by abo Lee
The world of UI design is in constant flux, evolving hand in hand with technological breakthroughs. Today, AI and AR/VR are ushering in a new era of change for UI design.
As designers, we stand at the crossroads of history and the future. By exploring the essence of change from the past, we can better envision the future. This article will guide you through the history and present of UI design, revealing the forces driving its evolution, so that we can confidently face the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
UI Style: The Intertwined Dance of Technology and Design
The evolution of UI design is a story of development closely intertwined with technological advancements and the growth of information. From the early days of skeuomorphic design to the current era of flat design, and now the emerging intelligent design in the age of AI, each shift in design style reflects the technological capabilities and user needs of its time. Let’s journey through this timeline to trace the past, present, and future of UI design.
From Skeuomorphic to Flat Design: Adapting to User Familiarity and Needs
In the early days of computing, most users were unfamiliar with this new technology. To ease their transition, designers came up with skeuomorphic design. They brought familiar real-world objects onto the screen — calculators, notepads, bookshelves… These lifelike icons and interface elements created a comforting sense of familiarity, allowing users to find echoes of the real world in the digital realm, reducing feelings of unfamiliarity and resistance.
Apple’s early operating systems were prime examples of skeuomorphic design. They extensively used realistic textures and lighting effects to give icons a tactile, material feel. The iPhone’s calculator app, for instance, looked so realistic that one couldn’t resist the urge to touch the screen.
Transition from iOS 6 to iOS 7. Image source: Reddit
Flat Design: Letting Content Take Center Stage
The rise of smartphones ushered in the mobile internet era, but also brought the challenge of information overload. How could vast amounts of information be presented on small phone screens in a usable way? The ornate appearance of skeuomorphic design became a burden, and flat design emerged as the solution. It stripped away skeuomorphic elements, constructing interfaces with minimalist lines, shapes, and color blocks. This maximized the use of limited screen real estate, allowing the content itself to shine.
iOS 7, strongly advocated by Jony Ive in 2013, was a milestone for flat design. It replaced realistic icons with nearly monochromatic ones, and its clean aesthetic became a new design standard. This trend continues to this day. Microsoft’s Metro and Google’s Material Design are both excellent examples of flat design in action. They build clear, efficient information architectures with 2D planes, enabling content to surface to the fullest extent possible.
Material Design, Illustration by Reed Hollett. Image source: Material Design Blog
Intelligent Spatial Design: Breathing Life into Human-Computer Interaction
Today, AI is opening up new frontiers for human-computer interaction. Voice assistants, intelligent recommendations, affective computing… AI is making once cold interfaces feel more vivid and human. Meanwhile, immersive technologies like AR/VR are bringing interaction into the three-dimensional space.
Future designs will trend towards intelligence, taking the form of “LUI” (Language User Interface) or “Spatial User Interface”. Interfaces will no longer be confined to screens, but will be dynamically generated through environmental perception and human-computer dialogue. Users will interact in the most natural ways, such as voice, gestures, and eye gaze. AI will become an invisible design assistant, optimizing layouts in real-time and adapting interaction methods based on the user’s emotions and needs. AR/VR will make information presentation more three-dimensional and immersive.
Imagine walking into a smart restaurant where the wall menu recommends dishes perfectly suited to your taste preferences, dietary habits, health data, and more, in real-time. With a simple voice command or nod, your order is automatically placed. At home, donning AR glasses unfolds various data charts three-dimensionally before your eyes, allowing you to manipulate them in mid-air with gestures, just like in a sci-fi movie.
This is the future of UI design in the AI era: interfaces will be seamlessly integrated into the real environment, and human-computer interaction will become more natural and intelligent. UI designers will no longer merely be arrangers of on-screen graphical elements, but architects of intelligent interactions between people, machines, and the environment. They will need to re-examine the human-machine relationship from a radically new perspective, fusing cutting-edge technology with the most humane experiences. This is the next frontier for UI design.
Looking back at the history of UI design, it’s evident that each shift in design style is intimately linked to technological developments and the growth of information. From skeuomorphism to flat design, from static to intelligent interfaces, design is constantly adapting to the rhythm of the times. And AI is propelling this process to new heights. LUI and spatial design may still be nascent concepts, but it’s clear that a new paradigm of intelligent interaction that blends the virtual and the real, connecting humans and machines, is taking shape.
Redefining Designer Roles: From Visual Artists to Strategic Innovators
The role of designers is in constant flux, intricately woven with the threads of technological progress, company growth, and industry dynamics. As the Internet blossomed, particularly with the dawn of the mobile era, designers began to focus on user experience, becoming the sculptors of product usability and interaction flow. As companies expanded and competition intensified, the responsibilities of designers grew in tandem.
Now, with the rise of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, designers are evolving into more multifaceted and specialized roles. Let’s explore the future trajectories of design in the AI era through the lens of historical technological changes.
GUI Designer: The Visual Communication Artist
In the early days of software and web design, designers were primarily tasked with crafting the visual interface (GUI). Their main role was to create aesthetic and readable layouts and visual elements based on the specifications of product managers or developers. Designers at this stage were akin to “visual artists”, emphasizing visual presentation with less focus on interaction logic and user experience.
Two factors contributed to this: firstly, software features were relatively simple then, with straightforward interaction logic, so visual design took center stage. Secondly, many designers hailed from art backgrounds and lacked formal training in computing and interaction design, limiting their ability to take on broader responsibilities.
UI/UX Designer: The Interaction Experience Architect
With the advent of Web 2.0 and the mobile internet, web pages and apps grew increasingly feature-rich, and users demanded better interactive experiences. Designers’ responsibilities expanded from pure visual design to interaction and user experience design, giving rise to the UI/UX designer. They not only had to craft beautiful interfaces but also consider information architecture, interaction flows, user psychology, and other factors to deliver a friendly and seamless user experience.
The catalyst for this change was the intensifying market competition. When products became homogeneous, exceptional user experience became the secret to success. Designers demonstrated unique value in optimizing product experience through their user insights and empathy. Some internet giants started prioritizing UX design, establishing dedicated UX departments and expanding their design teams.
Simultaneously, the proliferation of mobile devices necessitated consistent experiences across various screen sizes, posing new challenges for designers. Concepts like “responsive design” and “adaptive design” gained traction, requiring designers to acquire more front-end development knowledge to better realize their design visions.
Experience Designer: The Multi-Touchpoint Experience Orchestrator
As user touchpoints multiplied and service design concepts emerged, designers’ responsibilities broadened to encompass holistic user experience design across multiple touchpoints. They had to orchestrate seamless and consistent user experiences across online and offline channels, platforms, and devices. This is the domain of the experience designer.
Experience designers consider not only digital products but also user experiences in physical spaces and service processes. They are involved throughout the product and service design lifecycle, from user research and concept design to final delivery, bearing full responsibility for the user experience. This demands strategic thinking, business acumen, a deep understanding of company goals and user needs, and the ability to drive product and service innovation through design.
Internet giants like Apple pioneered the experience designer role, positioning it at the apex of the design department, underscoring the strategic importance of experience design. This shift reflects the market’s competitive focus moving from product features to user experience, and the growing significance of design’s role.
Product Designer: The Business Value Innovator
In recent years, many global companies have begun assigning some product management responsibilities to designers, birthing the new role of “product designer”. Several factors drive this change:
Firstly, fierce market competition demands greater creativity from designers to conceive new products and services from scratch. Secondly, under macroeconomic pressures, many companies need to streamline staff and boost efficiency. Designers absorbing some product management duties can reduce communication overhead.
Moreover, the emergence of new tools and concepts like low-code platforms and design systems has lowered the design barrier to some extent, allowing designers to invest more energy in product planning and innovation. Low-code platforms simplify design implementation through visual programming and other means; design systems enhance design efficiency and consistency by establishing a unified visual language and component library. This creates favorable conditions for designers to participate in early product decision-making. As tools boost design efficiency, product designers can focus more on product design and decision-making.
In the new “product designer” role, design is no longer limited to visual presentation but deeply involved in shaping product strategy and business models. The concept of “design-driven business” is on the rise. This demands higher overall competence from designers but also offers them greater room for growth and value realization.
Future Designers: Shapers of Technology and Human-Machine Symbiosis
Looking back at the evolution of designer roles, we see a journey from execution to decision-making, from aesthetics to business, from specialization to integration. In the AI era, technology innovation cycles are drastically shortened, and disruptive innovations abound. AI will bring new role definitions and growth opportunities for designers. Future designers will work hand in hand with AI. They will not only be practitioners of human-machine collaboration and shapers of human-machine symbiosis experiences but may also become leaders of disruptive innovation.
Design Tool Evolution: The Triangular Dance of Technology, Demand, and Trends
The evolution of design tools is intimately intertwined with the shifts in design styles and roles. Each iteration of design tools mirrors the needs of designers and the trajectory of the design industry at that juncture.
In the early era of skeuomorphic design, Photoshop reigned supreme among UI designers with its powerful image manipulation capabilities. But as flat design style gained prominence, designers prioritized interface consistency and interaction logic over complex visual effects. Enter Sketch, a lightweight, interface-focused design tool that quickly became the industry standard.
Sketch’s success was no coincidence; it perfectly aligned with the design industry’s needs at the time. But then Figma disrupted the landscape once more. Leveraging WebGL technology, Figma created a browser-based design collaboration platform, enabling designers to work together seamlessly, anytime, anywhere. This cloud-based collaboration capability resonated with the needs of modern design teams, especially in the context of the growing remote work trend.
From Photoshop to Sketch to Figma, each revolution in design tools represents an evolution in the design industry. These changes reflect the transformation of the designer’s role, from a pure visual designer to an interaction designer focused on user experience, to a designer who collaborates closely with development and product teams. The trajectory of tool development is also becoming clearer: lightweight, user-friendly, and focused on specialized areas.
Growth trajectory of various UI/UX design tools. Image source: UXtools Survey
Looking ahead, the emergence of Creatie has the potential to significantly enhance design efficiency and redefine the way designers work. Creatie is deeply integrated with AI technology, offering designers intelligent design suggestions and automated design solutions. In the future, design tools may transcend the category of mere “tools” and evolve into intelligent design platforms or ecosystems.
Concurrently, the role of designers is also undergoing a metamorphosis. From visual communicators to experience architects to product strategists, designers are assuming ever-expanding responsibilities. They must embrace new technologies, acquire new skills, and transform from “creators” to designers of “intelligent assistants”. In the future, designers will collaborate hand in hand with Creatie to explore the boundless possibilities of human-machine interactions.
Yet, regardless of technological advancements, the essence of design remains unchanged. Design is, at its core, a human-centric discipline. Its heart lies in understanding user needs, solving real problems, and crafting delightful experiences.
As a designer, I’m excited to embrace the AI era and work with tools like Creatie. It’s a chance to focus more on the strategic and creative aspects of design, while letting AI handle the repetitive tasks. I believe AI will augment our abilities as designers, not replace us. It’s about finding the right balance — leveraging AI’s efficiency and insights, while infusing our work with human empathy, creativity, and judgment.
The future of design is a dance between human and machine, a symbiotic relationship where each enhances the other. As designers, our role is to choreograph this dance, to harness the power of AI in service of creating more meaningful, impactful designs. It’s a thrilling journey ahead, and I can’t wait to see where it leads us.
