UI and UX Design. How Are They Different & Why Should You Bother?

UI/UX design. Do you have any difficulty in believing that they are different? They are so coupled together that it’s tough to treat them as two separate disciplines. And the beauty is that both UI and UX design work harmoniously to produce the best results.

Let’s straight away dive into the basic difference between UI design and UX design. After reading this, you will thank us for educating you on the importance of knowing the difference.

UI/UX Design – Fundamental Differences

UX stands for User Experience, and UI stands for User Interface and that’s the basic difference between these two terms. UI designers and UX designers belong to two different professions and definitely, a single person can be both as well.  

UX Design – Ensures functionality

“User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” – Don Norman, Cognitive Scientist & User Experience Architect who coined the term User Experience.

UX design is all about the complete experience that the user who interacts with the product or service gets. UX applies to both digital and physical products. This means that UX is present when a person holds a product in his hand and how he feels it. It is also present and applicable from the time a buyer logs in to an online shopping platform till he checks out.

Both users undergo different experiences, but both of these come under the realm of UX design. In other words, UX designers are responsible for making users’ interaction with services or products enjoyable and worthwhile.

UI Design – Ensures the look

“UX is focused on the user’s journey to solve a problem; UI is focused on how a product’s surfaces look and function.” — Ken Norton, Partner at Google Ventures, Ex-Product Manager at Google

UI design pops up whenever you refer to UX design. That is because they are quite inseparable and dependent on each other. To have a user experience, users need to interact with some elements that offer them a specific experience. Those interactive elements are called User Interface or UI and it focuses on visual touchpoints.

In other words, UI design encompasses all the essential components that make user interaction with a product/service possible. When you refer to the above quote by Ken Norton, you can lucidly understand that UI pertains to the actual interface of a product and it deals with how these interface elements (visual & interactive elements) look.

So, here’s how we can boil down the difference between UI Design and UX Design: UI is all about designing interfaces that users find easy to use and delightful. Whereas, UX is bothered about how effectively these UI elements function to make the buyer solve a problem.

Also, keep in mind that these two disciplines of UI and UX design are centered on a human-first approach. Here is a resource that depicts the need to humanize design beautifully. 

UX Designer and UI Designer. What do they do?

After being informed about the difference between the UI and UX in UI/UX design, don’t you think it’s beneficial to know the job responsibilities of a UI designer and UX designer?

As you might have observed, these professionals are generally known as UI/UX designers. As mentioned at the beginning of the blog post, they perform clearly defined duties that are distinct from each other.

The basic responsibility of a UX designer is to define the structure and functionality of the interface. He ensures that the interface works so smoothly that it gives an organized feel to the user making him go through a seamless experience. A smart UX designer will be adamant about making the UI as intuitive and straightforward as possible to avoid users going through any stupid user experience.

The basic responsibility of a UI designer is to build interfaces in software or computerized devices. He gives his focus on making the UI amazing in terms of look and style. For example: how do the screens look as a user navigates through a mobile app/website/video game, how the buttons click or scroll bars move, how’s the overall visual experience as the user traverses through different touchpoints. He will ensure the visual appeal of the product by including beautiful typography and soothing color palettes, vibrant animations, and other navigational touchpoints.

Are you wondering if you could choose UI and UX design as your career? You will get help from this blog that describes some fabulous tips to start your career as a UX/UX designer. 

UI and UX design should coexist to avoid disasters!

Yes. You read it right. Lack of harmony or coexistence between the UI design and UX design can lead to product failures that can be real catastrophes!

Imagine a situation wherein a UX designer does smart research on the prospective users for your amazing digital product idea. He lists out the essential features by mapping out the whole user journey. And you are happy that the product is finally on the app store. But you are surprised by the negative reviews regarding unintelligible text fonts and sizes, closely-placed buttons that make clicking on a particular one simply impossible, etc. This is a typical scenario of a bad UI killing an amazing idea by failing to offer a good UX.

There can be an inverse scenario as well wherein you get awestruck by an appealing website or mobile app. But, later you find to your disappointment, how dreadful the thing is when it comes to real use. Incredible animations and marvelous color palettes can’t compensate for a corrupt UX.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that UX and UI design are not the same, yet at the same time they complement each other. Their harmonious collaboration is crucial for a fantastic end product. 

Now, it goes without saying that hiring expert UI/UX designers is crucial to have a successful website, webapp or a mobile app. Approaching an experienced UI UX design company can help you in avoiding disastrous product launches.