
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.
Deliver
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 Cost
What if we told you that efficient UX 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.
UX design Increases your Revenue
Have you ever thought why do you prefer one site
to another when they effectively deliver the same content, range of goods, and
pricing? UX design that proves the love at first sight exists. Almost 75% of
people judge a website based on its overall aesthetics. A user-friendly
interface that focuses on a customer’s needs is more likely to convert
customers.
Several agencies study the impact of user
experience on conversion rates. Let’s have a look at a few elements of a
successful UX design that can help you boost your revenue.
Ease of Use
Ease of use directly affects your sales.
Indicators of an easy-to-use application include intuitive, useful onboarding,
navigation, and UX design patterns that need no time to learn. If your site
conforms to generally accepted rules of usability, your visitors will more
likely perform the desired interactions. For instance, make a purchase, create
an account, or subscribe.
Reduced Number of Steps
In a customer journey map, a user performs a
specific number of interactions (“steps”) that help them achieve their ultimate
goal (to book a flat or donate to charity, for example). The more steps it
performs for the users to achieve their goals, the less motivated they will be
to fulfill them. Actions might include compulsory registration or fill in
personal details in a form. To minimize the number of steps needed, UX
designers come up with solutions like one-page checkouts that let customers proceed
to purchase right after they have picked the product.
Clear Calls to Action (CTAs)
A button that says “Contact Us” or “Subscribes to
our email list” is an example of a call to action. UX designers understand that
leaving the users without a clear call to action is not acceptable. KISS
metrics found that a video with a call to action button got 380 times more
clicks than the similar video without a CTA.
Undoubtedly, the approaches listed above are not
the only ways to enhance your conversion rates. Before going further, we would
like to underscore that a successful UX strategy not only converts new visitors
but retains the existing customers as well. The ROI of each dollar invested in
UX design ranges between $10 to $100.
UX Design Motivates the Users to Interact with your Content
Content is generally anything that we see on a
webpage or in a mobile app. Content refers to the texts, videos, images,
advertisements, etc. Whether you are running a lifestyle blog or an e-commerce site, you do
deliver the content of some type. Recent blogs are more often associated with
images and videos rather than with textual blog posts ‒ in large part to target
millennials.
What role does the UX design play in motivating
the users to interact with the content you posted? View related blog posts,
read an article on your blog, or purchase an item? There are a lot of content
design techniques that help you befriend users with your content. Let us look
at some of them.
When designing an app, UX designers meticulously
build user personas or descriptions of people who will potentially use an
application. User personas look the same as profiles of real people. It
includes personal information, biographies, and motivations for using your app.
User personas let UX designers get a better feel for their target audience and
create user experiences that inspire the end-users to browse your site or
mobile application.
Second, modern UX design focuses more on
personalization. Personalized user experiences are all about delivering content
that is relevant to a particular user. Blocks on eCommerce sites that say, “You
will also like these products,” “Similar to the items you have recently
viewed,” and “Inspired by your wishlist” effectively grab people’s attention.
57% of people reveal that they are likely to return to a site that shows
recommendations.
Finally, UX designers work hard to achieve
consistency. Use a consistent design that is predictable and comfortable. It is
comprised of well-known components like menus on the left side and breadcrumbs
for more straightforward navigation.
UX Design Increases Customer Loyalty
As we also mentioned before, excellent UX design
not only attracts new users, but it also retains them. Returning users are
loyal users. You can build customer loyalty through positive experiences with a
web or mobile application. These positive experiences bind users to your
products and keep them coming back for more products.
One of the approaches to creating customer
loyalty is creating a customer journey map (CJM). UX designers build customer
journey maps to represent the customer’s interaction with the product starting
from the very first contact (the “contact point”). Customer journey maps often
get delivered as visual (diagrams) or textual (storytelling) documents. There
is precisely no right or wrong way to create a customer journey map. A CJM can
help you boost the loyalty of your visitors by helping you:
Build Empathy
Empathy understands the requirement of your
target audience or, as the famous proverb says, “walking in your audience’s
shoes.” A well-crafted customer journey map reveals the emotional state of your
users at different stages of their journey (for example, after successfully
finishing onboarding).
Identify Bottlenecks
When a user incurs a problem while trying to act
(for example, the site does not accept a credit card during checkout) or can
not find a necessary component (like a menu hidden behind a burger button),
these interactions can send them away from your site or app. A CJM can help you
to identify bottlenecks, or things that cause your users to feel frustrated,
and fix them.
Increase Retention Rate
The retention rate is especially important for
e-commerce. A CJM lets UX designers to track customers’ interactions with
content, determine customer satisfaction ratings, gather the usability scores,
and collect other required data. Collectively, these metrics give UX designers
the precious insights they require to optimize their designs to engage the
audience better and win their loyalty.
UX Design Stimulates Word-of-mouth
In the previous part, we talked about approaches
to creating a tight connection between your application and your users. Here,
we will talk about another reliable marketing tool that can be encouraged with
proper UX design ‒ word-of-mouth.
More contact means more information sharing,
exchanging, gossiping, engaging – in short, more word-of-mouth.
Word-of-mouth is the sharing of any information
about a specific product or service through personal communications. Either on
social media and in daily interactions. When people spread the word about one
particular product just because they want to and not because you have paid
them, it means that the word-of-mouth is advertising your product.
It would take a whole article to talk about the
importance of word-of-mouth promotion and ways you can motivate people to talk
about your product. In this article, we will briefly explain how UX stimulates
word-of-mouth.
Facilitates Social Sharing
UX designers realize the importance of social
media sharing. One example of this recognition is displaying links to social
media websites targeted at particular audiences. For instance, art sites like
Dribbble offer easier sharing to other sites for creatives, such as Tumblr,
Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter, instead of more formal websites like
LinkedIn. Social integrations let you reach your target audience better and
provide a convincing value proposition.
Promotes Trust
People tend to believe in others who are like
them and tend to learn the behaviors from their peers. UX solutions such as
star ratings, reviews, and “people who bought this item also bought” features
create a customers’ sense of trust, encourage customers to talk about a
particular product, and, as a result, increase average order sizes.
UX Design keeps you from Wasting Resources
By investing in better UX designs, you can avoid
wasting time, human resources, and money.
Your “human resources” are everyone who is
involved in building your product. Unfortunately, when employees do not get
managed well, the result can turn to be financial losses. An example of such a
misuse of resources is hiring sales managers and marketers to promote a product
without providing a user experience that entices users.
Time is a valuable resource that directly affects
the financial side of a project. Previously, we mentioned that UX design helps
evade feature creep with the use of prototyping and user testing. Moreover,
user experience research helps you to detect inefficient solutions and prevent
their implementation at the development stage by tailoring your features to
meet the requirements of your target audience.
Great user experience will not leave your
visitors indifferent. Analysts and marketers can try their best to predict the
behaviors of end-users, but in the end, users are still hugely led by emotions.
While it is definitely not possible to predict what your end users want with
100% certainty, designing a captivating UI and UX, though a hard
task, is worthwhile.
Future of UX/UI Designs
UI may be designed by algorithm instead of in
Sketch. The focus in the broader experience instead of an individual product.
The design challenges will be less about driving conversions in hotel booking
applications. It will also be more about how to help out travelers have the
best impression of a hotel from planning through checkout. Mastery of new and
old design disciplines is more critical as more significant and more complex
problems need to be solved.
Once, the term ‘User Experience’ was used to
describe the ‘design of everyday things. Everything that makes up your
experience with a product (digital or other). Today, as the realization that we
live in an increasingly complicated world sinks in, the term ‘UX’ has turned to
represent the detailed design of digital products (in specific, mobile apps,
websites, and software applications).
With newer design disciplines like System Design,
Service Design, Critical Design, Speculative Design, Strategic Design, and
Design Thinking, UX has become old-hat. Complex problems need more in-depth
solutions than a website ‘revamp,’ and UX designers themselves are fleeing to
other.
The detailed design of the digital things is
already more intertwined with everyday life than a hand-written letter was 100
years ago. From making a site to curating Instagram to utilizing Powerpoint,
everyone designs these days. Which will only make expert craftsmanship and
The sheer scale and speed of technological
progress combined with just how many poorly designed ‘everyday things’ that
already exist means that the detailed design of digital products will remain.
As UX becomes more automated, menial, or even DIY, there will be more space and
time for design professionals. It will be to put the craft of holistic human
experiences first, and the detailed design of digital things last.
You have probably noticed it already that there are a lot of skills required to become a UI/UX designer. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts, magic recipes. It is all about dedication, hard work, a lot of patients, and practice. You do need to keep learning and working hard each day, as that is the only way you can improve. Every person is different and will have a different journey to becoming a UI/UX designer. I hope that you must have learned something from our article and found it useful.