The Difference Between UI and UX Design

Nowadays, we often hear the term UI and UX design. Yet, do you know what UI and UX are? Why are there two terms, UI and UX? Is UI a part of UX, or are both two different things?

UI and UX design terms started to appear since startup companies began to exist. UI and UX  are needed in order to develop product design on a website or application.

Both indeed have the same function; however, they differ from web developers. UI and UX design don’t require any coding skills.

Are you interested in UI and UX? Do you want to know the difference? Gear up for the explanation below!

What are UI and UX?

UI, or User Interface, is everything that can be viewed by users when using or visiting an application or website. UI aims to make it easier for users to use an application; however, many UI designers focus too much on designing interestingly rather than paying attention to comfort and simplicity for users, so avoid doing this.

Meanwhile, UX, or User Experience focuses more on research and the user’s experience of a product or service. This makes UX designers responsible for creating an easy yet eye-catching application for users.

By definition, UI and UX Design are different. However, both are correlated to each other. The easier way to understand the difference is by analyzing this simple analogy below:

“UI Design is like a home display, meanwhile UX Design is like the comfort and functionality of it.”

House has two aspects we can enjoy: the display and the physical appearance. It involves every aspect, starting from the wall colors and furniture layouts to door and window’s designs.

Besides that, that is how an individual feels and connects with the house when they live in it. It includes all aspects such as comfort, functionality, layout, and lighting in every part of the house.

So, if UI design is about how the house looks, UX design is more about how the house feels. Both are essential to creating a good and functional house.

Goals and Tasks of UI Designer

The main objective of UI is to create an easy, interesting, and aesthetic interface for users. Good UI designers pay attention to aspects such as consistency, clarity, and navigation simplicity for users to interact well with the product. 

Task of UI Designer

A UI designer is responsible for designing visual and interactive elements for a digital product. Listed below are the tasks of UI designers:

1. Analyzing users’ needs and understanding product objectives.
2. Designing page, icon, button, and other graphic elements’ layouts.
3. Choosing colors, fonts, and other visual design elements that consistently resonate with brand identity and product objectives.
4. Setting page layouts.
5. Developing interactive prototype or visual mockup to draw UI design.
6. Collaborating with the product development team to implement UI design and ensure visual quality.
7. Conducting trials and iterations to fix UI design according to users’ feedback and product objectives.

Tasks of UX Designer

UX designer is mainly responsible for designing an effective and satisfying users’ experience in using digital products.

A UX designer focuses on the functional, psychological, and emotional experiences of users. Listed below are the tasks of UX designer:

1. Analyzing users’ preferences and needs through user research and data collection.
2. Identifying aim, need, behavior, and difficulty in product interaction.
3. Creating a user persona and its scenario to know their purpose and needs.
4. Designing user flow interaction and drawing users’ experience through many steps and interaction with a product.
5. Making wireframe and interactive prototype to draw the structure and function of a product.
6. Conducting users’ trials and UX evaluation to identify problems and enhance users’ experiences.
7. Collaborating with the development team to ensure the implementation of effective UX design and synchronize with the UI design.

UI and UX Design’s Skills

After knowing some important points of UI and UX Design, are you interested in diving into them? UI and UX designers have a very important role in the process of website and application product development.

UI and UX designers are responsible for understanding users’ preference and needs. By having a strong understanding of users, UI and UX designers are able to create an accommodating solution to the goal and hope.

A UI designer’s skills are divided into two parts: hard skills and soft skills. Here are some details about skills you need to have to be a UI designer:

5 Hard Skills of UI Designer

1. Graphic Design Understanding. It is important for a UI designer to have a vast understanding of graphic design principles such as composition, layout, color, and typography.
2. Design Software Utilization. A UI designer has to have skill in using graphic design software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, or Figma to design an effective interface for users.
3. Prototype Making. A UI designer must create interactive prototypes using tools like Adobe XD, InVision, or Framer to create user flow and interaction among design elements.
4. Web and Mobile Technology Comprehension. A UI designer needs to have knowledge on web and mobile platforms and skills in design optimization according to those platforms.
5. Responsive Design Making. A UI designer should know the principles of responsive design and have the skill to design a user interface for many types of device and sizes.

5 Soft Skills of UI Designer

1. Creativity and Innovation. Creative thinking is needed to create innovative ideas that are useful in designing an attractive and effective user interface.
2. Problem Solving. Expertise in identifying users’ problems, designing challenge analysis, and knowing effective solutions are important to enhance users’ experience.
3. Communication Skill. It is needed for a UI designer to communicate well with the product development teams in order to achieve an understanding of the needs and goals of the design as well as articulate ideas and concepts effectively.
4. Teamwork. To work and collaborate well, which ultimately integrate feedback into the design process, a good teamwork is required. 
5. Detail-oriented. The ability to work precisely and pay attention to details is needed to design a responsive user interface that is in accordance with the design specification.

Conclusion

If we generalize UI and UX Design definition, it means different types of comprehension, goals, and tasks. Putting aside UI and UX Design differences, we need to know both are important and correlate tightly to each other. And both are also important and need to connect well to see how a product does in the market.

UX designers will make an effort to determine how comfortable the user interface should be, while UI designers will decide how aesthetic interface display should be. This collaboration is really needed, so that UX designers are able to focus on product flow and UI designers on elements’ display. 

From the explanation above, it can be concluded that UI and UX Design are important elements that complete each other in website or application development. 

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