UX Is Not UI: What Is the Difference between UX and UI Design?
UX has been a buzzword
that bounces around the design world, endorsed and adopted by designers
anddevelopers. In many cases, highly respected developers who claim to
be talking about ”UX” in a product demonstration are in fact showing a
large number of UI features. I doubt much that the vague definition may
account for this kind of misunderstanding. We’ve heard of UI (User
interface) and UX (User Experience). When you build an App or a website
with Mockplus, we will talk to you about both. If UX is not UI, What is the exact difference?
The Definition of UX
UX is not UI,
then what is the definition of UX exactly? Here I am not going to shoot
the cliche but to provide you with a intuitive introduction which will
help you to get a quick understanding of why UX is not UI. Good UX designfocuses
on the interactive side of the product, how it behaves, such as a box
sliding out, and how people might interact with it, such as where they
will click first. UX handles the architecture of the content and the
site map.
If you take a deeper look into the definition which is now gradually formed in your mind, you might have noticed the simplest difference between UX and UI.
We all enjoy using UX as a prevailing buzzword, but if you are talking
about how the page is physically laid out, where things should go, what
colors to use or something like that, let’s accept the fact that they
are UI things and UX is not UI.
The Definition of UI
To get a better understanding of why UX is not UI,
UI is a small part of UX to some extent. However, UI design focuses
more on colors and typography. Let’s pick a textbook example. If there
need to be a button, UI designers will concentrate on the visual part.
Namely, how the button will look like and what color to use, whileUX
designers are trying to figure out where to put it with the intention to
find what users want and the resolutions to those pain points. So next
time if you hear something like “building great user experiences with
Silverlight 4” or“Mastering HTML5, CSS3 and Jquery to implement stunning
user experience”, you can just laugh it off or boo them if you want to.
The Vomit-flavoured Lollipop Problem
There
happens to be an interesting argument attempting to trivialize the
difference between UX and UI: If you are selling shit-flavoured
lollipops, will the best experience design in the world save you? My
short answer isYES.
Here
is the long answer. Last year I came across an operating system
claiming to be the best OS on the Eastern Hemisphere called Smartisan
OS. As might be expected, I bought the phone and found it just a piece
of shit. The system crashed whenever I ran more than 3 Apps and the heat
of the hardware could burn off my hands. Nevertheless, some
user-friendly designs in Smartisan OS did amaze me, such as the contacts
searching system and tricks like timed mute options. These details
combined to win the company 60 thousand users in the intense mobile
market in China.
What if We Just Enjoy Using the Buzzword (Though We Know It’s Inaccurate)
Buzzwords
are tempting. We all get the sense of superiority of being professional
by using the catching words but sometimes the singing Siren kills.
Trivial misunderstanding like this is creating a mess in the employment
process. Companies and talents all fuck up before their first meeting
with each other. So please, if we want to look like professionals, we
firstly need to act like ones- at least use the word right and admit
that UX is not UI.
https://medium.muz.li/ux-is-not-ui-what-is-the-difference-between-ux-and-ui-design-80a6e1968af4
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