As the role of a UI designer falls into the UX process, smaller organizations look for a designer who can look at the holistic picture and execute the technical aspects of design. The overlap between UX and UI lies in the implementation of creating an engaging experience for the customer.
So, when you think of UX and UI, remember they are related but separate concepts. One is the larger view of everything that goes into your customer's experience with your business, services, and products UX.
The other is the more specific, technical details of how the user interacts with your website to effectively learn more, buy or share with others UI. Steph leads our client delivery team and is obsessed with delivering quality work, creating an efficiency machine, and mastering the tools and disciplines to achieve success for our heroes.
At home, she loves listening to true crime podcasts, playing with her daughters and two pugs, and singing in a local rock band with her husband. Share This:. What is UI? What is UX? What are the Differences? What are the Similarities When understanding the overlap between UX and UI, consider that UX is the large picture of everything customers experience with your business.
The people you have eavesdropped on are actually discussing two professions that, despite having been around for decades, and in theory for centuries, have been defined by the tech industry as UX and UI design. Both elements are crucial to a product and work closely together.
But despite their professional relationship, the roles themselves are quite different, referring to very different aspects of the product development process and the design discipline. User experience design is a human-first way of designing products. Clear, right? As a scientific process it could be applied to anything; street lamps, cars, Ikea shelving and so on. You can learn all about the fascinating history of UX design in this article. Essentially, UX applies to anything that can be experienced—be it a website, a coffee machine, or a visit to the supermarket.
User experience design , then, considers all the different elements that shape this experience. A UX designer thinks about how the experience makes the user feel, and how easy it is for the user to accomplish their desired tasks. They also observe and conduct task analyses to see how users actually complete tasks in a user flow.
For example: How easy is the checkout process when shopping online? How easy is it for you to grip that vegetable peeler?
Does your online banking app make it easy for you to manage your money? The ultimate purpose of UX design is to create easy, efficient, relevant, and all-round pleasant experiences for the user.
While user experience is a conglomeration of tasks focused on the optimization of a product for effective and enjoyable use, user interface design is its complement; the look and feel, the presentation and interactivity of a product. But like UX, it is easily and often confused by the industries that employ UI designers—to the extent that different job posts will often refer to the profession as completely different things.
If you look at job ads and job descriptions for user interface designers , you will mostly find interpretations of the profession that are akin to graphic design, sometimes extending also to branding design, and even frontend development. Unlike UX, user interface design is a strictly digital term.
A user interface is the point of interaction between the user and a digital device or product—like the touchscreen on your smartphone, or the touchpad you use to select what kind of coffee you want from the coffee machine. In relation to websites and apps, UI design considers the look, feel, and interactivity of the product. A UI designer will think about icons and buttons , typography and color schemes , spacing, imagery, and responsive design.
Like user experience design, user interface design is a multi-faceted and challenging role. If you imagine a product as the human body, the bones represent the code which give it structure. The organs represent the UX design: measuring and optimizing against input for supporting life functions. Research is usually the first step in the UI design process and ensures that the user interfaces are designed with user needs and expectations in mind.
As the UI design process starts after the user experience has been defined, UI designers work closely with UX designers and product managers to analyze user research results, get to know the target audience, and understand the goal of the design project.
UI designers also need to identify which color palettes, patterns, fonts, and other visual elements would work best. A great way to do that is competitor benchmarking—researching other companies in the same industry to learn what UI components they use, and what works better than others. This allows UI designers to find inspiration and make sure the design elements they choose fit well with users' expectations and preferences.
A go-to book for anyone getting into the field. Make sure to also learn outside the field, by exploring different professions within the design space, such as graphic design or UX writing, and how they interact with UX and UI. But he also emphasizes that the best learning you can do is navigate websites yourself.
See if you can pick out real-life examples of good UX and UI, then analyze what makes them work. Because at the end of the day, doing hands-on design is much more valuable than stressing over definitions. As Jonathan puts it:.
What matters is understanding the customer journey and designing with your users in mind. What is user interface UI design? User interface design is the process of transforming wireframes into user interfaces that are aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. A user interface is the point of interaction between the user and the product they are using. So, UI design focuses on all the visual and interactive elements of a product interface, such as buttons, menu bars, icons, and more.
What is user experience UX design? User experience design is the process designers use to build products that provide great experiences to their users. UX design refers to feelings and emotions users experience when interacting with a product. It focuses on the user flow and how easy it is for the user to accomplish their desired goals. User interface UI design refers to the aesthetic elements by which people interact with a product, such as buttons, icons, menu bars, typography, colors, and more.
User experience UX design refers to the experience a user has when interacting with a product. It focuses on the user journey and how efficient and easy to use the product is. UX debate. Simon Dumont Writer. Learn by doing and start testing now Maze is a rapid testing platform that allows you to run surveys, validate design ideas, and test your prototypes—all in one place. Get started free. What is UI design? What does a UI designer do? The look and feel of the product. It can matter a lot.
A business needing a product or website designed and brought to market needs to know what services they are purchasing, whom they need to hire if they are doing it in-house and what skills that person needs to bring to the table. A small firm desiring in-house UX and UI may be looking for one person to do both and end up hiring a UI designer who does not have the UX skill set or vice versa.
Without a clear understanding of what the two terms mean, someone wanting a website might end up hiring a firm that does not offer all the services they need or does not have the expertise to create what they are looking for.
A designer looking for a job could end up wasting their time applying for and even interviewing for positions that do not relate to their skill set because the person posting or hiring the position did not understand the terms. The three primary differences between UX and UI designers are: UX deals with the purpose and functionality of the product. UI deals with the quality of the interaction that the end-user has with the product. UI design has an artistic component as it relates to the design and interface with the product.
It affects what the end-user sees, hears, and feels. UX has more of a social component for market research and communicating with clients to understand what their needs are. UX focuses on project management and analysis through the entire phase of ideation , development, and delivery. UI has more of a technical component to produce the design components for the finished product.
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