Does a UX UI Designer need to know How to Code?

Introduction to UX Design vs UI Design vs UI Development

In the comments section of YouTube, many of you have asked whether you need to learn coding as a UX / UI designer. This topic discuss about UX Design vs UI Design vs UI Development. 

This post is a detailed answer for that question.

We’ll cover the following topics in this article:

What is the difference between UX design,  UI design and UI development?

Why does the question about coding arise?

Let’s dive in.

What is UX design?

UX designing refers to the process of building a solution based on your understanding of the client, their business needs and the user’s goals. The process requires developing soft skills such as interviewing, researching, collaboration, product management, and communication.

What is UI Design

UI designing refers to the process of converting the UX solution into design. You’ll design screens using many software and tools like Figma, Sketch and Adobe XD for designing and invision, Axure, Figma (again, yes) and Marvel for prototyping. You’ll tap into your creative and visual design skills.

UI Development

UI development takes the output of the UI designer and converts into functional code. This requires programming skills like HTML, CSS and Javascript for developing websites. To develop applications, they will have in frameworks like React and Angular. In case you need to develop iOS or Android apps, XML and Swift coding skills will be required.

Since the above three areas – UX design, UI design and UI development – fall into the same category of frontend development, it is causing confusion among new learners of design.

One could learn UX and UI designing together. Even though these two roles offer distinct opportunities to deliver, sometimes they overlap. There may be occasions when a UX designer is tasked with designing a screen; likewise, a UI designer may be asked to wireframe and user flows. So you can learn both these skills separately or together.

But, UI development is totally a different skillset, knowledge – programming.

Let’s now understand why the confusion arises.

Why does the question about coding arise?

Firstly, you might have seen many international freelance designers online who offer frontend development as well. That is, they offer UX designing, UI designing and UI development.

Why do they do this?

The reason is simple: they want to increase their hourly rates by increasing their overall value. That’s why they offer all the skills required in the area of front end development. You don’t have to be confused by this.

Next, in our country, small and mid-sized businesses think that if they hire one person for all three roles, they can keep their overheads like salary low. If you get into a mature company, who keep the design and development roles separate, you won’t bump into such situations.

Thirdly, there is a history behind the designing and development confusion. in 2010-12, Android and iPhone app development started to emerge.

Tools like Android Studio for Android apps and Xcode for iOS apps became popular. A developer can put together a screen just by using the visual components available on those tools. They could control the variables in XML or Swift coding.

Their roles should be ideally referred to as UI developer, front end developer or front-end engineer. But since they handled design elements available in Android / Xcode, small software development companies gave them the title ‘UI designer’. This was the reason for the confusion of the terms in this market.

In many MNCs and big companies, they have a department called ‘UI development’. In it are included UI developers and UX UI designers. Everyone is given the title ‘UI developer’. This is another reason for creating the confusion.

Finally, another culprit is the job descriptions. The job descriptions are created by copying and pasting from several related job descriptions. Most people aren’t aware of the actual roles and responsibilities of the role they are advertising for.

So, in summary: if you want to become a UX or UI designer, you don’t have to have programming skills. The designer role itself has many deliverables and responsibilities.

When you choose a job to apply for if it requires development skills, we highly recommend you not to apply for the job.

Does a UX UI Designer need to know How to Code?