These two terms are quite often used interchangeably. A majority of individuals usually consider both to be the same, as we see it in a layman’s perspective. But that’s not the case. These two are quite different, and have their own functionalities. In the exclusive domain of website design & development, you often hear ‘UI & UX rich’ terminology. What exactly are they? And, what significance does it hold while designing a website with all the latest design attributes, functions, analytics, tools & software.

Without much ado, let’s dive into it. Here, UI refers to the user-interface of a website or niche, whereas UX refers to the overall user experience. Since this blog focuses on web design, let’s think about UX (user experience) from a website’s perspective. For all aspiring WordPress web designers, this has always been an interesting topic to get familiar with. Let’s get into it!

What is UX Design?

The term UX refers to ‘user experience design’. It basically encompasses all aspects of a user’s interaction with a website or a particular web page. As per Don Norman’s definition, regardless of its medium, UX design embodies all interactions between a prospect or active customer and an organization. In this case, a website. The basic idea here is to provide a meaningful and satisfactory experience to the user or web visitor. The user experience may result from attributes like usability, accessibility, navigability, functions, buttons and landing page design.

It is the entire process a user experiences while using a service of a company. Here, it is about a website that a user visits for finding certain services, and navigating with ease to find what the user is searching for. It is the entire experience a person encounters, from visiting a website to the final purchase, which is termed as a user experience. Thus, a website should be rich in UX design attributes. This is to obtain repeat customers and increase leads.

The main aspects of UX-rich web design are:

User Feeling – Be it mobile app design or website design, if the UX is satisfactory, practical, and rich, it is bound to create a ‘feel good’ factor for any web visitor or user. It mainly focuses on achieving an overwhelming feeling, when a customer visits any website, either looking for a product or buying any service. The basic idea is to create a meaningful experience for users.

Testing & Prototyping – It is by creating wireframes and testable prototypes that form the backbone of a website’s user flow. On the other hand UI designers help design a website that drives user-engagement. In the UX design process, a majority of designs go through multiple iterations, before they’re finalized by the senior design team. Here, A/B testing is also a valued asset, when it comes to a UX design. Some important tasks include:

• A/B testing between placement of buttons, text layout and other elements of design.
• Wireframing the core structure of web design.
• Prototyping web designs to test for functionality.

Content Strategy – A lot of organizations are now focusing on a content-driven design to deliver a greater punch, when it comes to enhancing user-experience. It is the content (text & images) in a website that plays a pivotal role in achieving the desired ‘feel good’ experience. Such as, when any visitor reads the blog posts, home page, and service pages content. A UX design content strategy includes:

• Understanding customer sentiment analysis.
• Content optimization with keywords, auditing and mapping.
• Competitor’s content analysis.

What is UI Design?

It is basically about the specifics of a website’s user-interface. Here, a web designer selects advanced Google fonts, designs/redesigns visual elements, and ensures that individual pages are visually appealing and perfectly fit into the company’s overall business objectives and long-term growth plan. A website design or mobile UI design must look into all aspects of style and functionality of a particular web page. It should be made easy for any user to browse through pages, with no navigation related issues. A fast loading page is also one of the aspects of a UI-rich web design.

Visual Design – Today, a majority of web and mobile app development companies are optimizing the individual elements of websites, which includes typography (font), button design, and other fields that help in getting a robust interface. The main components of a visual design are:

• Designing call-to-action buttons and other ‘clickable’ icons, items or elements.
• Coloring portions, segments and elements of a website.
• Selecting the right font style, size, color and typography.

Interactive Design – While designing a UI rich website, web designers implement or incorporate the interactive elements in the design of a mobile responsive (dynamic) or static website. It can be animations, graphics and other interactive aspects. For example, a web designer can create animation on a website that triggers after any web visitor clicks a button or scrolls down. Some of the best examples of interactive UI design are:

• Designing animations & graphics for elements on a web page.
• Developing interactive web elements that incorporate visuals like images and videos.
• Managing and designing a ‘free flowing’ content which does not look forced or coerced.

Mobile Responsive Design – Modern day web design & mobile application design must be easily accessible, adaptable, and viewable on all types of mobile devices and screen sizes. It must easily adapt and open exactly in the same manner in all devices like iPads, laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones. A mobile responsive design is related to the UI design concept, as it is the process of making a website and its content easy to access and view on different mobile devices. This is especially important in web design where sites should open or load exactly the same manner from a 15.6 inch monitor to a 6.5-inch smartphone screen.

Some examples of a responsive design process are:

• Designing dynamic & flexible websites for different layouts and screen dimensions.
• Designing easily resizable web pages and vector elements.
• Easy-to-Manage and incorporate web design styles and templates.

Final Thoughts

Both UI & UX design are somewhat different from each other in concept, process, and attributes. One is about creating a rich user experience, while the other is about providing a web visitor with a seamlessly designed web page that is easy to navigate, loads fast, has rich fonts (typography) with attractive background color, and be easy to understand, use, and operate. Hope this clears any questions between the two. Stay tuned for more blogs!