Difference between Graphic Designer, UX Designer and UI Designer.
From the initial time in the design industry, the word “Design” would normally make you think about graphic design. But now you sometimes may feel confused about all the job designations trending around the world in the design sector. With the evolving of technology the media industry has also evolved from print media to the web, mobile and soft-wares so did the design industry too. So, what is the difference between Graphic Design, User Experience Design (UX Design) and User Interface Design (UI Design)? Here, in this article, I will explain to you what exactly the role and job of these three different designations are.
Graphic Designer-
It’s true that graphic design is the easiest way to understand the design term and visual communication because graphic designers use their imagination, color, typography, and design to communicate the idea or message through print, web or visual design. This type of design is also considered as an “art”. In today’s industry graphic design relates to communicating the idea of branding, information or an advertisement to communicate to end users using text or images. Normally the graphic designers fall under the umbrella of “Branding” and get’s their directions from marketing or advertisement team of the company. The basic role of the graphic designer is to attach emotions and feeling to the polished product or services of the company by choosing the right font, and other visual design elements. Softwares commonly used by Graphic Designers are:
Corel Draw
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
User Experience Designer (UX Designer)-
UX Designing is completely related to how the product feels and completely different from traditional graphic design. UX design focuses on the logic and structure behind the elements you actually interact with on any web or mobile application or any software. The UX designers through different approaches to solving the user-specific problem and completely user-centric. The UX design has to be performed in two different phases termed as “research” and “validation”. At the phase of “research”, the UX designers use a variety of tools and methods to understand information architecture, human factors and end users by competitive analysis and user interviews by building user persona, wireframe the product for UI design and the flow of the application. The main work of UX designer comes after the launch of the product in “validation” phase, at this phase UX designers analyses usability/pain point to know if the end product is providing the desired result or not. The UX designers need to do the revisions on the product based on the data to make the next release more efficient and user-friendly for the users. The UX designers are also known as UX Architects. Softwares commonly used by UX designers are-
For Research-
UX Map
Woopra
Mouse Stats
Usabila
Naview
Polldady
TryMyUI
Loop11
Attensee
Silverback
User Testing
WhatUsersDo
Appsee
Design and Collaboration Tools-
Adobe XD
Axure
Sketch
Zeplin
Mockflow
Webflow
Balsamiq
Flinto
Invision App
OmniGraffle
Figma
Framer
Principle
Proto.io
UXPin
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
User Interface Designer (UI Designer)-
UI design is more concerned with the look and feel of the product. It is completely based upon the UX provided by the UX designer. UI Designer handles the designing of each screen or interfaces where a user interacts and is responsible to visually communicate the path as UX has been designed. The UI designer deals with interactive elements such as buttons, color scheme, form input fields, animations, drop down menu and typography. UI designer also has to maintain the consistency in the design so the UI designer must create a guideline for the visual identity of the product with typography, spacing, color, and layout so the graphic designer would also do the branding graphics for the product keeping the same consistency. The UI Designers are also known as User Interface Engineers. Softwares commonly used by UI Designers are-
Adobe XD
Sketch
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Zeplin
Invision App
There are different kinds of designers in the world. Next time you meet any designer friend of yours ask him what kind of designer he/she is?
Hope you like it, see you in my next article. Thank you.
