Top 12 UI Designer Skills to Put on Your Resume

In today's hiring climate, a UI designer’s resume has to show crisp craft, sharp thinking, and the judgment to ship. Highlighting the right skills signals you can design interfaces that feel effortless and look refined.

UI Designer Skills

1. Sketch
2. Figma
3. Adobe XD
4. InVision
5. Photoshop
6. Illustrator
7. HTML5
8. CSS3
9. JavaScript
10. User Research
11. Prototyping
12. Wireframing

1. Sketch

Sketch is a vector-based design app used to craft, prototype, and collaborate on user interfaces for web and mobile.

Why It's Important

It’s purpose-built for interface design, with precision vector tools, reusable components, and scalable assets that keep files lean and teams aligned.

How to Improve Sketch Skills

Level up by tightening fundamentals and building repeatable systems.

1. Master the core toolkit: shapes, symbols, text styles, grids, constraints.
2. Work with components: build a design system using symbols, shared styles, and libraries.
3. Use plugins thoughtfully: add only what speeds you up—naming, grids, content, handoff.
4. Collaborate in the cloud: share libraries, manage versions, request feedback.
5. Prototype in context: link flows, add micro-interactions, preview on devices.
6. Practice real problems: redesign flows, build mobile-first, stress-test edge cases.

Small, frequent projects beat once-in-a-while marathons. Ship, inspect, refine.

How to Display Sketch Skills on Your Resume

2. Figma

Figma is a cloud-native design platform for creating interfaces, prototyping, and collaborating in real time.

Why It's Important

Designers, engineers, and stakeholders work in one place. Components, variables, Auto Layout, and Dev Mode keep design consistent and handoff smooth.

How to Improve Figma Skills

Lean into the features that compound over time.

1. Memorize shortcuts: speed changes everything.
2. Systematize: build robust components, variants, tokens/variables, and styles.
3. Auto Layout fluency: create responsive, resilient UI that adapts without nudging.
4. Use plugins and widgets: automate content, audit contrast, check spacing, document systems.
5. Prototype with intent: smart animations, interactive components, conditional logic.
6. Dev Mode discipline: clean layers, usable names, tight specs, comments resolved.
7. Practice weekly: recreate patterns, redesign flows, time-box challenges.

Keep files organized. Name layers. Document decisions. Your future self will thank you.

How to Display Figma Skills on Your Resume

3. Adobe XD

Adobe XD is a vector UI design and prototyping tool for web and mobile interfaces.

Why It's Important

It offers design, prototyping, and sharing in one environment, with familiar Adobe workflows many teams still rely on.

How to Improve Adobe XD Skills

While new feature development has largely paused, XD remains in use across organizations. Focus on transferable strengths.

1. Shortcuts and repeat grids: accelerate layout and content variations.
2. Components and states: manage reusable patterns and interactions.
3. Interactive prototyping: map user flows and transitions clearly.
4. Design systems: keep colors, type, and components synced.
5. Cross‑app workflows: move assets in/out of Photoshop and Illustrator cleanly.
6. Handoff hygiene: consistent naming, clear annotations, tidy specs.

Skills in structure, systems, and prototyping translate cleanly to other tools.

How to Display Adobe XD Skills on Your Resume

4. InVision

InVision offered prototyping, collaboration, and design system tooling used widely in past years.

Why It's Important

Historically valuable for clickable prototypes and stakeholder feedback. Note: the core InVision platform has been sunset, and many teams have migrated to alternatives.

How to Improve InVision Skills

If your organization still uses it, focus on what matters most.

1. Prototype clarity: map flows, hotspots, and transitions that mirror the real product.
2. Comment discipline: consolidate threads, resolve feedback, maintain version history.
3. Design systems: keep shared components consistent across files.
4. Transition plan: document workflows so you can shift smoothly to tools like Figma or Sketch when required.

The core principles—clean prototypes, clear feedback loops, consistent systems—carry forward anywhere.

How to Display InVision Skills on Your Resume

5. Photoshop

Photoshop is a pixel-editing powerhouse used to craft and polish UI graphics, imagery, and visual treatments.

Why It's Important

When you need surgical control—retouching, compositing, density tweaks—it delivers precise, production-ready assets.

How to Improve Photoshop Skills

Trim the friction. Raise the floor.

1. Customize your workspace: keep essential panels and tools within easy reach.
2. Grids and guides: align relentlessly; consistency calms interfaces.
3. Shortcut fluency: selections, layers, masks, transforms—muscle memory wins.
4. Smart Objects and Layer Comps: manage states, versions, and reusable pieces.
5. Selective plugins: grids, specs, and export helpers—use sparingly and with intent.
6. XD/Illustrator handoff: move vectors and bitmaps cleanly between apps.

Keep files organized with naming, color labels, and tidy groups. Future edits get painless.

How to Display Photoshop Skills on Your Resume

6. Illustrator

Illustrator is a vector editor for crisp, scalable UI graphics, iconography, and branding assets.

Why It's Important

Vectors scale without blur. Icons, logos, and diagrams stay razor-sharp across densities and screens.

How to Improve Illustrator Skills

Sharpen control. Cut waste.

1. Pen tool mastery: anchor handles, clean curves, minimal points.
2. Keyboard shortcuts: pathfinder ops, alignments, shape building, repeat.
3. Layer and artboard hygiene: name assets, isolate states, export without fuss.
4. Pathfinder and Shape Builder: combine and carve complex UI shapes quickly.
5. Symbol libraries: standardize icons and states for consistency.
6. Pixel-snapping: align to pixel grid for crisp exports.
7. Style consistency: stroke weights, corner radii, grid systems—lock them in.

Icon sets with rules beat one-off artwork. Consistency compounds.

How to Display Illustrator Skills on Your Resume

7. HTML5

HTML5 is the current standard for structuring web content, introducing semantic elements and APIs that improve accessibility, media, and app-like capabilities.

Why It's Important

Good HTML is the backbone of clear interfaces—semantic, accessible, resilient across devices and browsers.

How to Improve HTML5 Skills

Build pages that read well to people and machines.

1. Semantic structure: use section, article, header, nav, main, aside, footer correctly.
2. Accessibility first: meaningful headings, labels, landmarks; prudent ARIA only when needed.
3. Responsive foundations: fluid layout, sensible breakpoints, mobile-first thinking.
4. Lean APIs: apply media, video, canvas, and form features where they add value.
5. Performance awareness: clean DOMs, defer noncritical scripts, compress assets.
6. Cross-environment testing: verify keyboard, screen reader, and device behavior.

Clarity in markup reduces complexity everywhere else.

How to Display HTML5 Skills on Your Resume

8. CSS3

CSS (often called “modern CSS” rather than CSS3 now) styles and lays out interfaces, with powerful features for responsive design, animation, and systematized theming.

Why It's Important

It shapes the experience—spacing, rhythm, motion, contrast—turning structure into something elegant and usable.

How to Improve CSS3 Skills

Think in systems, not one-off rules.

1. Flexbox and Grid fluency: build complex layouts with fewer hacks.
2. Custom properties (CSS variables): centralize tokens for color, type, spacing, radii.
3. Responsive mindset: clamp, fluid type/space, container queries, progressive enhancement.
4. Motion with care: transitions and keyframes that inform, not distract; offer reduced motion support.
5. Accessibility through CSS: contrast ratios, focus styles, readable line lengths.
6. Tooling: consider preprocessors or PostCSS where they truly help; keep output tidy.
7. Practice: rebuild patterns, isolate components, test across browsers and devices.

Great CSS disappears. Users just feel that it works.

How to Display CSS3 Skills on Your Resume

9. JavaScript

JavaScript brings interfaces to life—interactivity, state, and logic that respond to users in real time.

Why It's Important

It powers patterns users expect: validation, live updates, accessible menus, nuanced interactions.

How to Improve JavaScript Skills

Solid fundamentals beat flashy frameworks.

1. Core concepts: scope, closures, modules, async/await, events, the DOM.
2. UI patterns: tabs, accordions, modals, toasts—accessible and keyboard-friendly.
3. Framework literacy: understand component-driven thinking (React, Vue, or similar) without skipping basics.
4. State and data flow: keep logic predictable; minimize side effects.
5. Performance: debounce, throttle, lazy-load; measure, don’t guess.
6. Code quality: consistent naming, small functions, linting, thoughtful comments.
7. Practice: build micro-interactions and small apps; iterate quickly.

Less code, clearer intent. That’s the mark of mature JS in UI work.

How to Display JavaScript Skills on Your Resume

10. User Research

User research uncovers behaviors, needs, and motivations to guide product decisions and validate designs.

Why It's Important

It steers you away from guesswork. Interfaces align to real goals, not assumptions.

How to Improve User Research Skills

Make insight gathering routine, not a special event.

1. Define audiences: write lean personas grounded in real data, not fiction.
2. Use mixed methods: interviews, usability tests, surveys, analytics—triangulate.
3. Iterate relentlessly: prototype, test early, test often; close the loop with changes.
4. Quant meets qual: pair behavior metrics with observed friction to find root causes.
5. Accessibility built-in: follow WCAG 2.2 principles; include users with disabilities in studies.
6. Share findings: lightweight reports, clips, and annotated flows the whole team can act on.
7. Ethics and consent: respectful recruiting, privacy, and clear expectations.

Insights age. Keep talking to users. Keep checking reality.

How to Display User Research Skills on Your Resume

11. Prototyping

Prototyping creates a testable model of an interface so you can learn fast and reduce risk before build.

Why It's Important

It turns ideas into evidence. You spot friction early, align teams, and cut rework.

How to Improve Prototyping Skills

Prototype just enough to answer the question in front of you.

1. Start with goals: what are you proving—flow, copy, hierarchy, motion?
2. Fidelity on purpose: low-fi for structure, higher-fi for timing and nuance.
3. Reusable parts: components, variants, and tokens speed iteration.
4. Usability testing: quick sessions, tight scripts, real tasks, objective notes.
5. Stakeholder reviews: schedule short, focused feedback loops; capture decisions.
6. Device checks: test on actual hardware for touch, latency, and readability.

Prototype the riskiest assumptions first. Trim the rest.

How to Display Prototyping Skills on Your Resume

12. Wireframing

Wireframing outlines layout, hierarchy, and flows before visual polish enters the scene.

Why It's Important

It surfaces structural issues early, aligns stakeholders, and protects you from pretty-but-wrong design.

How to Improve Wireframing Skills

Stay scrappy, stay clear.

1. User-first framing: reflect jobs-to-be-done and key tasks in structure.
2. Simplicity: grayscale, boxes, labels; no decoration to distract.
3. Right tool for speed: paper, whiteboards, or digital—whatever gets ideas out fastest.
4. Frequent feedback: quick reviews with PMs, engineers, and users.
5. Pattern literacy: know common layouts and when to break them.
6. Iterate: many small passes beat one grand reveal.

Wireframes should invite critique. Make change cheap.

How to Display Wireframing Skills on Your Resume