UX ( user experience ) and UI ( user interface ) are terms that are increasingly used in web design and mobile application design, at first they sound very confusing and “expensive”, but in fact they are two related processes that essentially represent the same thing – design.

UI design or UX design

In the process of creating a website or mobile application, UX and UI design undoubtedly play a very important role. And if they are quite different abilities and skills, there is simply no good UX without good UI design and vice versa.

What is UI design?

UI design is, roughly speaking, the graphical appearance of a website or mobile application. Therefore, the design of clickable “buttons”, text wrapping, photo processing, as well as the design of sliders, icons and other web elements that serve the user to interact with one of the mentioned platforms is the UI or “user interface”. UI designers are usually graphic designers who deal with aesthetics. Their main task is to deal with the color palette, shape and size of “buttons”, line width, fonts, text wrapping and other graphic elements. In a way, they create the atmosphere on the website. It is up to them to ensure that the application interface is attractive and themed in order to be useful.

What is UX design?

User experience is, as the name suggests, the experience of the user and determines the way of interaction with the application or website. No one likes to see, and especially to create a confusing and confusing platform for their promotion. It doesn’t matter if the navigation is logical or if it looks rushed and arbitrary, or if the interaction with the user is efficient or creates a feeling of constant struggle. UX determines structure and functionality, that is, how easy or difficult it is to interact with user interface (UI) elements. Therefore, UX designers also need to take care of UI design, which is why these two concepts are often mixed up.

In short, UI designers should take care of how your application or website will look, while UX designers should take care of how it will all work. If the navigation is bad, i.e. complicated, unintuitive and unclear, whether it is UX or UI design, it is very likely that the potential client will not have patience for your presentation, regardless of the quality of the offer.

You should be realistic and say that the budget will often not allow you to separate these two processes, i.e. that one person will most likely finish the entire job.

However, in the domain of theory, if we were talking about two separate teams, it should not be emphasized how necessary it is for them to cooperate closely. So, while UX designers will take care of the “flow”, that is, how quickly the interface serves the information that the user needs, UI designers will take care of how it is displayed on the screen.

Research in UX and UI design

Before you think that the “neighbor’s kid” knows how to make it, you should still take care whether he has enough experience or enough research work behind him. Research is key for UI and especially for UX designers. It is important to collect as much useful information as possible that will help in creating an appropriate design, and UX and UI have a very similar approach, that is, what is the target group and what do users expect in general? UI designers should take care whether the theme they have chosen suits the users of the application or website. It is necessary to predict what the user’s expectations are. We have already said that the aesthetics solely depends on the UI designer, but the basic rules certainly depend on the user’s expectations.

” Learn the rules like a professional so you can break them like an artist ” – Picasso

On the other hand, UX designers should also take into account what users expect. The experiences that users have had with applications or websites so far have influenced them to build their expectations of how an interface should work. If the UX designer is not familiar with these expectations, it may happen that solutions that seem logical to him have nothing to do with generally accepted rules. Users just don’t like it when the interface doesn’t behave according to their expectations.