it is important to keep those tools (software) powerful.
In this context, I introduce the new generation of user interface design tools (User Interface or UI). I will tell you what features they will have and why the changes they will make are very, very important.
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The new generation of UI design tools
Most websites and applications are the result of the collaboration of experts from different fields in the product design team. A user interface designer is someone responsible for designing interfaces that enable human-machine interaction. Buttons, icons, dialog boxes, menu items, and various fields in which something can be entered, such as the search field, etc., are all UI elements.
The user interface designer designs interfaces according to the design of the product system and different principles that must be considered in UI design. The question that arises is where does he design them? Another important question is that after the design, how are the user interfaces built on the website or application, a UI designer who is not a programmer or developer?
This is exactly where UI design and product design tools come in to help designers, developers, and design teams. Product designers usually use one of Figma’s software, Adobe XD or Sketch for design. The designer in Figma designs and paints the elements. Gives access to other team members to see and comment. If a change is needed, the design can be edited in the same figure. Then, they give the final plan to the web developer to implement it.
In the design of the user interface, the principles of psychology are used. Interfaces are designed for humans. That is why knowing the preferences and tendencies of humans helps the designer to design better interfaces.
The most important features of user interface design tools in the future
The interface is designed by the designer and implemented by the website developer. The problem is that the language of these two experts is very different. Many user interface designers are not completely unfamiliar with the world of coding and may even be familiar with coding in HTML markup language and CSS language. But the problem here is that the implementation of many elements has certain subtleties and complexities. As a result, other languages such as JavaScript and its libraries or other technologies are needed.
Maybe the developer finds German unusable on the website. Maybe the German should be changed a little to be able to implement it in the application. Maybe the UI designer needs to see several elements in different shapes or colors on the website to choose the best one. For this reason, in practice, and from the time the user interface designer delivers the designs to the programmer until they are implemented, there is a lot of collaboration and exchange of ideas between the two. An exchange of ideas can sometimes be very time-consuming and even exhausting.
The new generation of user interface design tools makes the process of designing elements and implementing them more optimized and faster. UI design tools will revolutionize the interaction between designers and developers in the future. The most important features of the new generation of tools (software) are:
1. The new generation of user interface design tools synchronize design and execution
In the future, the developer alone is no longer responsible for implementing user interface designs. The new generation tools give the UI designer the necessary and original codes to implement the overall structure of the user interface design and a large part of the elements. So, the designer himself can easily implement his designs.
In this case, the main task of the developer is to make sure that the codes used by the designer are correctly implemented and work in the product, and do not cause problems for the back-end site (server side). In this way, the time of the designer and developer is not wasted to solve minor issues and apply various changes.
2. Mockups are no longer needed with the new generation of UI tools
User interface elements in the product are not always displayed in the same state. User interaction with the product happens in different scenarios and modes. Most elements react to interaction. For example, the color of the icon changes when it is clicked, or the progressive bar gradually fills up.
In addition, the website design must be responsive. The web designer and the product design team must make sure that the elements are displayed correctly and completely on the screens of different devices, with very small to very large dimensions. All this means that the user interface designer must make a complete and accurate model with all the details of each page of the site and its elements in different modes, Mockup, in Figma, or one of the tools.
The problem with that model is that it is lifeless. That means, again, the designer cannot understand how the user will see those interfaces in practice and the product. In the future, there is no need for the designer to spend time and design models for all different situations. The UI designer will work with a new generation of tools that bring the designs to life (test) in the same design space and show the designer what a UI element will look like in different states in the product.
3. New tools allow the UI designer to design interfaces with real data and information
Consider a form, for example, a membership form on a website. The form has various components and fields where the user must enter information. The fields have titles. Help texts must be written to fill some fields. When the designer designs the form in Figma, he cannot fill and test it with real values and information.
How can a user interface designer choose the right font for other languages and the right font size? The designer cannot anticipate all possible scenarios and make decisions until the developer has implemented the design to populate it with real data and see the problems. In that case, it should be based on the problems that exist; Revise the design again and ask the developer to apply the changes. Then, the designer can test it again. But the different tools of the future allow the designer to test and fix the elements during design and in the same space by entering different real data.