How would something work before the training period? How would you experience a certain activity before trying it out? Think about riding a bike. When you first experience it, you can form an opinion about how bicycling is, but before trying it out, you can’t really anticipate what will happen.
The same rules apply to a design system. You can not be sure if your UI/UX design will trigger a good user experience or be deductible. This is where prototyping comes in.
Prototyping is the one that makes your design come to life. It’s an external process that can create your UX design ideas into more tangible ones that can be tested and understood. It is an external process that offers a first insight into how users are interacting and experiencing a design. “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”, and Steve Jobs was right. When prototyping, we can see if what we created is deductible, if it’s easy to interact with, and if it helps us present our ideas to clients.
Think about frozen pizza. It is nothing compared to a freshly baked pizza in the middle of Naples, but it gets the job done. It looks similar and has the same properties, so you can experience the insights and take a first look at what it is like. The same happens with prototyping versus the coded version of your design, helping you understand and see how a design will act and be interpreted.
Even if prototyping takes up some hours of your work, it has proven that it is worth it, as accessible designs are better than beautiful designs. Accessibility is one of the most important features when it comes to design. It improves usability and features like an intuitive design and clear and organized navigation that can be used by everyone. Being accessible should be more important than having a complex or aesthetically pleasing design that is hard to understand or read.
As Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO, said, “Accessible design is good design it benefits people who don’t have disabilities as well as people who do. Accessibility is all about removing barriers and providing the benefits of technology for everyone.”.
So, when creating a UI/UX design, we must ensure anyone can benefit. However, coming up with all possible variables and scenarios that can interfere with your design can be challenging.
We should also remember that users commonly use an F-pattern when scrolling through a design, website, or app. So, remember, don’t overdo it with a ton of details that will slow down your user when interacting with it. Variables can help us try out different design versions and see which is the most accessible.
If you are new to the terms, variables store values that can be reused. The value gathered by the variables can be reused across your design when changing design properties and prototyping specific actions. They were created to make our lives easier.
Variables simplify tasks and provide faster solutions, helping us save time when creating a design, managing one, or building complex prototypes.
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However, prototyping is no easy task, and variables make it even more overwhelming. We need to remember that ifs will become our best friend when creating prototypes using variables.
We need to anticipate certain situations and think outside the box to create scenarios that could happen in real life. The main goal is to think like your user and create a deductible environment in which we can monitor how the user reacts.
Conditions help anticipate possible problems in your design, so you must have them all in mind to create the best prototype available. And if multiple instances are required, we will need to use imbricate if (multiple conditions using the same if). So, using variables while creating prototypes can get challenging. But, at the same time, it helps UI UX designers develop new skills that will later on help them understand and deliver better solutions for their design.
Think of the following situation. You just created the design for an app that sells flowers. Naturally, how can the design interest your users if they can predict what certain elements do? So, you start creating your prototype.
Let’s explore this matter more in-depth to better understand it. Assume you created buttons that don’t catch the user's eye. Then, you can go over and redo the parts that don’t work as you hoped they would.
Imagine if the design had been in the coding stage and you had needed to make any changes. So, redo the code and set back the initial timeline. And let’s be honest, no one wants that.
Variables can be your helping hand when prototyping, they can deliver faster responses, and test different versions of the design. But, using them implies certain limitations which can get frustrating. So, take it slow and first understand how they work and how they can improve your work quality.
We at uinkits understand the importance of great user experiences and creating amazing UI designs. That’s why we’ve developed a Figma UI Kit with design components that include these essential UI elements that enable you to design intuitive and user-friendly interfaces effortlessly.
“You press the button, we do the rest.” – Kodak.
Inspired by this iconic tagline from Kodak, we believe in simplifying the design process for you. Our Figma UI Kit, uinkits, is a complete design system with UI components that allows you, as a UI UX designer, to create your products as quickly as pressing a button.
Our design system includes UI components, icons, variables, cards, buttons and everything you need for your design process. All you have to do is take your UI design component needed, and you’re ready to use it in your designs!
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