User experience design and user interface are terms used for product design, But what are user experience(UX) and user interface(UI) design? What is the difference between UI and UX design? And what responsibilities do UX and UI designers have?
With a user experience (UX) design, a relationship between a company, its products, and customers is built. It is a research process to develop and improve all aspects of user interaction of a product that satisfies the users. Test result help improve the user experience, so a product is useful and valuable, easy to obtain, and pleasant to interact with.
User persona
UX designers start with research and identifying their target audience to know exactly what they need to design their product. They create user personas that help see the goals, desires, and limitations of the targeted audience. When UX designers understand these personas, they can find a design solution that works best for their users.
User journey concept
The biggest impact on how users feel about your product is emotions, whether negative, neutral, or positive. The user journey is a corner ton of the user experience. It is the path the user follows when interacting with the product, and it has a direct impact on the user experience.
UX is focused on the user journey to find a solution for a specific problem. To improve the journey, it needs a good design.
To understand what a good experience means, Aarron Walter created a visual pyramid of user needs in his book Designing for Emotion. This pyramid is helping UX professionals how to think and apply design decisions.
Copyright: Adobe
Many companies realized a good design is a competitive advantage, so they are willing to invest larger resources in creating an amazing user experience. The role of UX designers is in high demand.
User Experience Designer work on visual design, interaction design, and the usability of a product. They are responsible for analyzing the target audience’s needs and ensuring the company creates products that meet these needs.
UX designers usually start with extensive research to understand the target audience their wants and needs. Empathy is important so UX designers can understand and uncover the needs and emotions of the people they design for.
The right designing strategy includes understanding the purpose of a product and the mapping of a logical journey.
UX designers have to analyze how people use products, their interaction habits, personal preferences, and the shortcuts they prefer while interacting with UI. All the insights are used to create better design solutions.
To propose their ideas to the design team, UX designers need to create wireframes and prototypes.
User experience designers are responsible for planning and preparing the technology behind the product and how the user interacts offline and online, including customer service and analytics. They work with all team members to ensure the product design is moving in the right direction.
The user interface (UI) is the visual approach of a product. UI Designers decide how to create a visually appealing design for an effective user experience. With a good UI, users can be attracted, and it ensures a pleasant product experience.
There are many elements in UI design included such as documents, text, images, videos also form, buttons, text fields, checkboxes, list, and graphic design, and more. The UI also showcases the behavior that will happen when the user clicks, drag or enter.
There are three common user interfaces.
Command-line interface, which helps people interact with computers by typing in a command. The machine responses either by using printed output or display a message on the computer. It is complex interaction because users need to know the machine language to interact with the computer.
Graphical user interface(GUI) allows users to interact with digital products through visual elements. When users interact with GUI, they see pages or screens that contain static elements (like text) and active elements (like buttons and other interactive controls). Not only do computers use GUI also mobile devices, Vr headsets, Cars, and many other machines.
With Voice-based interfaces, users can interact with the system by only using their voice and ear. Natural language processing made it possible to create AI-powered systems such as Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri.
Clarity: All elements like visual metaphors need to be crystal clear for users. Users have to understand the meaning of a particular element. There are some characteristics that well-designed UI always have:
Ui design methods
Prototyping and simulation are the primary interface design techniques. UI designers create a prototype based on the requirements they get from the brainstorming sessions and interaction specifications. The simulation validated the design decision by testing the prototype with a group of people representing a targeted audience. This is an essential part of a usability testing session.
In a usability test, the product team gives participants a prototype and a set of tasks. It helps the team to see what problems people face during their interactions.
User interface designers are responsible for the representation of information. UI designers take the user flow and wireframe (skeleton of design) created by UX designers and turn it into something aesthetic pleasing(dressing up the skeleton).
The designers need to have a good sense of technical skills and aesthetics. Required are graphic, visual, and branding design skills to create compelling interfaces with a good look and feel that get emotional responses from the user.
Good designers need to have attention to detail to perfect even the tiniest element of their solutions continually. UI designers should have good problem-solving skills and spend enough time finding a proper solution.
For UI designers, it is all about the look and feels of Branding and Graphic Development. They create User Guides and Storylines and do Customer Analysis and Design research. The designers also analyze and conduct competitive product and visual design decisions.
The responsibilities include making everything responsive to all device screen sizes, making it interactive and using animation, Implementation with the developer, and UI Prototyping.
UI is the skin and appearance of a product; it forms the personality and the brand. The goal is to connect users with products, building trust, and showcasing their brand concept. They need good communication skills because UI designers need to collaborate with other team members like developers and UX designers.
UI design and UX design always overlap. Still, there are some differences. They have a close relationship but serve different roles.
The user interface is how things look and is deliverable. But User experience is how things work, and it is a process.
UX design includes wireframing and prototyping, interaction design, and user testing. UX is about visual and interaction design. Still, both UI and UX require interaction design that guides the user’s feelings and behaviors. UX and UI complement each other. UX maker interfaces useful and helps people accomplish goals. UI makes the interfaces beautiful and creates emotional connections.
While UXdesgin appears through products interface and services, Ui only occurs through interfaces.
1. Focus
UI and UX designers have different focuses for prototyping. While most UI designers don’t believe in prototypes, UX designers care more about logic. So if you meet a customer, show them the design by the UI designer. And for programmers, take the prototype by the UX designer.
UI designers pay more attention to the interface (Front end), and UX designers focus on the back end.
2. Colors
UI Designers use full-color palettes. But UX designers generally use only three colors black, white and gray.
The differences are mostly how icons are designed and used. For example, to create a menu, UI designers will spend their energy making it as real as possible, including a button color before and after clicking. Indifference UX designer would insert the button in the right place with a note “gray after clicking.”
3. Tools
UI designers use product design tools like InVision. UX designers favor a wireframe which saves time, and designing is more efficient. One of these prototype tools would be Mockplus which is easy to operate and provides many useful functions.
UI and UX Design go hand in hand, but they are different. UX design is more analytical and about cognitive behavior and human psychology. However, UI design is more focused on visuals and if the products are aesthetically pleasing.
So if you want to be UI or UX designer, it is a good idea to learn about both areas and find out what you like more. You can find many online courses and classes to improve your UI and UX design skills.
For a company that wants to hire UI and UX designers, the job description should be separated for both roles. Often one person may seem enough because they have the skill set and methods. But if the person constantly has to switch between concept and implementation, he can miss important parts of the design.
For smaller projects, you can also hire freelancers that help you with your product design.
In the constantly evolving world of digital marketing, staying ahead of the latest trends in…
Are you ready to create a viral video that captivates your audience and boosts your…
Welcome to the world of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), a realm where every click, every…
Given the extensive information provided across various sources, crafting a compelling brand story online for…
In the digital age, content marketing has become a pivotal strategy for businesses aiming to…
Voice search technology is transforming the way consumers interact with e-commerce platforms. With the rise…