Why is finding inspiration an essential process of design?

Finding inspiration is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.

In UI/UX design, it helps the designers build a moodboard, a group of design inspirations that the designers will use as a reference for colours, UI components and sometimes even interactions.

These inspirations are essential so that it helps the designer to come up with something special and unique for a problem they are trying to solve

What are the limitations of finding inspiration on the Internet?

Finding inspiration for UI design seems very easy these days as information is readily available on the Internet. However, inspiration on the Internet can sometimes be limiting.

Based on my observations and experience, searching for inspirations you don’t know is hard. It’s almost always the things you already know or are interested in. This bias can limit the designers from finding something out of the box.

Inspiration platforms such as Dribbble and Behance, accessible to the public, are too aesthetically focused and not functional if applied to UI/UX design.

Moreover, some problems can’t be found easily online, especially issues from large corporations with specific users and goals that might not be available online compared to B2C applications.

So, what other ways can the designers gather more interesting inspirations?

Most of the time, designers will gather inspiration during a project which is quite reactive. Inspiration is all around us in our daily lives, and we need to train our senses to detect them proactively and, most importantly, record them for future reference.

Experience kiosk interface design

Places like public transport stations and your country’s city centres can help designers to be inspired with a lot of applicable inspirations. The reason is that you experience how people use and interact with services, tools and apps.

I like to explore the usability of kiosk UI in public transport stations, fast food chains, and tourist spots whenever I use them in my country and other places. I like to observe how locals and tourists use it, such as:

1. How they interact with it, whether they need clarification or some help from others to use the interface
2. Who are the users? Are they locals or tourists?
3. How do they pay for the fare? Is it through e-wallets, credit cards or physical banknotes

These user interfaces and interactions can serve as good inspirations for design later on, especially for service design.

These user interfaces and interactions can serve as good inspirations for design later on, especially for service design.

It might help designers build user journey maps and determine a better interaction for specific users, as many people of different ages and life experiences use these public systems.

Skincare shops

I also like seeing the packaging designs from skincare shops like Innisfree, body shop, and loccitane.

The package design contains a lot of lovely illustrations created by talented illustrators in Malaysia and from other countries.

They act as colour inspiration that you can touch and feel compared to Dribbble, Behance’s digital version. You can learn how colours are paired to achieve harmony, which UI designers can use in the digital world. Though, of course, you should follow only some things.

Books

Before, user interface designs were a thing now. One of the best inspirations for designers to gather are from books, especially for designers that don’t design for digital screens.

I love flipping through design books as not only do they look nice physically, but they also have some excellent documentation on how things are designed.

I’m always very into grid, typography and signage design in train stations, so I bought some design books that talk about them, such as how and why they were implemented in such a way.

Based on the image above. You might think these books are for graphic and type designers, which is true. It is also usable for UI designers on the digital screen; the theory is still the same. They are just applied on a different medium with particular requirements that UI designers need to consider.

Some books are written in other languages but I mainly needed the visual inspiration and if I needed to read it, I’ll use Google Lens to translate it through my phone’s camera.

Interfaces from movies and games

Interfaces from movies and video games, especially futuristic ones, usually have UIs that WOW audiences and gamers. That WOW factor is one of the best things designers can capture and apply to their designs.

However, these inspirations also have their limitations. It might not be suitable for normal public users, but it might be possible for heavy engineering applications or high-tech projects if you are working on one.

There is one way to overcome this limitation (it doesn’t apply to all of the sci-fi movies) is that choose sci-fi that is more realistic such as The Martian which isn’t too far away into the future and it is more realistic.

You can find these inspirations here:

• Territory Studio
• Gmunk

Journaling your inspiration

Finally, make it a habit to observe the interactions between this UI and interactions and take note of it. You don’t have to write it down in a pocket notebook. Using your phone’s camera is a great way to capture and save the information to your computer.

These are the ways that I found helpful as a UI/UX designer to train myself to capture inspiration even when I’m not actively designing something so that I can use them whenever I need them. It saves time and teaches the designer to be sensitive to potential solutions that are already available but need to be more straightforward.

The post Finding Inspiration for UI/UX Design appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

In the first couple of months at Stampede, I was assigned to an intense training regimen. Instead of some run-of-the-mill online course, the team at Stampede came up with a personalised course that would help me sharpen my strengths while shrinking my weaknesses.

Currently, my training still continues, and is constantly being adjusted to what I need to improve the most; efficiency. This meant that I could not dwell too long on looking for a perfect solution every time for design problems. Instead, I had to look for the best solution in the allocated amount of time.

Rapid-fire design skills

To meet this goal, a training module was developed by Zana, who is in charge of our training. It was named ‘Rapid-fire Design Skills’, and was designed for me to complete a small design assignment every day within half an hour. These are one-off designs like a single screen mock for an app for website.

Within those 30 minutes, I needed to do as much as I could while delivering the best results as possible. There were times where I exceeded the limit because I could not muster up the willpower to stop working on those assignments.

That highlighted another reason why this training was relevant to me, because I’ve had trouble completing things until it felt perfect. The problem; it was never perfect to me.

When I got this assignment, it reminded me of the time where I started waitressing in my gap year and the management told me, soon I was going to learn to carry seven plates, when I could only carry three. I knew that I would never be able to carry seven, 500g plates and £200 worth of fancy dinner for them.

To explain it better, here’s a diagram.

When I told this to Shaza, our design lead — she said it was fine not to carry seven plates at the same time, but only if you can deliver them three by three in the same amount of time.

I realised that the point of this training was not so much delivering a perfect solution in a short burst, but rather what I could come up within that time. It focused on making me churn out drafts and ideas quicker, to increase my production speed and eventually get closer to the solution.

Understanding the brief

The first step is to read and fully understand the design brief. This is the most important step because the moment you misunderstand what needs to be done, it’s like setting yourself up for failure. At present, this step sits in my weak spot.

The Brief: A flight booking confirmation UI in desktop showing destination to and from, time of departure and arrival, flight time, class, price, and CTA to book this flight with at most three colour schemes.

Such a case was when one of the briefs I received, requested for a flight booking confirmation screen. I thought this was pretty straight-forward in the beginning but what happened was that I initially did not notice some of the elements that needed to be in the design. These elements were the flight and payment details, along with a ‘Book Now’ button on page. So the result of that mishap was a screen that users would see after they had placed a booking. The screen I needed to design was the one before that step.

Sample of the mock I designed.

The lesson I took from this was that, even with little time at my disposal, comprehending the brief is never a waste of time. In fact, this is the best time to ask questions to ensure that you fully understand the goal of the design.

Understanding the who and the why

Once I understand what needs to be designed, the next step would be to figure out who would be interacting with it. This step is where the UX part of my skills are tried and tested.

Users are varied, but understanding them is important.

Although the designs I’m working on are just a part of the training, I have to give it serious thought and empatize on who would be using this product. In the case of the flight booking website, the ‘who’ are the users looking to travel, and the ‘why’ is the reason they are booking tickets on the page. By repeatedly putting myself in the shoes of other people, I have gotten better at creating user-centric designs in a shorter span of time.

Research existing solutions and consider whether it works or otherwise

While it is great to come up with an original solution to solve a design problem, many times we do not need to reinvent the wheel. There are many common problems that have been solved in the past by someone else, and sometimes as an industry as a whole.

What I am trying to do at this step is to find out existing patterns that users are familiar with and would expect from it. Take for instance the hamburger menu. Mobile app users are highly familiar with this icon and the moment they see three parallel bars, it can only mean one thing; a menu.

Executing the design

Once these three steps above have been fulfilled, I can finally come out with a solution to the original problem statement. This step is the one others would consider as actual ‘designing’, where I arrange and manipulate elements of the design on the screen.

The most important factor is to make sure the design ‘functions’.

A large bulk of my time is spent here, and the goal of the training to speed through the assignment. I do not have the leisure to fine tune the visuals, so none of that pixel-perfect magic here. The most important factor is to make sure the design ‘functions’.

As this is an ongoing training for me, so far I have completed eight assignments (at the time of this post):

1. A mobile translation app screen
2. A desktop to do app
3. A mobile currency converter
4. An emoji keyboard web app
5. A colouring app
6. A flight confirmation screen
7. A Journal app
8. And a translation app screen

Did it pay off?

While the first few drafts can feel very unsatisfactory, continuous effort can help any designer to become more productive. The balance is coming up with something that meets your own quality standard while getting the solution out as fast as possible. Once you get the ball rolling, it’s only a matter of time where you’ll arrive at that quality of work you’re proud of, while staying on time.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook once said this,  “Move Fast and Break Things”.  As I work on this training more and more, I find myself gradually getting faster. Indeed I am also breaking things, but from there I know where I can improve and better myself as a designer.

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