Does a UX/UI designer require coding skills?

Sowmiya V
5 min readApr 15, 2022

It’s worth noting that most companies don’t expect UX designers to write code. UX designers and developers have distinct skillsets and are typically employed as such. As a result, to be a UX/UI designer, you do not need to know how to code.

What are the necessary skills that you should have as a UI/UX Designer?

User interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design are essential for creating digital products ( such as a website, app, or software)that are both visually appealing and easy to use. UI/UX designers must have a solid understanding of both design and user psychology in order to create designs that solve user problems.

In order to create an intuitive and satisfying user experience, it is crucial for a UI/UX designer need to have a wide range of skills in order to be successful.

Some of the most important skills for a UI/UX designer include: being able to understand people’s needs and motivations; having strong visual design skills; being able to communicate effectively; having strong problem-solving skills; and They must also be able to communicate their ideas effectively, both visually and verbally, so that they can work with other team members to create a high-quality final product.

Why you don’t wanna learn coding as a UI/UX designer?

For one, it can be overwhelming and difficult to learn. Designers are already busy enough working on projects and may not have the time to add another skill to their list. Additionally, coding is not always necessary for designers. Many design tools and programs allow users to create designs without any coding knowledge. These are a few reasons why designers might not want to learn to code:

  1. Design should take place as near to the user’s experience as possible — A user’s experience is the furthest thing from code. You’ll begin to change your approach, and instead of thinking about solutions for user problems, you’ll begin to consider how you might address the problem on the CSS grid. In simple terms, you will no longer be solving user problems; instead, you will code to improve your coding skills or for the benefit of your team members.
  2. The design process should be unrestricted — When you’re designing, you should think about how practical the design is in terms of implementation.
  3. Different mental states are required for designing and coding — Writing code is a form of symbolic thinking, whereas sketching is a form of visual thinking. and to make a prototype more interactive, design thinking is required.
  4. Designing a product necessitates putting all of your creative efforts into it — If you know how to code, you may find yourself being pulled in too many directions and unable to commit your whole creative attention to designing a product.
  5. The design should adhere to the project’s scope — User-centric design aims to put people first, rather than technology. To come up with the best solution, a designer should think outside the box

Even though we have several reasons on UI/UX designer doesn’t need any coding knowledge, on other hand, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find jobs that don’t require coding knowledge. However, there are some benefits to learning to code as a designer. Coding can help designers understand how their designs are being implemented and can give them more control over the finished product. Additionally, learning to code can help designers' troubles as follows

What are the benefits of learning coding as a UI/UX designer?

Designers who are able to code are in high demand. They are able to create beautiful and user-friendly interfaces, and they understand how to make a website or app look and feel the way the client wants.

There are a lot of reasons to learn coding as a UX/UI designer. First and foremost, coding helps you understand the process behind the design, how websites and apps are built, and how your designs are implemented.

Coding also makes you more efficient and versatile as a designer. With coding skills, you can quickly prototype designs, make changes on the fly, allows you to understand the technical limitations of your designs, and to communicate effectively with developers. Additionally, learning to code can help you become a better problem solver and more innovative thinker.

What type of designers benefits most from learning to code?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Different designers will benefit in different ways from learning to code. However, there are a few types of designers who are likely to benefit the most from this skill.

One type of designer who can benefit from learning to code is a front-end designer. This type of designer typically works on the interface and appearance of a website. By learning to code, they can create designs that are more functional and look better on different devices.

A back-end developer is another type of designer that can benefit from learning to code. This will increase the number of people who can handle solo tasks since they will be able to empathize, conceptualize, design, and then execute whole projects. You wouldn’t need to outsource any design work because you’d be able to do everything yourself.

What are the Coding languages that you can learn as a UI/UX Designer?

HTML and CSS, the most often used markup languages, should be familiar to UX/UI designers. HTML is used to format the structure of a page, and CSS is used to provide stylings such as font size, color, opacity, and more. As a result, both of these languages can assist you in providing more direction to UI designers.

JavaScript is a supplementary language that could be useful. JavaScript is highly useful while building your website because it can greatly aid you in generating communication for your website. In JavaScript, you may use a variety of style frameworks to create a fantastic user interface. When it comes to web development, knowing JavaScript is essential for creating dynamic web pages. JavaScript is used to create highly responsive user interfaces by incorporating animations into web pages, loading new images, scripts, or objects into web pages, and loading fresh images, scripts, or objects into websites.

Online Resources which help you to learn these are :

codecademy

Coursera

edX

Udemy

freeCodeCamp.org

Educative.io — Learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript from Scratch

Wrap up

UX/UI designers are responsible for the look and feel of a website or app. While they do not always need to know how to code, it is often helpful if they do.

In addition, having coding skills can help a UX/UI designer understand the limitations of a developer’s work and can help to create more detailed designs. This article discussed the importance of coding skills for UX/UI designers and provided a few resources for those who want to learn. If you are interested in becoming a UX/UI designer, be sure to follow me to get more of such content!

If you have read this far, I really appreciate it.
Do share your valuable opinion, I appreciate your honest feedback!

Connect With me on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram

--

--

Sowmiya V

Product Evangelist | Gold-Tier #IamRemarkable Facilitator | #GoogleCrowdsource Community Mentor | 21U21 Awardee