UI Design stands for User Interface Design, while UX Design refers to the term User Experience Design. Understanding how UI and UX differ can get confusing – the roles and responsibilities work closely together, and sometimes the terms are used too ambiguously to firmly understand either one.
Both designs are pivotal to a product and work very closely with each other. But despite their professional relationship, the roles themselves are quite different, referring to very different parts of the process and the design discipline. Where UX Design is a more analytical and technical field, UI Design is closer to what we refer to as graphic design, though the responsibilities are somewhat more complex.
Don Norman, Cognitive scientist, who first coined the term UX, and Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, defines how UX is different from UI this way:
“Consider a website with movie reviews. Even if the UI for finding a film is perfect, the UX will be poor for a user who wants information about a small independent release if the underlying database only contains movies from the major studios.”
In this above-mentioned example, both UX and UI are critical components for the user to enjoy the product, but a user can’t appreciate the interface of a project if the product doesn’t deliver what the user requires.
To further clarify the UI is different from UX, let us discuss it in more detail now.
What’s UX?
User experience, or UX, is the human first way of designing products. It is the process of researching, developing, and refining all aspects of a user’s interaction with a company to ensure the company is meeting the user’s needs. A UX designer must ensure people find value when they interact with a company’s products or services.
It enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty by improving the usability, ease of use, and comfort provided in the interaction between the customer and the product. User Experience Design is responsible for being hands-on with the process of research, testing, development, content, and prototyping to test for quality results
Conclusion:
- User Experience Design is the process of development and improvement of quality interaction between a user and all facets of a company.
- User Experience Design is responsible for being hands-on with the process of research, testing, development, content, and prototyping to test for quality results.
- User Experience Design is, in theory, a non-digital practice but used and defined by digital industries.
Now, what’s left for a UI designer to do?
What is UI Design?
Simply put, user interface (UI) is anything a user may interact with to use a digital product or service. This includes everything from screens and touchscreens, keyboards, sounds, and even lights
Despite it being an older and more practiced field, the question of “What is user interface design?” is difficult to answer because of its broad variety of misinterpretations. User Interface Design is a compliment, 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.
A UI designer’s responsibilities are more cosmetic than a UX designer’s – a UI designer is responsible for the presentation of a product. But that doesn’t mean a UI designer just picks some pictures and a logo and calls it a day.
A UI designer is responsible for how everything on a page aligns in relation to each other. The visual elements you see on a page, such as buttons and icons, and the interactivity of a product, falls on the UI designer
Conclusion:
- User Interface Design is responsible for the transference of a brand’s strengths and visual assets to a product’s interface to best enhance the user’s experience.
- User Interface Design is a process of visually guiding the user through a product’s interface via interactive elements and across all sizes/platforms.
- User Interface Design is a digital field, which includes responsibility for cooperation and works with developers or code.
If our industry is confused, it is our job to unconfuse it, and the more passionate professionals that step up and contribute to the definition, the better. So, what do you think? What’s the difference between UI and UX? Should they be used interchangeably or do they mean different things? Share your opinion with us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can also contact us at +1 716 393 8486, also available on WhatsApp at +91 9999 8765 94 get in touch with us via email at hello@acropolisinfotech.com. In case you wish to have a video chat, our Skype ID is ‘acropolis.infotech’
