Have you ever used a website or an app that you found difficult to navigate or understand? Maybe you struggled to find the information you needed, or you found the interface confusing and frustrating. If this the case, you may have experienced poor UX/UI design in those sites.
UX/UI design are two important elements of digital product creation that focus on designing products that are easy to use and visually organised to eyes and needs of the users. If you wish to know in depths the meaning and lore of UX/UI design, in this post, we'll take a closer look at what user experience and user interface designs are, and how hey work together to create products that meet user’s needs.
First of all, let’s cover the differences between the two components of this wonderful design career.
What is UX design?
UX design is a process that involves understanding user’s needs, wants, and limitations. This involves researching, prototyping, and testing different design solutions to ensure that the final product is intuitive and easy to use.
The main goal of user experience design is to create a product that is both useful and enjoyable for the user. This means designing a product that is easy to navigate, that has a clear logical layout, and that provides the information functionality the user needs to understand in order to use a digital product/service.
There is a very funny meme that compares two ketchup bottles, that may give you an idea on why the UX label is on the action trying to get the ketchup out of the bottle. Using, feeling, and experiencing are key points for UX design.
What is UI design?
When it comes to UI design, it focuses on the visual and interactive elements of a product. These are things like layout, typography, color, and animation. UI designers are responsible for creating an aesthetically pleasing and organised design that enhances the user experience and makes the product structure easy to understand.
Other aspects to UI design are:
- Layout consistency.
- Organisation and rhythm.
- Typography usage.
- Readability.
- Color contrast.
Now you might be wondering, then why is this design called UX/UI design if they seem different? Are there solo UX and UI designers? Yes! There are designers that dedicate fully to UI or UX design.Although UX and UI design are two distinct disciplines, they work together to create a seamless and enjoyable products and services.
In practice, UX and UI designers collaborate closely to ensure that the visual design of the product aligns with the user needs and goals identified in the discovery process. Although it doesn’t happen all the time, the way the layout is structure can affect critical parts of the overall feeling of a product or service that can ruin the user journey. If we think about the ketchup meme again, the UI label is on the shape and material of the Ketchup bottle? Is it funny how the material of the Ketchup bottle and its component can affect the experience. This silver lining gives us a melting pot of both.
The melting pot that is UXUI Design
In many cases, digital product and service design requires a combination of skills that fall under both the UX and UI design disciplines. This means that designers typically have skills in both areas and can work effectively as UX/UI designers.
For example, a designer who has experience in discovery, wire-framing, and prototyping may also have a strong eye for visual design and be able to create visually appealing designs that enhance the user experience. Similarly, a designer with a background in Graphic Design may also have skills in creating clear and intuitive user flows and may be able to apply those skills to UX design.
Working as a UX/UI designer can also offer some advantages. For instance, it can provide a more holistic view of the product design process, as well as a greater degree of control over the final product.
In another light, many startups and high-paced companies look to hire designers with expertise in both UX and UI design to streamline the design process and reduce the need for multiple designers to work on a project. Making the demand for UX/UI designers very high.
Final thoughts
UX and UI design are two essential elements of digital product design that work together to create products that are both useful and visually appealing. Although they are applied by people that wish to focus a 100% in one filed, there are many designers working as UX/UI designer, given that there are a lot of connections between both fields.
If you are still deciding on which of the roads to go, trying UX/UI design could give you a glance of both paths. As you grow in your career, you can choose where to focus your skills.
If you're interested in learning more about UX/UI design, Memorisely has awesome supafast bootcamps to help you along your journey! We recommend the following bootcamps:
UXUI Design BootcampUI Design Bootcamp
