How can you make software, a website, or any other tech product intriguing for its users? Simple, hire UI designers and UX designers! They can improve your product’s visual appeal and accessibility.
Although the names may sound similar, there are certain differences between the two.
In this post, I’ll tell you all about UI and UX designing and the difference between the two. I’ll also share which one of the UX designer or UI designer you should pick and from where you can hire them. So, without further ado, let’s begin.
What is UI designing?
UI (User Interface) designing is a process that helps make the product look catchy and attractive to users. It could be a CTA button, theme, contrast, etc. The goal is to give the product an aesthetic appeal.
For example, if you visit any travel-related website or app, you’ll find its look and feel are focused on engaging more customers. Be it a background image highlighting a travel destination, a quirky CTA to catch users’ attention, or something else.
This helps in garnering more customers and increasing the session duration of the app or page. For recruiting the best UI designers, you need to understand what are the different types of UI design.
There are three types of UI design, viz:
- Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) – Visuals and display on digital products.
- Voice-controlled Interfaces (VUI) – Users can interact through voice commands (Siri and Alexa).
- Gesture-based Interfaces: Using gestures to control and use the product (Example: double tap screen to wake up the phone).
What is UX designing?
UX designing is related to the structure/architecture of the product. In other words, the emphasis is on the user experience, such as easy navigation, accessibility for specially-abled people, result processing speed, and so on.
While working on the design of the app or product, UX helps address the customers’ pain points. Let me explain this with an example.
Nowadays, every smartphone has an accessibility feature that helps specially-abled people use it without hassle. For instance, the accessibility mode enables voice commands for guiding. So, a blind person can easily use the phone without worrying about selecting the wrong app or dialing an incorrect number.
You might think this is similar to VUI (Voice-controlled Interfaces), but it’s not. VUI lets users interact with the device. On the other hand, accessibility guides the user whenever they touch the phone’s screen.
This is just an example of UX designing. In any product, the core purpose of UX designing is to give users a seamless experience.
What is the difference between UI & UX designing?
Now that you know the concept of UI and UX designing, let’s talk about the difference between the two. Here’s a table for your reference.
Let me elaborate on the points below.
Application
One of the significant differences between UI and UX designing is the product. UX designing applies to the architecture of digital products. At the same time, UI designing is limited to the activities related to displaying digital products.
One of the easiest examples to understand this is mobile UI and UX designing. In mobile UI design, the focus is on the display part. Meaning how the phone should look after switching on, the layout of apps, themes, wallpapers, and so on.
On the other hand, mobile UX designing works on the users’ handling and usage of the products. For instance, how can left-handed and right-handed people use a phone? So, to solve this problem, mobile UX designers need to figure out a way to find common reaching points on the touch screen. Here’s an image for your reference.
So, it can be said that UX designers work on the overall structure of a physical and digital product. In contrast, UX designers are responsible for improving the visual and appearance of a digital product.
Focus
As I mentioned earlier, the motive of both the processes differs greatly. UI designing focuses on making every segment of a digital product visually appealing, i.e., the display part or any app or website touch points. For example, buttons, animations, themes, etc.
UX design aims to work on the user experience from start to end. This includes factors such as a webpage’s speed or white spaces, designing IA (Information Architecture) for software, and others.
End results
Since the focus areas are different, the results of both processes vary too. UI designing helps you make your product look good.
UX designing helps the users have a smooth transition at every stage of the product. This includes navigating the product, conducting transactions, auto-reply to queries, etc.
Required skill set
Last but not least, there’s another significant difference between UI and UX designing – Skillset.
When you hire UI designers, check for:
- Creativity
- Technical skills like wireframing and prototyping
- Interactive designing skills
- Working on Python, GUI Library, and Python GUI
While hiring UX designers, scrutinize them based on their knowledge and experience about:
- User research and usage testing
- Agile development
- Information architecture
- Application development
- Business acumen for developing UX strategies
- Coding skills (HTML, CSS, JavaScript,etc.)
Should you hire UI designers or UX designers?
If you search on Google — hire UI designers or UX designers, most results would always be around hiring ‘UI/UX designers.’ That’s because both the positions have a lot of common points, such as tools used (Sketch, Adobe, Marvel, Figma, etc.), skills like prototyping and wireframing, and so on.
But let me save you the suspense. You need to hire both UI designers and UX designers. Since they both work in collaboration, in the end, you get a product that looks good and offers a seamless user experience.
Conclusion
Are you aware of how interior designing and architecture go hand in hand? The former helps bring out an aesthetic look in your home, while the latter forms the foundation of your dream home. You need to have both.
Similarly, UI and UX design are interdependent. While UX creates the structure of products, keeping in mind what users want, UI ensures that it should be visually pleasing.
So, don’t mistake hiring either a UI designer or UX designer. Go for both.
Also, don’t just opt for local talents. Instead, try to look for professionals across the globe. You can hire UI/UX designers from India, Brazil, the US, or any other part of the globe and get them to work as per your time zone.
For this, approaching outsourcing firms or talent sourcing platforms is the best option.
Do give them a try and hire both UI developers as well as UX developers for your product. Till then, happy designing!