What is UI/UX design: Intro for The beginners

What is UI/UX design? UI and UX are two different skill sets. They go hand in hand but they are not similar terms. A great product experience begins with UX followed by UI. Both play a very important role to make any product successful and easy to use.

A beautiful UI design can’t save an interface that is very confusing and hard to navigate. Similarly, a perfectly researched and crafted user experience can become useless if the visual interface is not perfectly designed.

UX stands for User Experience Design and UI stands for User Interface design.

Let’s talk about UX design first:

What is UX Design

UX focuses on the user’s journey to solve a particular problem.

UX design is responsible for the user’s experience while using any product. There are several aspects that UX designers should focus on, before creating a solution to any problem such as, what are user’s pain points, what challenges they face while interacting with a product, how easy it is for the user to complete their desired tasks, what are their goals, etc. It is a UX designer’s job to make the product experience smooth and seamless.

Imagine, if you are using any E-commerce app. After purchasing any product on an app or a website, you start a checkout process. If that process is confusing then you feel, it’s a bad user experience.

You may not finish the process and leave the interface. That’s an example of a bad user experience.

However, if the process is hassle-free & easy to understand then you consider that as a good user experience.

So. how do UX designers ensure a good user experience?

They combine market research, product development, strategy, and design to find what the user wants and needs. They use their findings & research to design a product that is user-centric.

UX designers follow 5 design thinking process steps to solve any complex problem.

• Empathy
• Defining a goal
• Idea
• Prototype
• Test

Know about the design thinking process in detail.

Unlike UI design, it has nothing to do with visuals or making the interface look good.

Now let’s see what is UI Design

UI designer focuses on the look and feel and interactive experience of any design.

His/ Her job is to look, how does the user interact with the product’s interface? How do they navigate from one screen to another? Are they finding it easy to interact with the touchpoints on a page such as buttons, text links, etc?

UI designers consider many aspects of good UI designs, like the layout design, spacing, usage of color palette, typography, responsive designs, and visual aesthetics.

In order to maintain consistency across all designs, the UI designer creates a style guide and mockups. It is closely related to visual communication and graphics.

UI designers take the blueprint from UX designers and convert that into an aesthetically pleasing and smooth interface.

To make a long story shorter, UI designing is all about the presentation and look and feel of the product. UI focuses on how the product interface looks and functions.

Why research is important

The research is the most essential part for both UI and UX. It is important for both teams to gather as much information as possible in the research phase. That will make them understand users much better and eventually solve their core problems very easily and quickly.

Thorough research can save tons of time and deliver the best solutions to user’s problems.

Research – UI Design

UI designer should understand their target audience very well. Before starting the design, they should predict the user’s expectations and needs. And accordingly, decide the visual language with which their audience is comfortable.

Along with the design flow, there are essential design aspects such as color schemes, font styling, icons, images, etc., which should be chosen intelligently. A catchy UI design is a balancing act between attractive design and effortless user flow.

Research – UX Design

UX design is user-centric. Knowing the user’s habits, behaviors and, needs while using the product can help UX designers completely understand the user’s issues and challenges.

A clear understanding of the target audience is the key to design a flawless product. Without understanding the user’s mental model, the design can never become successful.

User research gives insights into what features should be a top priority while designing a product.

Conclusion

I hope, this brief article has helped you in understanding what UI & UX is and how they are integral to each other. To make a product successful, both UI & UX design process should be executed correctly.

And when they are aligned with each other, the outcome can be astonishing.