In this latest IT era, the way we represent our data is the most critical aspect for building the best and revolutionary products. The product design enables you to understand what a software product looks like and empower software end-users and developers to know how it works. Therefore, software design must include both simplicity and functionality. This is where UI/UX design comes into the designing world.
Simply put, “UI” in UI design stands for “User Interface,” which means how things appear to users; on the other side, “UX” stands for “user experience,” which means how things function or operate. In addition to this, UI is what we deliver, while UX is a process.
Read on to explore more on UI vs. UX and gain a better understanding of how they are closely related and differ from each other.
What is UI design?
The user interface can be defined as the graphics of an application. This graphical layout comprises buttons that the user clicks on, reads the text, and images, sliders, text boxes, and other elements that the user interacts with. It consists of screen layouts, transitions, interface animations, and micro-interactions that need to be designed appropriately.
This layout designing task falls under the work horizons of UI designers. They decide how the application will look like and then design it accordingly. UI designers need to choose the color pattern and shape of the buttons, the line’s width, and the text font. They are responsible for crafting beautiful and functional interface of the applications. The designers further aim to create fantastic and stunning designs to find applications easy-to-use and visually pleasing.
UI designers are responsible for ensuring that the application interface is attractive, visually engaging, and designed perfectly to match the users’ needs. And they must make sure that every visual element is aligned and arranged appropriately.
Things that need to be considered while designing the UI:
- Text fonts
- Styles of images and icons
- Color patterns
- The most important things should be highlighted.
- Differentiate things you want the user to access and things that can be obtained automatically
- Altering text with images and icons
- Background textures
What is UX Design?
An application’s user experience depends on how the user interacts with it. The experience determines it – is it smooth and intuitive or complicated and confusing?
Do users feel the transition from one screen to another screen-friendly to be accessed or complicated? Does interaction with the application make users think that they are effectively fulfilling a task, or does it feel like a struggle?
The user experience is determined by how easy or difficult it is for the users to handle the application and interact with user interface elements that have been set out by the UI designers.
In regards to this, UX designers also emphasize the application user interface. And, this is why people are confused about the difference between UI and UX. While the UI designers have to decide what the UI would look like, the UX designers are responsible for determining how the UX works.
The UX designers manage the structure of the interface and functionality, how the elements are organized, and how all the parts are interconnected. In a nutshell, they design how the interface will operate. If the application works well and smoothly without any halt, the user will have a good experience. However, if navigation is complicated, the flow of the application will not be smooth. It might lead to a bad user experience. UX Designers work to achieve better user experiences and ensure that users can easily interact with an application.
Things need to be considered while designing the UX:
- Detailed information to be displayed on a particular screen. For instance, your specific information can be the display picture, name, email, telephone, etc., for the profile screen.
- It is essential to place each text and button correctly.
- The entire flow of the application.
- End user’s journey. For example, you want the user to perform from signup to the last event.
To define clearly the main difference between the two, Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen, the founders of Nielsen Norman Group, combined it well when they stated that it is crucial to differentiate the entire user experience from the user interface (UI), even though the user interface is an essential part of the design. For instance, consider a website for movie reviews. Although the user interface for searching for a movie is perfect, the UX might be bad or worse for the users who need information on a small independent version if the database only consists of movies from the large studios.
User Interface vs. User Experience
The User Experience Design is a multi-level strategic design process that aims to create easy-to-use and easy-to-understand products or websites that attract customers/users. And through the UX design process, we can come up with the right UI solutions.
The User Interface designers provide the final visual layout of any particular web page or application screen where the developer produces the final product.
Regardless of the technology, screen, space, or environment, the UI designer will continue to focus on making user interaction and human and machine experiences as delightful as possible.
Conclusion
It is obvious that UI and UX are both different concepts, but they are often used interchangeably. The user interface designer makes the usage of the application easy and intuitive for the users and works in an area where users can interact directly with the product or the service.
There is no denying the fact that everyone has a different perception and understanding of things. Think of it as if one layout or a part of the user interface is damaged, the user will feel that the final product is not up to the standards of his/her expectations.
In short, both UI and UX designs need to be flawlessly designed and perfectly aligned, keeping the end-users’ requirements in mind to provide excellent user interface/experiences.
Are you in search of creative UX and UI designers to craft meaningful and delightful user experiences for high revenue & sales? Propel Guru is here to help. We offer top-notch UI/UX Designing Services that ensure that the projects we deliver are an amalgamation of creativity and innovation.
Ekata Singh
Graphic Designing Specialist
Experienced designer with a demonstrated history of working in the health care, banking and insurance, and architecture & design industry. Specialized in facilitating an iterative design process that pivots easily between physical and digital environments and integrates emerging technologies.
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