Hi, are you looking for how to become a UI/UX Designer ? or maybe just curious about that. This question is important for some people who want to start the UI/UX Design.

Before start the list of way, i want to share a quote about design

"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." -- Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, Inc.

That quotes meaning deep for me because maybe we don't care about how design works, a lot of people just care about what design look like, and how beautiful that design. Okay lets start the journey how to be a UI/UX Designer.

1. Familiarize yourself with UI principles.

Before practicing design, the first thing you need to do is learn some design principles. From this, you’ll be able to enter the design world and start thinking “creatively”. You will learn the psychological aspects of design: why it can look good and why it can fail. Here are some basic principles you should know about.

• Color Color vocabulary, fundamentals and the psychology of colors. Principles of design: Color

• Balance Symmetry and assymetry. Principles of design: Balance

• Contrast Using contrast to organize information, build hierarchy and create focus. Principles of design: contrast

• Typography Choosing fonts and creating readable text on the web. 10 Principles Of Readability And Web Typography

• Consistency The most important principle, creating intuitive and usable designs starts here. Design principle: Consistency Here are some great do’s and don’ts to design a good UI.

2. Learn the creative UX process

The next thing is to understand the creative process. UI/UX design is a process of specific phases that every creative person goes through.

Discover This is the start of the project. Designers start researching, getting inspired, and gathering ideas.

Define This is the definition stage, where designers define an idea extracted from the Discover phase. From this, a clear creative brief is created.

Develop This is where solutions or concepts are created, prototyped, tested and iterated. This process of trial and error helps designers to improve and refine their ideas.

Delivery The final phase is the delivery stage, where the final project is finalised, produced and launched.

3. Develop your eye for design

Knowing design principles is great, but sometimes it’s not enough, you also have to train your eye to see good design and bad design and to identify strengths and weaknesses in designs. The most effective way to train your eye for design is through inspiration. Before opening a blank canvas and staring at it for half an hour, know that the only way to be creative is through research. Sometimes the mind can’t create ideas on its own, you have to first look at other designs to start creating your own, especially when you’re a beginner.

So look at what other designers are doing on Dribbble, and whenever you come across pretty designs or something relevant to your project, save it in your notes and mention what you like about it, you can also take screenshots. This way, you will have a collection of inspirational designs for you to start from.

4. Read design articles everyday

To make ourselves get familiar with design, the best way is to read a few articles each day. Make reading design news and blog an everyday habit. There are millions of articles available online for us to discover about new trends, use cases and tutorials. All we have to do is find them. There’s nothing better than learning from other people’s experiences.

So start your day with a cup of coffee and a few inspirational articles on Medium or Smashing Magazine. Learning new things in the morning will broaden your mind and will make room for creativity during the day. Then, every now and then during your day, take a few breaks to read more. Taking breaks is very important for creativity, especially when you get stuck and feel unproductive. Bookmark the website you like as your browser homepage or subscribe to a design newsletter.

5. Design fake projects

Practice makes perfect. And we all know we can’t get clients/jobs without experience. But without a job or projects, we can’t practice, right? But we can break this cycle by practicing on our own, by creating fake projects for fun! Dribbble is full of it.

Make time to pick a website or app you already use and redesign it. It could be anything you think it can be better. You can also design your own app idea. From this, you’ll build your design portfolio and you’ll practice design.

6. Learn the latest web design tools.

There are tons of design tools out there, but you don’t need to know all of them. Get to know the best ones out there, choose your favorites and stay updated with the newest features and trends.

7. Mentor and get mentored.

Another great way to learn design is to find a design mentor or designer friend who is willing to help. They will help you speed up your learning process. The designer would review your work and give their comments whenever possible. It’s like a shortcut. They would also give you tips and tricks they learned from their experience. So go ahead and e-mail a designer, ask questions and discuss your concerns.

Reference : 7 steps to become a UI/UX designer