What Is UI Design?

Today we find computation in automobiles, airplanes, appliances, art, etc. Software is eating the world.

The world we live in is covered in computation, and software is the means of making the numbers dance (or at least stutter step).

Information tekne, like the arts throughout history, tend to be commissioned. A powerful actor like a corporation, state, or individual has an end in mind. They want to see their dollars put to good use.

In all cases, the end in mind is higher than the tekne. No one commissions tekne for its own sake.

Software is quite powerful to create certain ends, especially quantitative ends. For instance, I'd much rather have software calculate my payroll than a poor chap with a pencil and paper.

Software is comprised of many parts. Building software is complex.

Following certain patterns helps simplify the challenge.

One pattern that has reaped dividends is modularity: decompose the various aspects of software into discrete, self-contained units. This allows software makers to separate concerns into manageable chunks. You can focus in on the part, and that part is interoperable with the other parts, and those parts together make a whole.

Modularity enables User Interface design to exist.

The UI is the part of the software that is interacted with by the user. It can be abstracted into a discrete module, so the underlying software can be created almost entirely independently from the UI.

The UI is the modular abstraction layer that serves three people:

- Your product or business leader

- Your engineering team

- Your customers or users

The UI always has a design, but it's not always designed. It may be designed, but it may not be designed well.

What does it mean to design a UI well? A UI is well-designed when it manifests the virtues of the software being made. The virtues of a particular UI depend on the software's application. A UI for a car has different virtues than a UI for a microwave. Almost all my experience is designing web apps.

Let's look at design through the lens of Forces, Form, and Fit.

Everything that has a design (whether or not it actually was designed or designed well) is the manifestation of Forces, Form, and Fit.

Forces are outside the designer's control. They can be thought of as constraints. They are wide-ranging. If designing a house, forces would include weather elements like wind and water, social forces like neighborhood vibes, civic forces like zoning and permitting, energy forces like natural gas or propane, market forces like comparables and other valuation methods, supply chain forces like cost of materials, and on and on and on.

A capable designer is able to hold in mind the many forces that are at play and appropriately weigh them.

Form is what the designer is working with. Form is the idealized pattern. It's what builders use to actualize the design. It's like the picture on a lego box.

If the designer makes a picture that uses lego pieces that do not and can not exist, then the builders will use the next best alternative.

At the same time, if the picture does not actually excite the people who will play with the lego once it's built, then you've got to go back to the drawing board.

And of course, the picture also has to convince the people who will fund the development of the new lego set that it's worth investing more resources in.

Fit, then, is when all those various elements come together, so that the thing that is designed is something that really checks all the boxes, feels great, looks great, works great, and can be made well at a reasonable cost.

Fit is the feeling of joy you get when you use a product that is simply outstanding. For me, it's a presentation clicker that has an incredible matte feel, comes in a nice portable container, works immediately with any computer, and provides a nice, subtle (but not-too-subtle) response when I depress the only-as-many-as-necessary buttons on it. And it only cost $20!

You can tell when fit is violated when a product makes you upset, frustrated, unhappy, annoyed, outraged, etc. Or you might just muddle through, satisficing, knowing this is the best you can do with what you've got for now. But, one day, you'll replace this mediocre piece of junk!