What Is User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX)?
It is not easy to differentiate between UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface (interface for the user)). The reason is that there is a close collaboration between these two professions in product design. The UX indeed comes upstream of the UI and the development of an application.
What Is UX Design?
UX is an English acronym which stands for User experience.
UX (User Experience) is a set of standards and best practices with a dual objective, the design of a product, and also the experience of its use.
UX, most often, refers to anything related to the web and mobile world.
A UX design makes it possible to design a product that exactly meets the needs, objectives and expectations of the user by making the most of their experience. The overall objective is to satisfy the user.
In Summary It Is Necessary:
- Highlight the ergonomics of the product and its use: practical, accessible, useful, easy to use and understand, etc.
- Anticipate use: look for the user’s needs, what they are trying to achieve, what they do not want.
The most important innovative companies have learned the importance of the enthusiasm linked to new uses and the expectations of their customers. For this reason they are helped and assisted by UX designers.
Therefore, UX (User Experience) design is defined as the set of means implemented to design an interface that fully meets the usability needs of each user. The ultimate and end goal is to provide the best user experience.
The UX design is applied to a Website and a well-defined user experience:
- Thanks to its ergonomics, appearance, coherent design and intuitive functions, the site is easy to access and use.
- Make credible through reassuring use.
- Make it compatible, i.e. users can use any digital medium (smartphone, tablet, large screen, etc.) to display the site and navigate easily on it.
UX (User Experience) is also a question of emotions. When we create user interfaces, common sense is important: let your users easily perform tasks and achieve their goals, and they can easily purchase your products or services.
In today’s world, it is not difficult to find alternatives to products. Good ergonomics are not optional, but essential. However, just because someone can easily complete the task on your site doesn’t mean it will surely take action. This is where the emotions come in.
The concept of “happy users” is well known in the UX world. How do we experience a series of emotions when interacting with the environment, and then we can also apply these principles when interacting with systems and interfaces.
What Is UI Design?
Thanks to the UI, User Interface, we find ourselves immersed in the field of information technology, more precisely the design of human-machine interfaces (HMI). Its purpose is to improve user interaction with the interface. Therefore, the designers of “User Interface” are responsible for creating pleasant and useful interfaces for the users.
The UI (USER interface) designer must take this into account in his UX interface design process:
- Visibility: Need to optimize the quotation upstream of the design project
- Accessibility: Create a site compatible with the various technical supports and mobile and touch terminals
- Attraction: choose a pleasant, useful, intuitive and practical design consistent with ergonomics
- Ease: ergonomics must facilitate the search for information
- Reputation: The display of the brand, the website must convince Internet users
- Efficiency: Internet users must find answers to questions easily and quickly
It can be a mobile app, website, or any interactive device or service interface. It is therefore a meeting point between users and digital products, as well as between companies and customers.
The design of the user interface must allow interaction with the product, thus contributing to the overall UX.
In fact, the user experience is directly linked to the graphical design of the interface (UI), which has the role of providing a pleasant experience. Therefore, UI Designer collaborates with UX Designer, which is the guarantor of the user experience, and cooperates with UI Designer to develop the graphical version of the interface.
The UI designer (USER interface) must design an interface that meets the needs of users to convey a good image of the company. This task involves working with UX designers, integrators, and developers.
The design of the user interface can be defined from two fundamental and complementary perspectives:
- “What stands out”: sight, touch, hearing, feeling – with everything that entails emotionally (pleasant and aesthetic interface, emotional design, human dimension of the screen, etc.
- “What promotes interaction between the user and the product”: required functionalities, quality of content, hierarchy in intuitive navigation, structure of information, etc.
The Difference Between UX Design and UI Design
Few studies have been done regarding UX, UI and the famous difference between them.
Sometimes these two concepts will merge, even though they represent two specific and divergent disciplines. Also, if UX is a complete design process and includes UI, then these two terms are not really equivalent, either from a theoretical or a practical standpoint. Let’s try to distinguish UX and UI well to reveal their mutually beneficial and complementary relationship.
The Major Differences Between UX and UI Design
Without having the same object of study, they are two completely different disciplines.
UX Design refers to the analysis of user feedback when they use a website, a web application or an interactive software. To be successful, it is imperative that a UX Designer takes charge of this study.
Through several tests on the various user journeys, the main task of the UX is to optimize its user experience.
The results obtained allow it to prepare the most pleasant user experience, with the aim of making it easier for Internet users to find information.
Conclusion
UX and UI, two concepts that cannot be discounted. Like an iceberg, they have two parts, one visible and the other invisible. UX and UI are inseparable.
On the other hand, their complementary relationships make UX and UI overlap with each other. If the first designer is mainly interested in the emotional and psychological aspect of the user experience, the second is based on all the ergonomic and practical elements used for the creation of the interface. The fact remains that the UI needs to be supplemented by the UX approach in order to think about and design an interface fully oriented towards users. Hire professional website designer to improve user interaction with website and provide better user experience.
Author Bio:
Raunak is a Mechanical Engineer by qualification & Marketer by passion. He is the co-founder of Maiden Stride, a leading digital marketing company that provides world-class search engine marketing services and website & application development.
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