Understanding the differences between UI and UX

In this section, we will see a point-by-point breakdown of the differences between UI and UX. Understanding this is vitally important to a strong UX practice within an organization, and you must be able to help others understand this as well. Let’s look at these:

• UI supports UX: The user interface is what people interact with in an application. It’s the buttons clicked, the body copy and titles, the white space, and so on. If these are designed correctly, and users understand how to move around and do work, then the UI has supported the UX the way it should.
• UI and UX require different skill sets: A UI designer knows how to code, a UX designer in general doesn’t. UI designers can create CSS classes and know HTML and JavaScript. They’re responsible for creating what the UX team has specified for the design of the application. A UX team says, “This is what needs to be designed,” and the UI team does that work to tie the design into the system.

A UX person learns and understands empathy and rapport. They work directly with the user and customer to uncover problems and to ensure that the new designs are satisfying demand and expectations. True UX is more about research and iterative design phases than it is about anything else. It’s about doing the absolute best job of giving the UI team a solid start to build with, which will in turn smooth the process and allow for quicker transformation to a market-winning product.

• UI is what an application looks like: Briefly touched on earlier, what a person sees and uses is the UI – user interface. It’s the colors, the sizes of the buttons, the amount of white space on the page, and the placement of titles and paragraphs. If the UI is consistent with the company brand, then it appears to belong to that brand. If blue #6C9FB1 is your brand’s blue, and the UI team uses #317EB1, the UI isn’t correct and breaks the brand promise of the company.
• UX is how it supports the needs of the user: Go back to the meaning of UX – user experience. If the brand promise is kept, and we listened to the users and built what they said would make their lives easier, we’re creating an experience for them that satisfies them and makes it easier to do their jobs efficiently.

Next, let’s explore the roles that perform UX.