UI Design

I am a professional UX Designer, not strictly a UI Designer (the latter discipline beng a subset of the former). So I am not always the one who creates the Visual Design for the enterprise software I’m working on. Sometimes I’m working within the confines of a legacy look-and-feel. Sometimes a Visual Design specialist handles the UI Design and makes comps out of my wires. Sometimes it’s a joint effort.

Regardless of roles and responsibilities, UI Design encompasses ONLY the aesthetic qualities of your software product: Strictly style-related questions of color, font, and imagery.

What else is there? Plenty! The aesthetic qualities of your product’s user interface comprise JUST ONE of several components of your product’s overall User Experience.

And whether I’m the one providing options as to these aesthetic qualities or it’s a contractor in Singapore, as your UX Designer, it is my responsibility to ensure such options fit in to the totality of an effective solution for your busy users.

Because your users count the most.

Many embrace a contrary notion that UI Design is utterly subjective, where one stakeholder's opinion is as good as another's. Debates about look-and-feel can rage endlessly and are often resolved by the tastes of the most politically-advantaged person in the room.

This is rarely the ideal approach and the issue is not as subjective as it might first appear: Again, the only opinions that truly matter on the subject of your product’s curb appeal, are those of your end users.

This is the intersection of UX Design and UI Design. Ensuring what looks nice also gets the job done. UX Designers get the job done when we facilitate the user in the completion of her goals as quickly as possible without requiring her to think about the UI.

To do this, I apply a 4-part standard when designing, evaluating, or testing the aesthetic qualities of any UI:

Does it inspire confidence?
Is its tone evocative of its purpose?
Does it help or hinder the user in achieving her goals?
Does it introduce accessibility issues?

Because this is MY portfolio, I am showing here only those UI Designs that I MYSELF have created from sketch to comp.

Redesign (2023)

Intended for doctors to use while seeing a patient, this interface exposes information and choices at volume without overwhelming the user. It achieves this by promoting legibility through visual hierarchy and actionability through contrast. It additionally eliminates clutter by creating separation through spacing instead of lines or boxes. And it evokes body with color and negative space instead of by cramming in more data. Compare it to the design it replaced.

Product Design (2019)

Sophisticated and welcoming. With just the occasional note of whimsy. These were my goals for the design of this look-and-feel I produced for a native mobile application (for both Android and iOS) serving the multi-family housing market. The notes of green are intended to appeal to upscale and environmentally-conscious urbanites. Adheres to design standards described by Material Design. Learn more about this project →

Redesign (2017)

This is my radical upgrade to an employer's legacy aesthetic that I created for a product I was designing the entire UX of. When we tested this look-and-feel against the same page with the old look applied, users preferred this design four to one.

Product Design (2014)

I’m not a Developer. But I always want to be as cognizant of what I’m asking Developers to code as I possibly can. So in 2014, when I endeavored to build myself a new portfolio Web-site, I challenged myself to make it fully responsive. Click here to learn more.

Product Design (2007)

Obviously a layout more appropriate to the year it was created (2007), I intended this moodboard to convey an upbeat sense of balance and serendipity. I designed every single aspect of this aesthetic. The color scheme, the logo, the layout, the illustrations, and the imagery were all my original designs or choices. I additionally veered into content by writing the wry verbiage in the banner ( just under the navigation ).