Who decides how an application UI looks?

Question

In some software company, who should be responsible for the UI design:

User
Designer
Manager
Boss
Depends on company size
etc.

In UI design I mean not only colors and images, but also control's layout, count, size, style, may be text user see.

Answer 1

In a small company, the answer is "whoever is good at it". Some of our best graphics were designed by a technical author who happened to have a flair for graphic design. Don't assume that someone has to have the right job title to do a creative job - innate talent trumps a job title any day!

Answer 2

Most companies have GUI experts and who design the front end. Some even have altogether different person(s) in team for interface layer programming, leading to tools like Expression which are supposed to draw a line between both jobs.

It however depends completely on company/person developing the application.

Answer 3

This is for the User Experience Team. They should have tested a design, copy (text) and all of the other stuff well before you see the design or final layout.

Answer 4

Well, UI design should be a collaborative effort. You as a developer should provide technical suggestions as you know the system from the inside. Your boss does provide the final answer, but he/she can provide a different opinion that you may not have realized.

Usually though, the business partner decides the final UI. They have have the practical experience with whatever your program is going to solve. They sometimes know for a fact what the user wants and expects from a solution. The UI would be a lot friendlier if the developer and business partner collaborated on the design.

Answer 5

Depending on the technology, the UI will be designed either by a programmer or a graphical designer or both, based on scetches of the program owner, a product manager or the end user.

It will always be the user that accepts or declines and therefore decides on a user interface. Hopefully not after shipping by just ignoring the application or solution.

Answer 6

A dedicated UI person is valuable to a development team, but several roles should have involvement in UI development. Ideally a UI person should be able to bridge between designers and programmers, so that the final design can be implemented with minimal technical problems. UI should be reviewed with programmers to make sure it can be translated to the web (or whatever platform you're working on) and with business analysts to make sure all the requirements were accurately represented. Users should also be involved in the design process, since they can provide feedback on usability. Sometimes what you think is a great UI will fall flat because users don't understand certain features. I've never had a project manager get involved in UI, but every team is different.

As far as the skills of the person developing the UI - It's not unusual to find a graphic/web designer who has development experience, so they will be able to create the designs and integrate them into the application. Depending on the project size you may have different UI roles. One project I worked on had a graphic designer, a usability / 508 expert, and a "UI integrator" (basically a front end developer). If there is no money for UI people, I guess the task would fall to a developer. I've worked with programmers who claim they "don't do UI" and they won't even touch presentation code, but I think any programmer who works on a platform that has UI needs to be able to do front end work.

Answer 7

Ideally, someone with formal training in interface and interaction design should be the one designing the UI. Nowadays, this is a discipline in its own right, with its basis in (graphic) design, psychology, ergonomics, communication sciences, perhaps even software engineering, etc. This does not mean that this person is the only one that deals with the user interface, as various stakeholders may have influences:

• The boss may enforce some decisions based on strategic choices or financial considerations
• Marketing may enforce some decisions based on product management
• The customer may have peculiar wishes that he demands get implemented
• The developers may have a certain style or preference
• Common UI element, specific icons, logos, etc. may be designed by a graphic designer

But ultimately, it should be the UI expert that combines all these inputs and designs the UI.

Of course in practice, it depends very much on the size of the software company. A very large company can have their own department for user interface / user experience issues, whereas in a small company, the task usually goes to whoever is deemed best at it.

Answer 8

In any size company, you can take the chain of command and move up, to see who has the last say, and the reverse holds true for who will do it.

In an ideal world the Presentation layer is the responsibility of the analysis and design team. There are a lot of theoretical and practical uses to a UI, which a simple designer may have never been taught. That does not go to say that a designer with a brain - or experience - will not generate more than adequate results.

Bottom line: there is no right answer for a design. Even if you have a checklist of things that a good UI should include, there is always the aesthetic aspect of it, which is not really quantitative.

No better approach than trial and error. Even Google Adsense/Analytics encourages you to make multiple designs, and alternate between them while collecting statistics which are quantitative.

Given your question, I am guessing you do not work in a large company, otherwise your job description would have been well defined.

So: Stop whining and just do it!

Answer 9

UI design is a joint responisbility. UI Design is not just a flair for graphic design It involves the clients, users, some with flair for graphic design and developers. You even review the UI which is done by someone other than the designer & asking stack overflow users' thoughts on a specific design brings us into the equation.

Generally, all people are responsible and one or a couple of people should be involved in the process from first contact with the client to final delivery on the system.

communication skills, flair for design (lo-fi or hi-fi), objectivity, being able to take criticism and analytical ability are all required.

The extent of applying these skills will vary by company & project size.

Graphic design flair means you could possibly get a great looking UI that is not usable.

Answer 10

I agree that UI design is a collaborative effort. In my experience graphic designers or user interaction experts create great mockups which ultimately get bastardized by managers and developers. If you have a UI concept that you want to get added, make sure to justify every aspect of your design.

Here is a basic idea of how the UI evolves in my MASSIVE software company.

1. Managers dictate a 1 or 2 sentence requirement.
2. Dev team develops feature
3. Graphic designer comes up with UI based on managers crappy description
4. Dev team bastardizes the graphic designers UI
5. Management completely changes their mind
6. Repeat step 2-5 at least three times
7. Release a Beta
8. Beta users and product reviewers feedback drive the final UI

Do not underestimate a good beta. You could make all the graphic or user interaction designers in the world happy; ultimately it's the consumers that buy your product.