What is UI/UX design?
UI- User Interface design is the look,feel,presentation and interactivity of a product. It is the point of interaction between user and a digital device or product(like touch screen of your smartphone).
UX- User Experience design is a humans first way of designing products. It encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services and its products (that is all interactions between a customer and a company).
Difference between UI and UX
UX design is all about the overall feel of the experience while UI design is all about how the products interfaces look and function.
Just like any other profession UI/UX designers need to have the right tools to get the job done at any given point:
Softwares for UI/UX design:
- Sketch
- Figma
- Craft
- Axure
MarvelProto.io
- Webflow
- Flowmap
- Framer X
- Weflow
- Balsamiq
- Marvel
- And so on.
The list is endless best is to try the softwares and pick anyone that suites your needs and speeds up your workflow.
Phases of Design thinking
To make a profitable product, it needs to solve the right problem for the right audience. Design-thinking is all about problem-solving.
- Define the points.
- Generate ideas on how to overcome the obstacles.
- Create the prototype.
- Test it.
Why a UI Designer is not a UX Designer
UX = Research. UI = Visuals.
A UX designer might be great at performing research studies to learn more about the user, but they may lack the skills necessary to prototype a complex screen animation to hand off to a developer.
UI design requires that the designer has a better understanding of hierarchy, color, typography, motion graphics, and interaction design.
Different skill sets needed
While some aspects of UX and UI will share common similarities, what’s expected of each role is very different.
UX designers will be spending most of their time researching and analyzing data in order to build a user’s emotional journey while using a product. The UX designer is concerned with how the product will meet the goals of the people that will be using it.
UX skills:
- Conduct user interviews
- Perform A/B tests
- Create user personas
- Wireframe a customer’s journey
UI design skills are focused on the creation of the visual assets for digital products, instead of the analytical skills required by user experience designers.
UI skills:
- Prototyping what happens when a user clicks a specific button
- Creating a style guide to hand off to developers
- Knowing how to pair typefaces together to create legible copy
- Figuring out how the site will look like across different screen sizes
- Ensuring that the branding is consistent across all screens of a digital product
- Building out the final visual elements and designs user interactions based off of wireframes given to them from UX designers
Now, these two roles do have a bit of overlap. In fact, a great UI is one of many aspects of good UX design, you can’t really have one without the other!
UX and UI designers must communicate throughout the entire development phase, especially when getting feedback from users.
Both jobs require designers to:
Wireframe
Prototype
Test
Get feedback, and repeat.
But the most important thing about the two disciplines is that for both, everything stems from knowing your users, including understanding their goals, skills, preferences, and tendencies.
