UX vs UI. Solving the conundrum.
Disclaimer: All the stories I share are my own hypothesis. I do not intend to harm or object any person, product, job, or community; intentionally or otherwise. Hope you enjoy a good read!
One of the confusions that arise in the mind of people is the functioning of UX and UI. Though the day-to-day work of UX and UI people is completely different, we tend to use the terms interchangeably. It’s not okay to do that. It’s just like confusing a Software Engineer with IT (again, no harm to anyone). Folks who are interested in transitioning into UX, UI or Product, should understand the difference between UX and UI from top to bottom, their individual skillset, roles and responsibilities and everything that comes with the profile. Let’s try to understand the dilemma, and get to the bottom of each of the role.
In both terms, the User is the common word. So the main difference lies between the terms, Interface and Experience.
UX encompasses everything from user’s satisfaction to ease of use to stability and usability of the product. In layman terms, improving user’s experience with your product to make it more “user-friendly” is UX or UX design. It involves a lot of research, prototyping, analytics such as taking into account user behaviour, no. of clicks etc.
UI, on the other hand, is more of a visual representation of how your product should appear to the end-user. In layman terms, improving the look and feel of a product, ensuring responsiveness and bringing in creative ideas to display the different features of a product is UI design. It involves working with developers, and UI designers may also have to code to design beautiful interfaces, depending on the company they work for and the skillset they possess.
UX folks coordinate with UI designers to ensure proper product. UX people don’t necessarily have to code but may require to prepare prototypes for interfaces and also testing the product to make sure it’s stable and responsive.
Concluding the above statements, I would say that UX designer is the architect while UI designer is the artist. None of them could function without the other and it would be misleading in every means to use them interchangeably.
