Difference Between UX And UI Design
Today’s days, UX designers are finding that many employers expect that they have not only expertise in UX but also has the UI design skills.
There are so many reasons for the demand for this kind of skill, but one certainty is for sure having a workable knowledge of both skills gives designers an undeniable employable edge.
In this blog, I will share with you the differences between UX and UI design. Defining these terms will help us better understand each discipline and discover its compatibility.
Now let’s take a look at what is the difference between UI and UX.
UI is Not UX
User Experience and UX design is the process by which a pain point or user need is identified. From there, a roughly prototype is drawn which is later validated through testing. When both the value proposition and business model have been validated the product is built.
You can think of UI design or we can also say User interface design like This: User Interface Design = Visual Design + Interaction Design.
Visual design is the feel and attractive look of the site. Interaction design is the way people interact with your eye catch site. When someone clicks a button on your attractive site, does the button change in a notable way so they know they have been successful?
Although both UI(User Interface) and UX(User Experience) designers interactions, You can assume that Ux designer as the architect of macro-interactions, attend to the details.
According to designer Nick Babich:
“We can find the best two things on any product: details and features. Features mean what draws people to your product. Details mean what keeps them there”.
A UX designer will design the User Flows, the step that a user would take to sign up for your latest newsletter, for example. What is the step they will follow and how will they understand if they have been successful?
The design is then passed on UI designer. The UI designer will refine those interactions adding emphasis to the original design and color, giving users the clues they need to successfully navigate the latest newsletter sign-up process.
User Experience Makes Interfaces useful while User Interface makes interfaces beautiful
A useful product meets a need that is not being already met in the market. The research process of a UX designer playing the role of finding the competitive analysis, developing personas, and then developing a minimum valuable product.
That product will be the value to your targeted customer niche. This is the process of validation through testing throughout the lifecycle of the product.
Once the wireframes and user flows are prototyped and tested, it’s the UI designer’s role to make them pleasing. This includes choosing the typography and color scheme that will be both attractive and simple to use.
However, typography, color choices and interactions are not based on the designer’s personal preference but rather on clearly articulated reason specific to the person as developed by the UX designers. UI designers implement a visual hierarchy that will serve as a guide to user or visitors, letting them know what to do, when to do, and how to do, in order to meet their objectives.
A well and good designed hierarchy will highlight one main objective per page making it very clear to the user or visitors where they are on the site and what they can accomplish in any given moment.
UX Helps Users Accomplish Goals when UI Makes Emotional connections.
People come to your site to do any activity. Whether it’s researching the best kind of services or products or any Knowledgeable content. They come to your site with a goal in mind and want to fulfill.
From the side of UX, the things might look at people like animal lovers and try to figure out what is important to them. When looking for assistance in choosing their next friend and what is it that they value? So, they get to figure it out. They observe people, They ask questions, they interview the people, they make prototypes and see if they can validate their business and product value propositions.
THE first UX design will be Done, Second UI design will be done in some time.
Within the process of design, how do UI and UX designers will work together?
The UX design and research are the first steps when deciding whether to build an application or product. UX designers handle much of the research that will invalidate or validate initial product ideas and guide the development of the product.
Once the prototype has gone through several iterations and is largely finalized the UI (User Interface) designer steps in and begins to work on the visual design and micro-interactions.
However, this will not always be a linear path. May it depend on many factors.
For Example:
- Who handles the UI and UX?
- Is it the same person or a different person for both or the team?
UX (User experience) became a more popular and very broad field of the day. Not only Web Company or IT company, but many others that develop products or provide service are catching on to the value of understanding their users and validating their hypotheses before they build.
UI (User Interface) is good only for the User Interface. This doesn’t mean it will limit to the graphical user interface of mobile tablets and computer devices. We are also seeing user interfaces on many other devices or products like watches, washing machine, car dashboards, vending machine and many more.
Recently I read about an application on the iPhone that unlocks your car door. It turns out that this is the set of interactions that take many more steps than simply using your key to unlock the door of the car, we should take care to keep our users at the heart of our UI/UX design process.
