The faster the digital industry grows, the more in demand the profession of UI/UX designer becomes. But what does this abbreviation really mean and what is its difference from Web-design?
UX- and UI-design is the design of any user interfaces in which both appearance and usability are important. Interfaces are most commonly understood as mobile applications and websites.
UX stands for User Experience. It is how the user interacts with the product. Whether his goal is achievable (for example, to buy a product in an online store), how easy or difficult it is to do it. A UX designer answers a series of questions: how many steps should a person take to register on the site? And how many to buy a product? And how to show that the transaction was successful?
UI stands for User Interface. It’s everything a person interacts with when using a digital product, from the color of icons to the soundtrack or animation. An interface designer takes care of the appearance of the product and its interactive design.
In simple words, UX differs from UI in that UX is the overall feeling of the experience and UI is how the product looks.
UX is broader and includes UI, so it is not correct to talk about the difference between the two. It’s like asking the question: what is the difference between a cake and the icing on its surface? None. They are incomparable things, the icing is part of the cake. Thus, UX is the process of making the cake, its taste and filling, and UI is the icing on it, its appearance and flavor.
UX and UI have the same task – to make the interaction with the product convenient, pleasant and memorable. That’s why UX and UI are usually closely linked: often both roles are performed by the same specialist. Hence the name of the profession – UX/UI designer.
A good example of design is Google’s home page. It has a simple interface and nothing superfluous: a logo, a search bar and a few buttons. You came for information – and you understand where to enter words, what to click.
History of UX/UI design
In the 1970s, the graphical interfaces used today did not exist. Communicating with a computer required programming skills and took place through a command line interface.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that programmers from Xerox PARC developed GUI, the first graphical user interface. This allowed people to communicate with the computer not through a line of code, but through icons, menus and buttons.
As early as 1984, Apple Computer released the Macintosh, the first commercially successful home computer that had a point-and-click mouse. The personal computer revolution began, and in 1993 Donald Norman, while at Apple, coined the term “User Experience”:
It’s not enough to make a web page and stuff it with information, you need to understand who the target customer is and what their problems can be solved: it became necessary to consider all aspects of the user’s journey through the product.
Thus, a UX- differs from a UI-designer in that the former maps out the journey, while the latter focuses on the visual aspects that make that journey possible.
Web designer is a bit of an archaic concept, dating back to the days when one person was responsible for creating all aspects of a website, but did not think through the details of user interaction with it. As the digital industry has evolved, the concept of a web designer has been replaced by a UX/UI designer.
Roughly generalizing, a web designer now only covers the web sphere and does not deal with applications or any other interfaces.
A web designer creates website layouts (design of lendings, business card sites, design of generic templates) and does not do analytical work as if a UX/UI designer would do it.
The skills of a web designer may include knowledge of layout: such specialists can work on freelancing, taking orders to create websites.
Or they can become UX/UI designers (on our courses we teach UX/UI, details here), which is more in demand nowadays.