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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for User Interface Assistant

💰 $45,000 - $65,000

DesignUI/UXFront-endProduct

🎯 Role Definition

The User Interface Assistant supports product designers, front-end engineers, and product managers by producing interface assets, maintaining component libraries and design systems, creating high-fidelity prototypes, implementing and validating HTML/CSS/JS snippets, and performing usability checks to ensure accessible, responsive, and on-brand digital experiences. This role bridges visual design and front-end execution, ensuring designs are implementable, performant, and aligned to user research and analytics insights.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior UI/UX Designer transitioning from internship or freelance experience in web or mobile interfaces.
  • Front-end Intern or Junior Front-end Developer with basic HTML/CSS/JS and design tool experience.
  • Visual Designer or Graphic Designer moving into digital product design.

Advancement To:

  • UI Designer or Product Designer responsible for end-to-end interface ownership.
  • Front-end Engineer / Front-end Developer with deeper engineering responsibilities.
  • Design Systems Specialist or Interaction Designer focusing on component libraries and patterns.
  • Lead Product Designer or Design Lead for multi-disciplinary teams.

Lateral Moves:

  • UX Researcher (with focus on testing and insights).
  • Product Manager (with product delivery and stakeholder management focus).

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Assist in creating pixel-precise, responsive UI layouts and high-fidelity mockups for web and mobile using Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD, ensuring designs are aligned with brand guidelines and product goals.
  • Develop interactive prototypes and clickable flows that simulate critical user journeys to validate UX decisions and communicate interaction intent to stakeholders and engineers.
  • Implement front-end HTML/CSS/JavaScript prototypes or code snippets to demonstrate feasibility and hand off clean, documented assets to engineering teams.
  • Maintain and update the organization’s design system and component library, ensuring tokens, typography, spacing, and icons are consistent, documented, and version-controlled.
  • Collaborate closely with product designers and front-end engineers during sprint planning to break down UI work into tickets with clear acceptance criteria and design assets.
  • Conduct accessibility (WCAG) audits of interface screens and components, implement fixes or provide actionable remediation guidance to developers to meet inclusive design standards.
  • Prepare and export production-ready assets (SVGs, PNGs, optimized images, and icon sets) and create a reliable handoff that reduces rework during implementation.
  • Participate in user research activities, assist with usability testing sessions, synthesize findings, and translate insights into prioritized UI improvements or design iterations.
  • Create and maintain UI documentation, pattern guidelines, and best-practice notes that help cross-functional teams use components correctly and understand design intent.
  • Optimize UI performance by recommending and implementing front-end optimizations such as image compression strategies, lazy loading hints, and CSS improvements in collaboration with engineers.
  • Support cross-browser and cross-device testing, identify visual and interactive regressions, and document reproduction steps and suggested fixes for engineering teams.
  • Audit and update localization-ready UI elements, maintain text expansion considerations, and coordinate with localization teams to ensure UI integrity across languages.
  • Collaborate with product owners and stakeholders to translate business requirements and user stories into clear UI deliverables that balance user needs with technical constraints.
  • Track and analyze UI-related metrics and analytics (e.g., conversion, drop-off on flows) and recommend iterative design tests or A/B experiments to improve measurable outcomes.
  • Assist in preparing design presentations and stakeholder demos that clearly articulate design rationale, trade-offs, and proposed interaction changes.
  • Triage and resolve low-to-medium priority visual defects and usability bugs reported by QA, customer support, or users, and escalate complex issues to senior designers or engineers when necessary.
  • Contribute to pattern discovery and component reuse initiatives by researching common UI patterns, documenting alternatives, and proposing standardized solutions to accelerate delivery.
  • Implement and maintain design tokens (colors, spacing, type scale) across tools and codebases to ensure parity between design files and production styles.
  • Coordinate with marketing, content, and brand teams to ensure UI copy, microcopy, and visual elements align with messaging and regulatory requirements.
  • Facilitate handoffs and communication between remote or distributed teams by using shared libraries, version control for design files, and explicit change logs for component updates.
  • Assist with onboarding and training of new designers or product team members on the design system, component usage, and tooling workflows to improve team efficiency and consistency.
  • Keep current with UI design trends, front-end frameworks, and accessibility standards, and recommend tool or process improvements to increase design-to-development throughput.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proficient with design and prototyping tools: Figma (preferred), Sketch, Adobe XD — create high-fidelity mockups and interactive prototypes optimized for handoff.
  • Solid foundation in HTML5 and CSS3, including responsive layout techniques (Flexbox, Grid) and modern best practices for production-ready markup.
  • Working knowledge of JavaScript fundamentals and front-end frameworks (React, Vue, or Angular) to effectively communicate with engineers and implement prototypes.
  • Experience building and maintaining component libraries and design systems, including design tokens and documentation workflows.
  • Familiarity with accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1) and tools for automated and manual accessibility testing (axe, Lighthouse, screen readers).
  • Proficiency exporting and optimizing assets for web and mobile (SVG optimization, responsive image sets, icon fonts).
  • Version control experience for design files and code (Git for code; libraries/versioning in Figma or Abstract).
  • Cross-browser testing knowledge and debugging techniques for visual and interaction inconsistencies.
  • Experience with usability testing tools and processes (remote unmoderated testing platforms, moderated sessions, affinity mapping).
  • Basic understanding of analytics and A/B testing platforms (Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Optimizely) to tie UI changes to metrics.
  • Familiarity with prototyping handoff tools and developer collaboration plugins (Zeplin, Figma Inspect, Storybook).
  • Knowledge of performance optimization techniques for front-end UX (image formats, critical CSS, minimizing reflows).

Soft Skills

  • Strong written and verbal communication skills to present UI rationale and translate technical constraints into design decisions.
  • Exceptional attention to detail and visual craftsmanship with an eye for alignment, spacing, and pixel-perfect execution.
  • Collaborative mindset and proven ability to work cross-functionally with designers, engineers, product managers, QA, and content teams.
  • Problem-solving orientation with an experimental, data-informed approach to iterating on UI solutions.
  • Time management and organization skills to prioritize multiple requests, maintain component libraries, and meet sprint commitments.
  • Empathy for end users and ability to advocate for accessible, inclusive product experiences.
  • Receptive to feedback and able to iterate quickly based on stakeholder and user testing results.
  • Strong documentation skills to create clear, reusable guidelines and reduce ambiguous handoffs.
  • Comfortable working in agile environments and contributing to sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives.
  • Proactive learner mindset to stay current with UI tooling, web standards, and accessibility best practices.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree OR equivalent practical experience in interaction design, visual design, front-end development, human-computer interaction (HCI), or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master's degree in Interaction Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Graphic Design with a digital focus, Computer Science with UI/UX coursework, or Product Design.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Interaction Design / Product Design
  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
  • Visual Communication / Graphic Design with digital emphasis
  • Computer Science or Software Engineering with front-end specialization
  • Information Design / Cognitive Psychology (user research emphasis)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 1–3 years of professional experience in UI design, front-end development, or a combined hybrid role supporting product design and engineering.

Preferred:

  • 2+ years working with product teams producing responsive interfaces, maintaining a design system, and collaborating directly with front-end engineers; demonstrated portfolio of web or mobile projects showing both visual and interaction work.
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