The UX/UI divide is a joke (and it’s not even a good one)

Why the artificial separation of UX and UI is hurting design — and how embracing both creates exponentially better products.

If creativity is intelligence having fun, then design is thinking made visual — so why are we so determined to split it?

Let’s get this straight: splitting digital design into UX and UI is about as sensible as separating an architect from their ability to draw. Or a sculptor from clay. It’s like saying, “I think deeply about form and space, but actually shaping it? Ew, no, I’ve got a guy for that.” The distinction has become the industry’s favorite bureaucratic illusion — a tidy little line drawn to make job titles sound more specialized, more important, more “strategic.” But peel back the fancy terminology, and what you often find isn’t expertise — it’s abstraction, sometimes even arrogance, dressed up in post-it notes and theoretical wireframes.

The Emperor’s New Job Title

What’s worse, the people who really love the UX/UI distinction are often those with just enough training to describe how something should work but absolutely none of the skills required to build it. The so called “pure UX designers”.

You know the ones. They can tell you all about affordances and cognitive load and will gleefully run a workshop on the heuristics of user delight — but hand them a design tool and you’d think you just asked them to land a plane. They’re the ones who say things like, “I’m not a visual designer” with the same energy someone uses to say, “I don’t do manual labor.”

Can we just say it? If you call yourself a designer but can’t design anything — visually, functionally, or otherwise — maybe it’s time to find a new word for what you do. Consultant? Researcher? Theorist? Or Monday morning quarterback? Because “designer” implies you make things. Not just describe them in Google Slides.

It’s like calling yourself a chef because you can explain how a soufflé should rise. You might know all the flavor profiles, cite studies on umami, and deliver a killer TED Talk on texture. But if you’ve never whisked egg whites into submission or pulled a collapsed mess out of the oven and figured out why — it’s time to sit down. You’re not a chef. You’re a food critic. At best.

The Thinking-Doing Divide Is a Myth

Design isn’t a thought experiment. It’s not an academic exercise in empathy mapping disconnected from the gritty reality of pixels and technical constraints. Design lives in the details — in the layout, the hierarchy, the interaction patterns. In how something feels in motion, not just how it looks on a whiteboard or how it scores in a theoretical user journey map. You can’t separate thinking from making without flattening both.

Steve Jobs — yes, that Steve — said it best:

“The doers are the major thinkers. The people that really create the things that change this industry are both the thinker and doer in one person.

It’s very easy to take credit for the thinking. The doing is more concrete… but when you dig deep enough, you find out that the people who really did it were also the people that worked through the hard intellectual problems too.”

And then he goes full mic drop:

“Did Leonardo have a guy off to the side who was thinking five years into the future about what he would paint or the technology he would use to paint it?

Of course not. Leonardo was an artist, but he also mixed his own paints. He also was a fairly good chemist and knew about pigments and human anatomy. Combining all of those skills together — the art and the science, the thinking and the doing — is what resulted in the exceptional result… There is no difference in our industry. The people that have really made the contributions have been the thinkers and the doers.”

Exactly. The best work comes from those who can hold both ends of the craft: the why and the how. The insight and the execution. The ability to see the problem and also build the damn solution.

Design is a full-body discipline. Splitting it into UX and UI is, at best, naive. At worst, it’s downright arrogant — an attempt to sit above the doing, to avoid the hard work of making. It’s the corporate version of a “Monday coach” — great at pointing out what should’ve been done better, but nowhere near the pitch when it matters.

The Absurdity of Our Own Terminology

Can we also acknowledge the irony here? We’re in a field dedicated to creating intuitive user experiences, yet we’ve branded ourselves with an acronym no actual user understands.

“UX.” Two letters. One meaningless acronym that sounds more like an experimental medication or a discontinued Xbox model than an essential design discipline. It’s a label that signals nothing to the people it’s supposed to serve.

That, in itself, should be the punchline.

Words matter. Labels shape perceptions. If the people we design for don’t understand what we call ourselves, how can we claim to understand them?

Integration Creates Brilliance

Knowing both UX and UI doesn’t just make you better at your job. It gives you perspective. It sharpens your judgment. You stop making wireframes that ignore how typography breathes. You stop choosing typefaces that contradict your research insights. You design experiences that work — not just in theory, but in practice, in pixels, in people’s hands.

Because here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud: if you can’t build it, you probably don’t understand it. If your design ends at the idea stage, you’re not a designer. You’re an advisor with a Pinterest board.

And yet, the industry continues to praise this separation. It’s more “scalable,” they say. More “efficient.” But great design is not efficient. It’s messy. It’s iterative. It requires people who can switch hats without asking for permission — who see no line between thinking and doing, because the best ideas come while doing.

The Pyramid-Shaped Designer Reality

The most effective designers I’ve encountered in my career aren’t those who’ve limited themselves to one side of an artificial divide. They’re the ones who’ve developed pyramid-shaped skills — deep expertise in certain areas complemented by broader understanding across the design spectrum.

They research with purpose because they know how findings will translate to interfaces. They design beautiful interfaces because they understand the psychological principles underpinning user behavior. Their thinking and doing are not separate acts but a continuous dialogue.

So no, UX and UI are not separate disciplines. They’re two sides of the same coin. Or better yet, two muscles in the same body. Ignore one, and the whole thing limps.

Design Needs Craftspeople, Not Theorists

Design doesn’t need more theorists. It needs more craftspeople. More Leonardo types — who think deeply, execute masterfully, and mix their own damn paints.

So, the next time someone asks if you’re a UX or UI designer, perhaps the best answer is simply: “I’m a designer. I solve problems through design. Sometimes that requires research and strategy. Sometimes it requires interfaces and interactions. Usually, it requires both.”

After all, users don’t experience our wireframes separately from our visual designs. They experience products holistically. Shouldn’t we design them that way too?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a soufflé to make rise.