We’ve heard people ask, “How are UI and UX different from each other"?

UI design and UX design have grown in demand tremendously in the last decade. However, even today, they are often quoted together which creates confusion about the uniqueness in their role, what they do, who is responsible for them, how they are done, etc. Well, it’s safe to say that the new era of design is here and so it’s time to get a solid understanding. Let’s begin by breaking down the concepts with the help of simple everyday examples.

Eg.1: Have you ever come across any website or app where the navigation was confusing or even identifying what option to select to complete a task? If yes, that is the job of a UX designer. To enhance the experience without the user going through a stressful journey. To make it simple for you and to help identify what you are looking for and to guide you to the solution.

Eg.2: Ever came across any website that you just couldn’t stand because it was so crowded and boring. You simply didn’t want to be on that website? To make it aesthetically pleasing is what a UI designer does. To create the look & feel and enable interaction is their job.

Simply said, improving the process by making it smoother and easier to use to reach the end result is UX design while creating an interaction between the app and the user, balancing the visuals and texts is UI design. User Interface is the tangible outcome of any User Experience initiative. Hence they both work hand in hand. UX designer decides how the user interface works while the UI designer decides how the user interface looks. We will discuss the specific differences between both their roles during the course of this blog.

Difference between UX and UI
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Goals

To break it down into simple words, UX is defining how a person will feel when he/she uses a service. It’s about defining the order in which a user would interact with the digital product in and what information would he/she discover in the process.

Hence a UX designer’s goals are to make navigation easy for first time visitors and to define an intuitive process in order to use the online platform. A UX designer focuses on engaging with users, while balancing the goals between the user and the business.

UI design on the other hand, is about creating visual elements to weave the overall interaction taking place between the online platform and the user. UI designers are graphic designers. They’re concerned with aesthetics. Their main goal is to make sure the application’s interface is attractive, visually-stimulating and themed appropriately to match the purpose of the product. And they need to make sure every single visual element feels united, both aesthetically, and in purpose.

Field of work

UX design is a versatile field to work in as the requirement for it varies from a Product to Interface to Service design field, be it digital or physical. Since it involves thorough research and making the entire user journey easy for usage - it is user friendly.

On the other hand, UI works as a book cover look of the (entire manual or user experience journey). UI design is for digital purpose and can’t be taken away from it.

UI Designer at work
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Colours

UX designers prefer making prototypes in B/W to show the practicality of the service instead of waiting till every detail is fixed. Prototyping in B/W helps highlight hierarchy and visual weight balance. UX designers want clients to focus on it’s logic, usability and flow instead of getting caught up in discussion of choice of colors and fonts used. It’s better to have a “What colour would work for this button?” question rather than “Why have you chosen green for this button?” Furthermore, UX designers do not want users to get distracted from the design solution, while testing it with the users.

On the other hand, UI designers’ core job is to impart brand personality to the prototypes. Using correct colours enhances legibility to a great extent. Directs users’ eyes to focus on a particular option (guides users’ eyes on what to focus on) and helps in navigation. Users often take desired actions and convert faster when they are faced with a neat, clean and elegant online platform.

Process

UX process is inclusive of ‘Thinking’, ‘Making’ and ‘Analysing’ on solving the problem of the project. UX process is an amalgamation of intense research and documentation and creating engaging interfaces. Mostly backed by user insights. This process starts at the beginning of the project and goes on till the project is ready for launch.

Since UI design is a part of UX design in itself, UI designers follow a similar process of ‘Thinking’, ‘Making’ and ‘Analysing’ based on the look and feel of the interface. It is largely based on creative thinking and developing solutions in computerized devices.

Deliverables

In UX design process, the professionals need to research findings and communicate design ideas. Some deliverables are agreed upon before beginning the project while other are created as and when ideas are needed to be communicated to understand. Some of the deliverables are:

• User research
• Competitor analysis
• Interviews
• User persona
• Information architecture
• Wireframing
• Testing
• Validation

Whereas UI deliverables are linked with defining the visual output which means research on visuals, defining brand personality, designing mockups and interaction design. Any sort of visual element, interaction, or animation must all be designed. Some of the deliverables are:

• Research
• Moodboard
• Colour scheme
• Style guide
• Prototyping
• Visual Design
• Validation

Difference between UX and UI
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Conclusion

The last decade has seen a major growth of UX and UI as a discipline. Furthermore, the future is promising with the involvement of AI and VR bringing in fresh concepts to keep the users more and more engaged. However, we can see that no online platform can do well if only it’s visual elements are good but not it’s usage, and vice-versa.

It can be concluded by saying that UX is the whole ecosystem while UI is a part of it, and differentiating between them could result in a flaw in the product. However when both UX and UI teams work alongside in a culture of constant communication and collaboration, one can be assured that the final user interface looks as good as it can, while also operating efficiently and intuitively.

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