UX and UI are often misused in the tech industry. Understanding the key differences between UX and UI is beneficial, we take a quick look at both. UX, User Experience Design, and UI, User Interface Design, are both crucial to a product, such as a website, and work closely together while remaining vastly different disciplines. UX design tends to be more analytical and technical, while UI is not. A basic example for UX design would refer to how users interact with CakeDC.com, where they find the navigation menus (is this as per industry norm or do they have difficulty navigating around the website to find the information they are looking for, or how to contact CakeDC via our contact form or telephone number). Whereas UI design looks at ensuring brand relevance through the look and feel of the site, keeping color standards as per best practice.
UX, User Experience Design
UXD or User Experience Design refers to the process of enhancing the experience that a user has with a company, its products or its services. This is done by focusing on increasing the ease of use as well as improving the overall interaction between the user and the product or service.
Good user experience design translates to customer satisfaction and loyalty so it's vitally important to ensure good design is put to practice!
As a UX designer, you will need to understand your site’s users and potential users, from creating persona’s to determining user stories and carrying out user testing. A persona could be an example of a customer who is seeking more information by contacting you versus a visitor who would like to learn more by reading your blog.
UI, User Interface Design
User Interface Design is the look, feel and interactivity of the product, basically referring to the means by which the user and a product (such as a website) interact with each other.
The end goal of UI Design is to “achieve structure, analysis and optimization of a customer’s experience with the company and product.”
UI Design includes activities that range from user guides and story lines through to UI prototyping and implementation with the development team.
While there are differences between UX and UI, there are some similarities, let’s look at these:
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Have a primary objective of improving customer satisfaction such as improving the use of a “contact us” form
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Focus on the user and his/her interaction with a product/service such as having an easy to navigate menu
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Can be applied to any product
Here is an example of the planning behind CakeDC.com