The UX/UI designer career is currently one of the most in-demand design professions. However, many still do not fully understand the significance and extent of the work that goes into creating the solutions that the users experience. Hence, it is of utmost importance to present concepts about UX/UI Design to demystify the common idea that the work of UX/UI Design professionals only involves the creation of pretty screens.
Before moving forward into that particular topic, and even though there are generalist designers who perform in both areas, the difference between UX and UI design must be outlined to get a clear picture of what will be further discussed:
UX (User experience) is about designing the experience obtained through the interaction between a user and a system so that the users can effectively perform the tasks they are presented with. In other words, the UX Designer’s job is to understand the user and the business problem and design the solution via a digital interface to deliver value to the user by providing a good experience.
UI (User Interface) represents what is used for an effective interaction to happen, i.e., the UI Designer designs the means by which users will interact with the product. At this stage, several visual factors, such as typography, colours, and hierarchy, are considered so that the user experiences an aesthetically pleasing and functional product.
The catch is that UI designers take care of the materialization of the entire process with visual solutions, or rather, the pretty screens, but ideally, they should also understand the whole process of figuring out the solution, so they can come up with a visually logical interaction that generates an aesthetically pleasing, intuitive and coherent experience for the user. Thus, the ideal is to have a coordinated collaboration between UX and UI designers throughout the project to ensure a better user experience.
What exactly is the experience that has been referred to so far?
In brief, experience is what happens when someone uses a product or service and only possible to determine if it is good or bad by assessing its direct use. From this simple concept, one could take away one of the fundamental key points to truly grasp what UX/UI design is all about:
The role of the UX/UI designer is much more about understanding people and delivering what they truly need instead of what they say they want than any visual solution we are used to seeing. After all, the user experience designer does not design experiences but designs FOR the experience that will happen.
How to come up with a solution that provides a good user experience?
Essentially, UX/UI design entails multiple levels of research techniques to achieve a result that provides a good user experience. Based on Jesse James Garrett’s previous work, Trevor Van Gorp created a visual depiction using an iceberg metaphor that is now considered to be a mandatory guide for one to start understanding the UX process:
When it comes to UX, it is essential to have a holistic view of the situation. Ideally, a project starts abstractly and evolves toward something more tangible. Consequently, when starting a project, it is critical to dive to the root of the iceberg (strategy layer) and return to its tip (surface layer). The graphic also summarizes what is being contemplated in each layer and what questions need to be answered.
In this way, the UX process is based on the user-centred design approach, where regardless of the step or tool used to meet the objective, users must be the primary focus, and there are several different methodologies and techniques to deliver a quality result, but that will be covered in a future post.
References:
Garrett, J. J. (2010). The elements of user experience (2nd ed.). New Riders Publishing.
Nielsen, J., & Norman, D. (n.d). The Definition of User Experience (UX). Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience/
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