As providers of UI/UX services, we have noticed that customers are often confused about what is what. Sometimes they only want to focus on one of the two or think that UI/UX is unnecessary for their digital product or service. That‘s why today we want to explain the key differences between UI and UX design and why both aspects are important if you want your brand to succeed.
First, let‘s dive deep into the user experience, known as UX. When customers interact with a product or application, UX design encompasses the entire user and usage experience. The application’s design affects how people interact with it regularly and is a result of the interaction of design, strategy, web development, and usability. The user experience, from functionality to aesthetics, is generally referred to as UX. Individual levels make up the user experience, which they build upon, affect, and shape. Accessibility, utility, and joy of use interact and influence one another and are necessary for the user’s experience to be satisfying.
Now we can move on to the UI or user interface. Pretend that you are making airplane reservations on your smartphone. The user interface consists of the displays you navigate, the buttons you press, and the forms you complete. UI consists of these elements:
- Input controls: things you enter information in, like checkboxes, buttons, text fields, and dropdown lists
- Navigational elements: these facilitate the user’s use of an interface to carry out their intended purpose. Sliders, hamburger menus, and search fields are examples of it.
- Informational components: these provide the user with helpful information, for instance, through message boxes, notifications, and progress bars.
- Containers: to organize content into useful sections, containers are employed. Depending on the user’s screen size, a container retains different items while limiting its width to a suitable maximum. The accordion menu, a list of headings stacked vertically that may be clicked to reveal or conceal content, illustrates a container in UI design.
As such, UI design covers interactivity, visual design, and informational architecture.
Although UX and UI are two separate fields, they go hand in hand when discussing good design for a website, app, platform, etc. UX and UI differ significantly because UX design may be used on anything, not only websites and apps, while UI design only refers to digital interfaces. UX design considers the complete user experience, constantly keeping the demands, objectives, and pain points of the target users in mind. UX design aims to produce experiences and products that are simple, effective, fun, and rewarding for the user. While UX addresses the total user experience, UI focuses on the visual and interactive components a person uses to connect with a digital product. What does the user see, and what touchpoints do they come across when using a digital product? How does the interface’s visual design assist users in navigating it and carrying out specific tasks? What components go where? Does the design of the product embody and reflect the brand?
We already discussed how bad design (either from UI or UX) could affect your website; you can learn more about it here: https://rekos.agency/how-is-bad-design-killing-your-website-and-what-should-you-do-about-it/.
