What is UI and UX Design
What is UI Design? What is UX Design?
UI design and UX design
make the most often conflated and confused terms in web and app design. And
understandably so. They are usually used together in a single term, UI/UX
design, and seen from the surface; they appear to be describing the same thing.
It is often hard to find reliable descriptions of the two that do not descend
too far into jargon.
By the time this article, you will have a good
understanding of what differentiates them and how they relate to each other. So
let’s dive in!
A Brief History of the User Interface
Back in the 1970s and 1980s era, if you have to
use a computer. You had to work with the command-line interface. The graphical
interfaces used today did not yet exist commercially. For a computer to work,
users require to communicate through a programming language. Needing seemingly
infinite lines of code to finish a simple task.
In the 1980s, the first graphical user interface
(GUI) got birth by computer scientists at Xerox PARC. With this astonishing
innovation. Users could then interact with their personal computers by visually
submitting commands through icons, menus, buttons, and checkboxes.
This shift in technology meant that everyone
could use a computer, no coding needed, and the personal computer revolution
started.
In 1984 Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh
personal computer, which consisted of a point and click mouse. The Macintosh
was finally the first commercially successful home computer to utilize this
kind of interface.
The prevalence and accessibility of personal—and
office—computers meant that interfaces required to design interfaces with users
in mind. If users could not interact with their computers, they would not sell.
As a result, the UI design took birth.
The UI designer’s role has transformed as
systems, preferences, expectations, and accessibility has demanded more from
devices. Now UI designers work not just on computer interfaces but also mobile
phones. It also got implemented in augmented and virtual reality, and even
“invisible” or screenless interfaces (also referred to as zero UI) like voice,
gesture, and light.
Today’s UI designer has nearly limitless
opportunities to work on sites, wearable technology, mobile apps, and smart
home devices. As long as computers continue to be an integral part of daily
life, there will be the need to make the interfaces. These interfaces enable
users of all ages, backgrounds, and technical experience can effectively use.
What is UI Design?
The “UI” in UI design stands for the “user
interface.” The user interface is known as the graphical layout of any
application. It comprises of the buttons users click on, the text they read,
the images, text entry fields, sliders, and all the other items the user
interacts with. It includes screen layout, transitions, interface animations,
and every single micro-interaction. Any kind of visual component, interaction,
or animation must all get designed.
This job falls to the UI designers. UI designers
often decide what the application is going to appear. They have to opt for the
color schemes and button shapes — the width of lines and the fonts used for
text. UI designers create the appeal and feel of an app’s user interface.
UI designers are graphic designers.
They are concerned with aesthetics. It is up to him to make sure that the
application’s interface is visually-stimulating, attractive, and themed
appropriately to match the personality and purpose of the application. And they
require to make sure that each visual component feels united, both aesthetically
and in purpose.
What is UX Design?
“UX” is also called the “user experience.” A
user’s experience of the application is determined by how they interact with
the app. Is the experience intuitive and smooth or clunky and confusing? Does
navigating the use feels logical, or does it feel arbitrary? Does interacting
with the use give people the sense that they are efficiently accomplishing the
tasks that they set out to achieve, or does it feel like a struggle? User
experience can be determined by how easy or hard it is to interact with the
user interface components that the UI designers have built.
So UX designers also work with an application’s
user interface, and this is why people get confused about the difference. UI
designers are the ones that decide how the user interface will appear. UX
designers are the ones who determine how the user interface operates.
They also determine the structure of the
interface and its functionality. How it is organized and how all the elements
relate to one another. In short, they design how the interface will work. If it
works all well and feels seamless, the user will have a pleasant experience.
But if navigation is complex or unintuitive, then lousy user experience is
likely. UX designers work to evade the second scenario.
Designing in a vacuum often leads to less than
ideal results.
There is also a specific amount of iterative
analysis involved in the UX design. UX designers will build wireframe rendering
of their interface interactions and get user feedback. They will integrate this
into their designs. UX designers need to have a holistic understanding of how
users prefer to interact with their applications.
Tips for Learning UI/UX Design
We are not some unicorn creatures that were meant to be designers and were
just born artistic like that. Design is about solving problems.
It is a process of continually finding problems and creating solutions for
them.
There are a bunch of areas of design: UI,
UX, graphic designers, product designers, interaction designers,
information architects, and the list goes on. Initiate by figuring out which
specialty interests you more.
Familiarize Yourself with UI Principles
Before practicing the design, the first thing you need to do is to learn
some design principles. From this, you will be able to enter the design world
and begin thinking “creatively.” You will also learn the psychological side of
the design: why it can look good and why it can fail.
Here are some basic things that a UI designer should know:
Color
Color vocabulary, the fundamentals, and the
psychology of colors.
Balance
Symmetry and asymmetry.
Contrast
Use contrast to organize information, build a
hierarchy, and build focus.
Typography
Opt fonts and create readable text on the web.
Consistency
The essential principle, creating intuitive and usable designs, starts here.
Learn the Creative UX Process.
The next thing to understand is the creative UX
process. UI/UX design is a process of certain phases that all the creative
people go through.
The Creative Process
It divides into four distinct phases — Discover,
Define, Develop, and Deliver — the Double Diamond is an
easy visual map of the design phase.
Discover
It is the beginning of the project. Designers
begin researching, getting inspired, and gathering different ideas.
Define
It is the definition stage of the process. Here designers define an idea or ideas extracted from the Discover phase. From this, a clear creative brief gets created.
Develop
It is the part where solutions or concepts are
created, prototyped, tested, and iterated. This process of trial and error
helps out designers to further enhance and refine their ideas.
Delivery
The final part is the delivery stage, where the final
project is finalized, produced, and finally launched.
Designers often try to fill a logo full of
meaning from the outset. However, this is not needed – the focus should be on
identification. Any purpose or association will come with time through the interaction
with the logo.
A new logo is like an empty vessel, and from day one, it merely has no meaning to
onlookers. Even if it got added intentionally, with time meaning will be
combined through ongoing marketing and the interactions your customers have
with the company's brand.
Develop your Eye for Design
Knowing design principles is excellent, but
sometimes it is not enough, you should also train your eye to see good designs
and bad designs. With a sharp eye, you can also identify strengths and weaknesses
in the designs.
The most impactful way to train your eye for
design is through inspiration. Before taking out a blank
canvas and staring at it, know that the only way to be creative is through
research. Sometimes you can not create ideas on its own; you have to first look
at other designs to begin creating your own, especially when you are a newbie.
Browse Portfolio Websites
Just look at what other designers are doing on
Dribble. Whenever you come across creative designs or something relevant
to your project, save it in your notes. Mention what you like about it, and you
can also take screenshots. This way, you will have a massive collection
of inspirational designs for you can use to start.
Read Design Articles Every Day
To make ourselves get familiar with designs, the
best way is to read a couple of articles every day
Make reading design news and blog a habit. There
are billions of articles available online to help us discover new trends,
cases, and tutorials. There is nothing better than learning from another
person’s experiences.
Make Reading Articles an Everyday Habit
Begin your day with a nice cup of coffee and some
inspirational articles on Medium
or Smashing Magazine. Learn new things in the morning. It will broaden your
mind and will make room for more creativity during the day time.
Moreover, now and then during your day, take a
few breaks to read some more. Taking breaks is essential for creativity,
especially when you get stuck and start to feel unproductive. Bookmark the site
you like as your browser homepage or subscribe to the design newsletter
Design Fake Projects
Practice makes a man perfect. And we all know we
can not get customers/jobs without experience. But without a job or projects,
we can not practice, right?
But we can break the chain by practicing on our
own, by creating fake projects for fun.
Take out time to pick a site or app you already
use and redesign it. It could be anything that you think can be better. You can
also design your application idea.
From this, you will build your design portfolio,
and you will practice design.
Learn the Latest Web Design Tools
There are tons of design tools available, but you
do not need to know all of them. Learn about the best ones out there. Choose
your favorite ones and stay updated with the newest features and trends.
Mentor and Get Mentored
Another excellent method to learn design is to
find a design mentor or designer friend who is willing to help you. They will
also help you to speed up the learning process.
The designer will also review your work and give
their comments on it whenever possible. It is like a shortcut. They will also
show you some tips and tricks they learned from their past experience. Go ahead
and email a designer, ask them questions, and discuss your concerns.
When you are ready to start talking about design
with different people, you can mentor or educate someone about design. You will
begin to see it from a different perspective, and you will get feedback and
questions that you may have never thought about.
Whenever you are talking about design with other
people, your mind would be in “brainstorm” mode all the time. You will find
yourself getting more interested in design.
Advantages of the Graphical User Interface
Easiness for Non-technical People
For non-technical people or beginners, good GUIs
tend to create easiness in life. For example, with few clicks on the buttons,
the user can quickly get his work done—the software in shops for the
calculation of products sold. An even non-technical guy can easily manage your
inventory. Similarly, listening to songs in their car is very easy for anyone.
Drag and Drop Feature
In most of the software, we have a drag and drop
functionality by which complicated tasks are managed efficiently, like dragging
and dropping the folders. And in mobile games, it is also great to use. In a
lot of graphical software, drag and drop are amazing.
Looks Nicer than Text Interface
In the text interface, we have limited options to
opt from, and navigation is hard. For non-educated people, text interface is
hard to understand and use. In GUI, users can utilize any tool by detecting the
symbols or buttons.
Hotkeys Usage
Sometimes we need a couple of functionality
performed by a single click; this is when we use hotkeys. Like we see a few
buttons or mouse clicks/movements by which a few actions performed. It is
indeed convenient for speeding up your tasks.
User-friendly
It is easy for any user to navigate to the system
without knowing too many details. Easy to set up and ready to begin working are
fantastic. Most of the software hides the complication of actions from the
users and display only needed information is key to a functional interface.
Disabled People
In modern science, we can detect eye movement and
finger movement, which is helpful for disabled people. Now, most of the
software uses this function to make life easier for disabled people. They can
use the software and websites easily with a few simple actions.
Disadvantages of a Graphical User Interface
Difficult to Develop and High Cost
Lovely looking designs are hard to make and might
also cost extra hardware support. Like high-quality games consume too much of
the device space and memory. It also requires very skilled people to develop.
Slower than Command-line Tools
In command-line tools such as MS dos, we can perform some commands which do the work quickly. But if we do a similar task in the GUI, then it will take extra time to complete the job.
Extra Attention Required
When we are driving a car and controlling
music/radio in the vehicle requires attention, which makes our driving
disturbed.
Using a Flat-screen
A few graphical things do not display accurately
on the flat screens. In airplanes, they use sticks to control most of the stuff
because a flat-screen display is not very handy. It makes the final limitation
of the GUI.
Time Consumption
It requires a lot of time to develop and design
an excellent looking interface. If some lousy interface builds, then it makes
it difficult for the user to understand and use it.
Memory Resources
We see many good GUI’s consuming a lot of memory
resources, which make the system/device slow when it comes to performance.
Implementation
Testing and implementation require a lot of time.
Like we might need extra software for running GUI’s.
Significant Reasons to Invest in UX Design
Creating a digital presence on the web or within
a mobile application is essential for an organization of any type. Companies
highly rely on attractive interfaces, engaging content, and
well-crafted marketing strategies to promote their web and mobile applications.
However, people sometimes forget that fancy animation, mesmerizing content, and
a great UX (User Experience) design backed by catchy ads. Furthermore,
excellent UX design makes an application easy and pleasant to use and, as a
result, enhances customer satisfaction.
The term “UX” has been circulating for quite a while now. Questions such as “Why is user experience important?” and “Why is UX design important?” still pop up all the time during the application design process.
UX Design Cuts Down Development Costs
What if we told you that efficientUX design lets
you stay within budget or even cut costs of development? To understand how we
need to take a closer look at the different stages of the UX design.
Great UX design is the result of comprehensive
user research, information architecture design, prototyping, wireframing,
user testing, and the final implementation. UX designers often spend hours
redesigning and polishing an application to meet the needs and demands of
end-users.
We will not describe all then b stages
mentioned above in detail. Instead, we will focus on two key steps that
influence the final price of an app.
Prototyping
Prototypes are the UX-stage deliverables that
mock the final product. As a rule, these prototypes are usually mid and high
fidelity, mimicking the appearance of your final product but without all the
underlying functionality. A prototype is not a real product, though some
people, by mistake, believe that they are. The purpose of a prototype is to
make your application valid your application idea by letting real users test
it. As a rule, UX designers utilize prototypes to test usability (how easy an
application’s interface is to use) and feasibility (what technology you need to
power the UX design).
Prototyping affects the overall development cost.
Effective prototyping can keep the prices down by helping you:
Estimate more Accurately
Making structural changes to the final design
implementation stage is time-consuming and expensive. At the prototyping stage,
do the design of an application’s information architecture and the positioning
of the blocks and determination of the sizes. It is that developers that can
accurately estimate the efforts and time needed for implementation. Effective
prototyping helps you to get more precise figures instead of the rough
estimates.
Avoid feature Creep.
Characterization of Feature creep is by the
addition of more and more unnecessary features that result in failed deadlines
and smashed budgets. You can also prevent feature creep with the help of
prototyping. Instead of relying on your inner sense, you use prototypes to see
how real users will react to the product and make an unbiased decision.
Test out your Application’s Content
Content is the king when it gets coupled with
great design. According to Adobe’s research, 39% of people are likely to leave
a website if either its content or layout looks unattractive. At the
prototyping stage, you can test how your content is received (texts, images,
videos, etc.). Testing your content can help you create a content marketing
strategy that goes well with your app’s design and entices your customers with
an anesthetic.
Usability Testing
Usability (or user) testing works hard to
simulate situations in which an end-user will use your product. You may wonder:
Why bother engaging people from outside in testing if I have sufficient team
members? All the people involved in the processes of delivering an application,
including developers and designers, spend much time working closely with the
application. This proximity often leads to bias, and people close to a project
can not always see issues that are evident from an outsider’s perspective.
Usability testing attempts to get through this bias.
At the usability testing stage, users help the UX
designers ensure that the application is convenient and easy to use. We can
check various components during user testing: fonts (are they readable?), the
size of buttons (are they easy to interact with?), the positioning of blocks,
sequence of the registration steps, buying funnel, and so on.
By performing usability testing, we evade
implementing an inconvenient design and therefore avoid reworking inconvenient
design solutions in the later run.