IS UX/UI DESIGN ONE AND THE SAME OR ARE THEY DIFFERENT?

Introduction

There is no doubt about how technology has made our lives simpler. Great technical advances in the 21st century have made everyone want to experience faster and efficient technology without spending much time and tiring our minds. This applies to innumerable mobile and web applications that we use daily for making payments, ordering something online, entertainment, etc. If a web or mobile application responds quickly and efficiently, it is bound to be a success. Hence, in today’s world, a consumer is the king of the market. That is why most technology firms resort to the applications’ User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) design with regards to mobile application or website user satisfaction. The primary goal of any business is to increase its sales which eventually grows business. UX and UI design play a key role in accomplishing this goal. The UX and UI design of an application can lead to an increased number of users of a specific application by enhancing user experience and customer satisfaction. However, most of the time people outside and inside of the tech industry confuse between the terms UI and UX and also use it interchangeably. So, here we will be decoding the concept of UX and UI design!

UX (User Experience)

“User Experience”, often abbreviated “UX”, is the quality of experience a person has when interacting with a specific design. This term has been popularly used in human-computer interactions but applies to any human design interaction, ranging from a digital device, to cars, to a sales process, to almost everything. The term “User Experience” was first coined by Don Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group Design Consultancy in his book titled “The Design of Everyday Things” in the late 90s. He describes it as “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.

Here, “user experience” refers to the interaction between the user and the product/service. The goal of user experience design is to create an easy, effective, suitable and an all together pleasant experience for the users. It is about understanding how the experience makes the user feel, does it help the user in accomplishing his/her desired tasks and also whether it enhances the productivity of the user. Everyday life examples include how easy it is to operate the coffee machine, does the banking application make it easier for you to carry out transactions, etc.

UI (User Interface)

In the field of human-machine interaction, a “user interface” (UI) is defined as the space in which interactions between a human and a machine occur. User interface design deals with the look and feel, interactivity and presentation of the product/service.

The goal of UI design is to produce a user interface that makes it easy, efficient and user friendly to operate a machine that produces the desired results. UI design involves careful consideration of every visual, interactive element the user might encounter as well as the accessibility of the interface. A UI designer will think about the input controls such as text fields, drop-down lists, buttons, navigational components such as sliders, search fields, typography, informational controls such as tool-tips, notifications; color schemes, spacing, imagery, responsive design, animations and much more.

How is UX different from UI?

UX design is all about the overall feel of the experience, while UI design is all about how the product’s interfaces look and function. A UX designer will conduct research and will develop wireframes and task flows based on user needs. Now, wireframe is nothing  but a blueprint of your website or application, providing a basic structural guideline. Task flows, on the other hand, depict how a user travels through the system to perform a specific task. A UX designer will also create user personas. User personas are nothing but fictional characters created to represent user types of your target customers. 

Coming to UI design, it serves as an icing on top of the UX cake, i.e after the basic structure (UX design) is developed, the UI design adds life to it by filling it with visual and interactive elements. UI design is not all about looks. UI designers need to ensure if their product is accessible to all with visual hierarchy, ensuring the right color combinations to create contrast and increase readability, positioning of the UI elements, flexibility as well as accessibility  in design.

The Bottom Line

To sum up, both UX design and UI design work hand in hand. Both are essential. Having a fantastic UI that is not easy to use is an example of a good UI design but a poor UX design. Similarly, having something which is simpler to use or which makes tasks easily accomplishable but looks terrible is an example of a good UX design but a bad UI design. In today’s competitive business environment, it is vital to have both these aspects incorporated within product design as it would lead to better customer engagement which eventually brings in revenue and greater success. 

 

Thanks for reading till the end!

Happy Learning!

Author : Salome Palani