Common in the technological design of websites and apps are two crucial elements, UI and UX. They are often misused to mean the same thing. UI and UX define separate aspects of web and app designing while aiming to achieve overall customer satisfaction for the product and service. This end goal, coupled with the fact, you can't have one without the other, is probably why people often bungle up their core meanings, setting down confusing definitions, some of which might alarm you.
So what is UI and UX, and what do they mean to the designing world? Let's get into the definition of UI and UX.
User Interface refers to the graphical layout of an application. That is the physical appearance of the app and all visual elements which the user can interact with. This includes icons, and buttons users click on while navigating through the app, text entry fields where they input personal information, all the images users see and can download, screen layout, sliders, check-boxes, labels, drop-down lists, even animation. All the ingredients that make up the sweet soup that UI designers have concocted to serve the user.
One of the most significant innovations in computer science was witnessed in the launching of the first Graphical User Interface (GUI) to replace the command line interface. As a result of this, line coding was no longer necessary for using a computer. There were now buttons, icons, and the menu bar, and interaction was more visual and done by submitting commands. This set the stage for the first commercially successful home computer to use the GUI. Interface designing began all to have the user in mind.
User experience (UX), on the other hand, refers to the subjective experience a user goes through using user interface tools, and the processes contained in the app which direct a user through to their goal. Web and app design has a great deal to do with functionality as it does graphical layouts and color schemes. For this reason, UX designs aim to create a smooth and enjoyable experience for users. Designers know the best UX designs are uncluttered and straightforward, to deliver a pain-free experience all-round to the end-user.
UX design is all about comprehensive user experience in designing a website. For instance, UI designs have to make sure that it is giving customers the satisfaction they deserve over the product or service. The central idea, when doing so, is to have a user-friendly website. The content must be in line with what the target audience is expecting from the product or service. The delivery of the user-centered website content is so crucial. Hence you have to make sure that your UX/UI design programs are clear and able to deliver the expectations. Otherwise, you'll just be wasting your investment. So, the main requirements are creativity and proper analysis of research-based facts and information when you're planning to build a website or app.
It is essential because they are the end-users and ultimate buyers. Because also their money is good. Having said this, a poor UI and especially UX designs will lead to angry and dissatisfied customers. An unhappy or frustrated customer can mean immediate anguish towards the product brand. When this feeling meets up with 'word of mouth' advertising, one of advertising's earliest methods, and word gets about, it will cause further sales and promotions mayhem for the product brand. UX Designers become even more aware of their role in avoiding this and keeping the customers happy.
Customer feedback is another useful aid for UI and UX designing, which designers can use to improve user's experience and thereby achieve even better and more commercially impacting designs.
Despite their combined usefulness in web and app development, UI and UX designs are different for the following reasons.
| Key Point | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Coverage | UI and UX designs cover different aspects of designing where one covers the tangible elements of designing; the other covers the conceptual parts. This is a fundamental point of difference between UI and UX. While UI is encompassing all the graphical elements of a product or service which a user can interact with, UX involves the experience which the user takes away from interacting with the product or service. |
| Goals | UI and UX designs try to achieve two very vital objectives for the product or service. While UI designs focus on the face and appeal of the website and app, UX design focus on the user’s need to solve a problem and what they go through solving it. |
| Cognitive Use | We understand that one design is a digital practice while the other is not. UI is a useful digital practice. It is considered the point of interaction between the end-user and a digital product. UX, however, is a non-digital practice that doesn’t include any form of visual interactivity at all. |
| Order of Relevance | In product designing, UX designs are considered first. UX designers begin the creative process with massive consideration for the end user’s needs, taking note of key features that can better overall user experience. They lay down the developmental skeleton for the eventual framework. Here’s where UI designers come in. They take these framework reports seriously and with it develop creative graphics and all the other visually captivating elements necessary for user interfacing. |
| Research Importance | Research in designing helps provide designers with useful information that can guide them about their work. We mentioned earlier how customer feedback could be beneficial. It avails information. Despite so, UI and UX designers have very different reasons for researching. Whereas UI designers search for information that can help them decide on the visual language of the project, UX designers concentrate on finding information to explain the ultimate experience of the end-user. |
| Application | While UI designs are specific to only digital products and experiences, UX has a broader application that has nothing whatsoever to do with visualization to cover any kind of product, service, or experience. |
| Core Role | UI delivers on the ideal look and feel of a product, its responsiveness interactivity. UI designers have the core responsibility to conduct design research, branding, graphic development, customer analysis, and user guide. UX designers work on the project’s strategy and content. Their role includes product iteration as it connects to UX wireframing and prototyping, in testing and analysis. |
| Preferred Colours and Tools | UI designs usually carry very realistic shapes and sizes, and in full color, while UX designs come in three colors only- black, white and grey. Similarly, the tools they use are different. Since UI designers concentrate on looks, sketch tools have an advantage come preferred. UX designers take a preference for wireframe tools. |
To maintain a one-sided view over this situation will be to downplay the importance of one over the other, which is not practical. In our understanding, both go deeply together. There are lousy UI designs as there are bad UX designs. This reiterates that some individuals are more creative and passionate than others, and that number is few. The industry rewards this passion the same way, even if UX designing begins before UI designing and continues well after it. Designers earn about the same. For those companies who have been able to separate these two often joined positions, they might pay the UX designer slightly more. This isn't to mean they are more important.
UI and UX are essential elements of digital product designing. They are very different and shouldn't ever be used as the same. Despite so, they are always closeby and work hand-in-hand together. UX design comes first in the production chain and often returns after the cosmetics of the UI design of the product or website is complete. This is one point of difference. They also cover different areas and have different goals. Their research importance helps provide designers with useful information that can guide them about their work. Customer feedback is one way by which this can happen.
