You hear about UX and UI every single day, but do you really know what they mean? What’s the difference between them, and how can you utilize them to improve your work?
UX is an acronym for User Experience or more precisely User Experience Design. UI stands for User Interface or User Interface Design.
You’ll learn the most important aspects of UX and UI in this article. If you’re a beginner, this is the perfect place to start. For experienced designers, this will be a great overview and reminder too!
Table of Contents
Demystifying UX
UX design is not a new concept. However, it’s a developing field, especially if we consider that a lot of companies don’t know or don’t care about providing the best experience for their website visitors or customers to the fullest.
Be honest. Do you provide the best experience for people who visit your business online?
We know that is not easy. Let’s start with the basics.
When we talk about design, we usually think about colors, fonts, space, form, and graphics and the creativity that combines them perfectly.
UX design provides a smooth navigation process for the user while using your website or mobile app. You don’t want to distract users with illogical structure. Bad UX design occurs when you:
- Overuse color, so there’s no sense of homogeneity;
- Make the user click on links without serving an appropriate level of information on every click;
- Don’t have a focal point, exploiting your space with information (text, images, animations, documents) overload.
1 + 2 + 3 = problems everywhere. You want to avoid them.
The secret to good UX is understanding your user pain-points. Do the research and improve potential gaps in the information needs and the way other people serve their content. Create personas to represent your ideal user. Once you understand your user, imagine how he or she will use your website. Map the whole user journey. That’s the only way to provide a quality solution to your user’s problems.
Once UX designers receive the requirements, they use the information to perform design ideation. They plan the site’s information architecture and create wireframes. Designers refine and playtest until they produce the final design of the website or the app.
You can use heatmaps and tools like CrazyEgg to follow your user journey and see when the user bounces. You can perform A/B testing of your design with tools like Google Optimize.
If you think about it, you will see that UX is a mixture of product development, art, marketing, and project management. The requirements are challenging and require a combination of different team members’ knowledge to produce the final outcome.
Implementing the best UX practices will definitely improve user interactions. The final result will be better perceptions of your products and services which lead to conversions. That’s the power of great user experience.
What About UI?
You can conclude that UI is part of UX. UX is the result of the user interaction with your product or service. Therefore, it includes a great UI among other things, like cognitive sciences and gamification.
The real origins of UI are from the industrial era. UI owes a lot to Reymond Loewy, the father of industrial design and Steve Jobs, Apple’s inventor and great product designer and developer.
Steve Jobs said, “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think the design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. The design is how it works.”
When it comes to responsiveness and interactivity, UI is the boss in the house.
Similar to the UX process, the first phase of UI is understanding user intents, needs, and problems. The end goal is to provide a great visual solution that the user or the visitor will like, connect to, and be influenced by to make a purchasing decision. Isn’t that what you want at the end of the story?
Final Words
Creating exceptional products and experiences requires understanding and practicing both UX and UI and harnessing the power of creative intelligence.
Don’t think and calculate when creating a beautifully designed website or app. You also don’t want to make your potential member think about how to navigate your website. Ensure the user understands your visual solution and enjoys the presentation of it.
Let go of your ego and assumptions. In this data-driven world, you have a chance to know your user better, measure his orher experience, and adjust to his or her needs.
Are you adapting to the ever-changing technological landscape?
The BCUWebsite™ Services team can help you design the look and feel of the great interface you want for your website.
