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We’ve all overheard talks about a product’s outstanding ‘UX’ or a website’s poor ‘UI’ while walking through the streets of the world’s IT capitals. Is it a secret you’ll never be able to decode? Is it merely for the sake of seeming cool that these folks use slang?

Okay, maybe YES to the latter, but a resounding NO to the others. You’ve come to the correct site if you’re curious about what UX and UI mean and how they vary. Here’s a rundown of everything we’ll be talking about in this post. Continue reading to find out what the terms UX and UI represent, which of the two design fields pays more, and how to become a UX or UI designer.

What do UX and UI actually mean?

The people you heard are discussing two professions that have been named UX and UI design by the tech industry, despite the fact that they have existed for decades and in theory for centuries.

User experience design is referred to as UX design, whereas user interface design is referred to as UI design. Both elements are critical to a product’s success and work in combination. However, despite their professional link, their jobs are highly diverse, relating to very different areas of the product development process and the design discipline.

Before we look at the major differences between UI and UX, it’s important to understand what each term means. Let’s now define these.

What Is UI Design?

The graphical layout of a website or application, which includes buttons, screen layout, animations, transitions, micro-interactions, and so on, is referred to as a UI (User Interface). In a nutshell, the user interface refers to how things look.

The following formats are used in UI design:

1. Graphical User Interface (GUI): The way users interact with a system’s graphics and digital control panels are called GUI design. The desktop of a computer is an example of a GUI.
2. Voice-controlled Interface (VUI): VUI design involves voice interaction between a user and a system. VUIs include smart assistants such as Bixby for Samsung mobile devices and Siri for iPhones.
3. Gesture-based Interface: This is most commonly utilized in virtual reality (VR) and other gesture-based design situations, including user participation in 3D worlds.

What Is UX Design?

The way users interact with a system is called UX (User Experience) design. UX design involves logical navigation and how fluid and intuitive the experience is. In a nutshell, this type of design assists users in having a good experience.

Here are the basic steps to get a feel of the UX process:

1. Interaction Design: It’s about how users can utilize a system’s interactive components to execute things quickly and easily (page transitions, animations, buttons, and so on).
2. User Research: Conducting a comprehensive study, collecting ideas and feedback from new and existing users, understanding end-user demands, and making design decisions based on these factors are all part of user research.
3. Information Architecture: The structuring of information and content that users require to complete their tasks is known as information architecture. This necessitates a UX designer’s understanding of the relationships between various sets of content and their presentation in the most understandable manner possible.

What Are the Main Differences Between UI and UX Design?

User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) Design are sometimes used interchangeably. While all design techniques contribute to the final product, the process of creating UI and UX is vastly different. The majority of UX design is concerned with the user’s whole journey to solve an issue. On the other hand, UI design is concerned with how the product appears and feels once the problem has been solved.

The following are the fundamental differences between UX/UI design:

• Main focus: UI designers are primarily concerned with the eventual product’s quality and appearance, and they employ hi-fi models as prototypes. UX designers are more concerned with the ultimate product’s purpose and functionality than logic.
  
  Furthermore, UI designers are more concerned with the technical aspects of product design, whereas UX designers are more concerned with project management and analysis.
• Color Scheme: UX designers create prototypes in black, white, or grey, whereas UI designers create prototypes in full color.
• Tools: For collaborative graphic design, UI designers utilize technologies like Sketch, Flinto, Principle, and InVision. Mockplus, a wireframe-based prototype tool, is used by UX designers.
• Component of the Arts: Because it is tied to what the end-user sees, hears, and feels, UI designers must integrate an artistic component in their design. Because it is necessary to understand what a user wants to experience in the final product, UX design includes a stronger social component.

What Are The Responsibilities Of UI/UX Designers?

You should develop the following skills/responsibilities if you want to become a successful UI designer:

1. Working in dynamic groups.
2. Making user flows, wireframes, and prototypes, among other things.
3. Tools for visualizing data include InVision, Sketch, Photoshop, Figma, etc.
4. Working in HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, some frontend languages.
5. From conception through final hand-off, executing visual design stages.
6. Designing and implementing creative visual concepts for products in collaboration with UX designers, developers, QA, and product managers.
7. Using design to communicate the company’s branding and style to users.
8. Using customer insight and research to create the product’s appearance and feel.
9. Managing a product’s responsiveness, interaction, and animation while ensuring that it is adaptable to all screen sizes.

If you want to become a successful UX designer, you should work on the following skills and responsibilities:

1. Working in dynamic groups
2. A thorough grasp of the user experience design process.
3. Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch, InVision, Axure, and other prototyping software
4. Curiosity for everything relating to design, people, life, technology, and problem-solving skills.
5. Client contact and stakeholder management.
6. Creating Process flows, wireframes, sitemaps, prototypes, and UX deliverables.
7. Iterating designs with developers, product managers, UI designers, external stakeholders, and QA Engineers depending on market dynamics, user input, and technical restrictions.
8. Customer demands, competition, product structure, and strategy are all factors to consider while developing a product’s experience.
9. Developing consistent design and interaction tactics across mobile, online, desktop, and other hardware platforms.

What Are the Drawbacks of a Combined UI/UX Role?

It’s almost like wearing two hats at once when you have a combined UI/UX role.

UI and UX designers have different skills, even though most companies advertise a UI/UX role as a single, unified role. Their primary focus, method of thinking, and approach to developing a product are all very different.

A combined UI/UX position requires continual switching between conception and visualization, which can be challenging and minimize the amount of attention required by each discipline.

How Do UI and UX Designers Work Collaboratively?

While UI and UX design demand quite distinct skill sets, they are critical components that must work together to provide the optimal user experience.

Without a proper UX design, a beautiful UI design may become clumsy and complicated to navigate. On the other hand, a product’s user experience might be excellent, but it isn’t very helpful without an attractive user interface.

Understanding the user’s demands should be the first step in any frontend development and design process. To understand what the end product should be able to accomplish, how it should feel, and how it should appear, UX and UI designers should collaborate with other developers, managers, and product owners.

Because they must design the flow of activities when a user has to address an issue, UX designers are usually involved in the early stages of a product design. This entails both analytic and project management tasks.

A UI designer next builds on the aesthetics and interactions supplied by the UX designer using the models provided.

Given this, it’s fair to think that UX and UI are intimately connected. While the same individual can do both tasks, one design concept cannot exist without the other.

Conclusion

Understanding what people desire is essential for user interface and user experience design.

Front-end development and design do not have to be difficult once you have this understanding; many ready-made components, tools, and kits may make design easier and more successful.