Design is not design

What is design and what is design

Despite the fact that from English the word design is translated as design, in Russian-speaking countries, “design” has adopted a steady meaning of graphic design.



Indeed, both designers and designers must solve one problem, namely, what the final product will look like. However, designers should ultimately be responsible for the emotional side of the product, that is, style and attractiveness, and designers should address the psychological aspects of the interaction between the user and the product, that is, convenience and efficiency of use. If you use the ISO 9241-210: Human center design standard, then design is the design stage. Of course, not only the interface designer and designer, but also other additional people, such as an analyst and usability specialist, can be involved in designing, but the customer does not always have enough budget and resources. An important part here is the division of work that one person cannot effectively cope with because of not even the time and workload, but because of the different mindsets needed to perform graphic work and design work.

What is involved in design and what is design

Design includes both the definition of the context of use and the definition of requirements for the product being developed. The result of the requirements definition may be a prototype. Here it is necessary to complete the main work of the designer (I emphasize the main work, then of course there is control, usability testing and other work), since then comes the design, and when developing the design it is necessary to develop the product style. The work of the designer includes the development of a beautiful, eye-catching style of the site; wonderful superikonok; banners that attract attention; illustrations that you will never forget, and so on.
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Prior to the development of design factors are only objective, that is, research, analysis, consideration of statistics and ready-made patterns, and design is a subjective thing.

Who is engaged in design, and who design

Interface Designer

For different companies, the requirements may vary, but do not interfere with cats and dogs. Interface designers must have knowledge of psychology, usability, analytics, they must have communication skills. Basic technical knowledge is also required. Basically, such people should communicate with the customer, be able to analyze the data, as well as find the missing, be able to prepare and conduct various surveys and studies, be able to develop prototypes, both conceptual and detailed (preferably dynamic), be able to conduct qualitative and quantitative usability -testing. Interface designers must own web analytics services (Google analytics, Yandex.metric, etc.), services for usability testing (ClickTale, ClickDensity, Usabilla, etc.), survey services (Google Docs or other similar tools), prototyping (Axure, MS Visio) and other programs to perform quality work.
This is what a person can combine in himself because of his way of thinking. On large projects, the ideal option would of course be to break this work into parts and distribute it to specialists.

Designer

As well as for interface designers, for different companies - designers are selected individually, but in general ... Designers must have artistic taste, understand color theory, photos, perception and processing of information, understand fonts and illustrations, and be able to draw well by hand. Basic knowledge in layout and flash programming is required. Basically, designers should be able to design websites, draw logos, illustrations, process photos, make 3D objects and banners. They should own programs for working with raster graphics (Adobe Photoshop), for working with vector graphics (Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw), for working with 3D (3D Max), for working with animation (Adobe Flash) and other necessary programs for working with graphics. Again, skills and abilities are described here that can be combined in one person without harm to work, but specializations can certainly be distinguished here.

What is the result?

Of course, there are people who combine these two concepts, but having communicated with them, I really understood that first they learned to abstract from design when they were engaged in designing and vice versa, and secondly, the predominance of one over the other is immediately visible. Alignment errors can be prototypes with graphic elements. Also, the prevalence of some knowledge over others affects the quality of the project. This article listed the requirements for a designer and a designer that cannot be combined.

Deciding whether to take an interface designer depends on the willingness to get a site that is effective for business and productive for users or a beautiful picture.