What Are the Differences Between UX and UI?

UX and UI are two of the most common phrases used in website and app design. Because they’re used together so often, it’s understandable that they get confused with each other. The differences between UX and UI are simple. UI is how a website looks and includes anything a user interacts with such as buttons or text. UX is the emotional reaction a user has to the website. A UX designer also ensures that a user can easily meet their goal while interacting with the site.

What is user interface? How is user experience different from user experience? We’ll answer these questions and discuss the key differences between these two concepts below.

What Is User Interface?

At its most basic level, user interface (UI) is the look and style of a website. It also includes anything you interact with while using the interface, including the text you read, the buttons you press, the images and sliders you see, the text boxes you interact with, etc.

A UI designer is the one who decides what a website or application will look like. They choose the color schemes, fonts, buttons, and layout to ensure that the site is easy to use and creates a good user experience. They’re also responsible for ensuring that a website or application has a consistent, cohesive design on every page.

What Is User Experience?

While UI is focused on how an interface looks, user experience (UX) is focused on how a user feels while interacting with the interface. More simply, UX is the process of designing something that is easy-to-use, fun to interact with, and useful. The term UX design was first coined in the early 1990s by Don Norman, a cognitive scientist for Apple. He took a holistic view of user experience and focused on how the physical interaction, design, graphics, and interface affect the user experience.

The primary purpose of a UX designer is to ensure that a user can meet their goals easily. They regularly interact with UI designers, product teams, marketers, and researchers to help bridge the gap between technology and the user. They ensure that the final UX interface is something that meets the target audiences’ needs and meets business goals.

 

 

Differences Between UX and UI

Now that you understand what UX and UI are, it’s important that you recognize the key differences between these two terms. Simply put, UI is all the elements that allow someone to interact with a website—images, buttons, text, checkboxes, and more. UX is what a user feels during and after the interaction. Here are a few other key differences between UX/UI web design:

• UI makes a website beautiful, UX makes it useful. Through careful research and collaboration with other teams, a UX designer helps determine what will make a website the most useful to the targeted customer. The UI designer then meets this goal by making the website look aesthetically pleasing.
• UX is focused on meeting goals while UI is focused on making emotional connections. When people visit your site or use your application, they’re trying to accomplish a specific goal. Someone designing the UX interface ensures that users can easily meet their goals and have a good experience. A UI designer then creates an emotional connection with the user with a stunning design or striking font.
• UI only pertains to interfaces. UX is used in interfaces, products, and services. UI is really only applicable to the graphics of an interface. Very rarely does it extend beyond that. UX, on the other hand, is used in almost every aspect of business to ensure customers are happy and goals are met.

How Develop Bright is Combining UX and UI

For any website to be successful, it needs to have a strong balance of both UI and UX. At Develop Bright, our entire process is built on creating that balance. We combine both digital marketing and graphic design to create stunning websites that meet business goals and stand out from the competition.

To learn more about our process, services, and prices, contact us! We’d love to hear from you!