What is UI UX design?

UX and UI are common terms that we get to hear when someone is talking about product design. Oftentimes, people use these terms interchangeably when both these terms are quite different from each other.

In basic terms, UI is the visual elements, screens, or pages that users interact with, about any product or service, and UX is the experience that the users have when they interact with a particular product or service.

The following topics are going to be discussed in this blog:

• What is UI UX Design?
• How are UX and UI Similar?
• What’s the Difference Between UI and UX?
• UX vs UI Design: Which Career Path is Right For You?
• UX vs UI Designer: Salary

What is UI UX Design?

UI and UX design are two different professions that have been around for decades. The elements of both UX and UI are crucial to products and work in collaboration. However, the roles of both UI and UX are quite different from each other with regard to their place in the process of product development and design.

Let us discuss both of these terms separately.

What is UI?

The term “user interface” (UI) emphasizes the interactive and visual aspects of a digital system or product that promote effective user interaction. It encompasses all the components that users interact with, including buttons, menus, icons, layout, and typography. The main objective of UI design is to create an attractive and intuitive interface that improves usability and delivers a smooth user experience.

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Characteristics of a Well-designed UI

All good UIs have the following characteristics:

• Clarity: All elements of the UI and their meaning should be clear to the users. They should not have to spend time deciphering what something does.
• Familiarity: The UI should feel familiar to the users. It should let them use their previous UI experience when they interact with the product.
• Consistency: The UI should be consistent throughout the product. This allows the users to recognize usage patterns.
• Ability to Forego: The UI should excuse the users for their mistakes or miscalculated moves.
• Efficiency: The UI should require minimum input from the users to produce the desired output.

What is UX?

Now, let’s talk about UX. What a user experiences while interacting with a product is called User Experience or UX. UX design focuses on making easy-to-use products with a simpler learning curve and uncomplicated conceptualization. The goal of UX is to make a design that is user-centered.

Key Elements of UX Design

User Persona: UX design cannot be started without conducting user research. Understanding the target audience and identifying its needs is a crucial part of the UX design process. Once the UX designers gather all this information, they can create user personas. These help designers understand the users’ goals, limitations, and desires. With this information, the designers can deliver targeted solutions for the users.

User Journey: All the emotions that the users experience while interacting with a product, highly impact how they feel about the product. UX design gains a lot of importance from the user journey. UX design is deeply focused on user journeys to help solve user problems. Design is probably the most important element to help improve the user journey.

Good UX Design: Aaron Walter, the celebrated author on design, has come up with a visual pyramid of user needs. This pyramid is followed by UX professionals to make design decisions. Just like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs depicts the five tiers of human needs that motivate an individual’s behavior, the visual pyramid of user needs depicts four tiers of user needs from a UX design. If UX designers follow this pyramid, they can come up with great UX designs.

How are UI and UX Similar?

UX and UI are two related principles of design even though they are different from each other. The following are some of the similarities between the two:

Design Thinking

Both UX and UI are focused on design. They follow UI UX principles to come up with the most user-friendly user design possible.

Aware of User Needs

While UX is based on the user journey, UI is based on making easy navigation possible for the users. Both UX and UI have to be aware of the user’s needs to be able to do that.

The goal of Delivering a Product That Delights the Users

UX and UI have the same goal, to make sure the users are happy with the product.

What’s the Difference Between UI and UX?

UI and UX are two of the most confusing terms in the field. You can’t have UI without UX or UX without UI, but you don’t need to know UX design to become a UI designer and vice versa. Let us now take a look at the main differences between UI and UX:

• UX design is focused on figuring out solutions for user problems, while UI design is focused on coming up with interactive, aesthetic, and intuitive interfaces.
• UX design gets the ball rolling in the process of product development, and UI follows right after.
• UX designers are responsible for mapping out the user journey, which is then filled with interactive and visual elements by UI designers.
• UX is applied to any kind of product, while UI is only applied to digital products.

UI vs UX Design: Which Career Path is Right For You?

UI and UX designs work together for the most part, but you don’t have to do both. So, how do you decide which career path to choose—UI or UX? To help you decide, let us talk about the important skills required of UI and UX designers.

Soft Skills

Hard Skills

What Does a UI Designer Do?

UI designers are visual people, they focus on designing the look and feel of the product, as well as its responsiveness and interactivity. Let us take a brief look at what all UI designers do in these areas:

Look and Feel of the Product:

• User guides and storylines
• Design research
• Customer analysis
• Branding and graphic development

Responsiveness and Interactivity

• Animation and interactivity
• Implementation with the developer
• Adaptation to different screen sizes
• UI prototyping

UI designers contribute largely to customers trusting a brand. UI designers also have to make sure that the interface is well-implemented.

What Does a UX Designer Do?

UX designers have to understand what the users need. Let us take a brief look at what UX designers are required to do:

Strategy and Content

• Competition analysis
• User research and customer analysis
• Product structure and strategy
• Content development

Wireframing and Prototyping

• Wireframing
• Prototyping
• Iteration and testing
• Development planning

Execution and Analytics

• Coordination with UI designer(s)
• Coordination with the developer(s)
• Tracking goals and integration
• Analysis and iteration

UX designers often have to take on the role of a designer, marketer, and project manager. The kind of work UX designers do largely depends on the organization that they are working in.

UX vs UI Designer—Salary

The following are certain factors that affect the salaries of UX and UI designers:

• Location
• Experience
• Industry
• Product Type

There isn’t much difference in the salaries of UX and UI designers across different organizations. Although, there are better opportunities for UI designers in the tech industry.

Let us take a look at the average UI/UX designer salary annually in India and the US (according to Payscale):

Conclusion

If UI and UX design seem like interesting career choices but you’re unsure about which career path you want to choose, you’ll need to explore the UI UX course that matches your interest. Both UX and UI involve creativity and collaboration. We’ve already discussed their similarities and differences. We hope that helps you in making your decision.