What is the relationship between coding and UI design?

UI design and coding are two separate disciplines but are interrelated in several ways. Coding makes use of design to do the following:

• Make the design interactive

• Implement the design

Make the design interactive

UI design refers to building the interface according to how it looks and feels. This design will not be interactive or responsive without providing code fragments for running the functionalities. Therefore, this is done by coding, which makes the interface architecture interactive.

Simply put, the design offers a visual depiction of how the appearance of the system is going to be. The designer does this using various UI elements to display all the available functionalities, preferably in a user-centered way. However, this alone will not contribute to the completeness of the system. The design will have to be backed up by code, in other words, a skeleton, to allow the user to use those functionalities as required.

Implement the design

The design of the interface is just a representation of what the system will look like. This model has to be implemented by the coder in various programming languages. For example, in the case of website design, the programmer may use HTML and CSS to bring the design to life. However, the use of coding is not just limited to the implementation of the design. It does way more than that, affecting the system's performance.

Should coding and designing be used independently?

The main goal of both design and code is to serve the user's requirements. Even though they are separate domains, both should not be seen as independent and should go hand in hand to serve the common purpose.

To better explain this, the role of design and coding in system development can be mapped to an example of a building: an architect can not design a good blueprint without having considerable knowledge about how the model is implemented. Similarly, the designer and coder need to be on similar terms and understand the basics and constraints of the other's process to build a good quality system.

Keeping the designing and coding of a system interrelated yields significant benefits, which are mentioned below.

Better cross-departmental communication

Designing and coding can be seen as two fields that speak different languages. Communication between them can be difficult and erroneous if both areas are not aware of the basics of the other.

Understanding limitations

When design and coding are interrelated, both domains keep in mind the constraints of the other, which can significantly increase the productivity of the whole development process. For instance, if a designer is knowledgeable about the technical limitations of the programming language used to code, they can better come up with feasible designs which will save the coder's time.

Shaping mindsets

The development process becomes considerably hassle-free if the designer acquires a coding mindset and vice versa. In this way, the designer implements a problem-solving attitude which increases the productivity of the whole process. Similarly, the coder starts thinking with a user-centered approach which helps meet the goal of serving the user. One problem that can occur if this is not done is that the coder might ignore some design aspects, for example, by showing unexplained error messages.