The concepts of UX and UI are about 70 years old, but some designers still confuse them. Let us explain what these abbreviations mean and who the UX/UI designer is.
What is UX Design
UX literally means “user experience.” In a broader sense, this notion includes all the experience a user obtains when interacting with your website or mobile app. UX design is responsible for the functionality, adaptability of the product, and what emotions it evokes in the users. The simpler your interface is, the easier it is for the users to obtain the result they expected. Overall, UX design is the design of an interface based on a study of user experience and behavior.
One of the bright examples of the work of UX designers is Apple’s first personal computer, the Macintosh. The idea of using windows instead of the command line existed until 1984, but it was Apple engineers and designers who made the graphical interface available for everyone. Another good example is the Opera browser’s interface, which also includes Opera VPN. So the users don’t need to install some third-party applications to make their Internet surfing safer.
Some designers believe that UX is only about visiting the website or using the app. In fact, the experience of the user is not limited to these simple actions. For instance, if a customer buys something via a particular online store, but doesn’t receive a confirmation message or a call from a manager, these are the symptoms of poor UX. If the user made an order without obstacles, paid for the service, or bought the goods, it is positive UX.
In other words, UX is the experience that the customer gets from working with the interface. User experience depends on various components: site architecture, graphic design, understandable content, and responsiveness of the interface to specific user’s actions. Since users’ impressions are quite abstract, user experience design agency has to study their habits precisely, develop prototypes of behavior, and carry out tests for its detection. UX-designer does all this work.
UX-designer studies the users’ needs, create logical diagrams of the interface operation, tests prototypes on the target audience, and draws up a technical assignment for the UI-designer. It is a marketing engineer who explores users’ requirements and expectations. And based on the study, he or she develops the most effective design prototype.
What is UI Design
UI stands for “user interface.” It can be not only graphic but also tactile, voice, audio. We will consider only the graphical interface, as the designers mainly work with it.
The UI design is a visualization process that has been developed based on user experience and target audience study. UI design includes processing the visual component of the interface: animation, illustrations, buttons, menus, slides, photos, and fonts. The UI designer determines the color palette and location of the objects. Generally, UI designer collects all the elements into a harmoniously working layout.
The UI designer is responsible for how the product interface looks and how the user interacts with its elements. For this purpose, it is necessary to organize the interface elements properly and to stick to the uniform style and logic of their interaction. The main task of the UI designer is to help the user quickly and without stress understand how to use your product: website, application, program, payment system, microwave, or console To do this, the UI designer ensures that the interface meets the primary requirements.
What is the Difference Between UX and UI
The difference between UX and UI is that the UX designer plans how the users will interact with the interface. He or she somewhat plan what steps they need to take to achieve the goal. In turn, the UI designer elaborates on these particular steps and the path to the target in general. UX and UI are closely related notions. Sometimes the line between concepts is blurred. Therefore, interface design is usually performed by one designer.
