UI/ UX Difference: A Detailed Guide to Get Started

UI and UX are the central spines of everything a user can interact with while using any smart device in the present era of technology evolution.

 

UI and UX design are two sides of the same coin; that refer to the essentials of design, customer experience, and customer satisfaction. UI stands for User Interface, which specifically entails the design, colors, animations, and overall design look.

 

UX entails a user experience that focuses on the functionality of the design in delivering a smooth experience to the user. They both differentiate from each other with nuances that we will discuss later.

Let’s discuss each of them one by one.

What is UI/UX Design in the first place?

UI/UX designs are different from each other with the hue of nuances in terms of their usability and features for the user. Let’s have a look at UX/UI design and its fundamentals.

UI Design

The user interface creates a place for the users to interact with the computing world using digital designs. With the help of the user interface, the users can navigate through a website or an electronic device.

The main focus of the UI design is to create aesthetically appealing designs, buttons, navigation systems, previews, and other visual elements. To increase the design and art of a display, user interface design has the most crucial role.

Optimizing a user-interface design according to the audience's requirements is deemed essential to increase usability and interactivity throughout. A smooth design with smooth and appealing navigation boosts user retention and attracts more users.

UX Design

User experience and user interface are interlinked together. Therefore, user experience and its design is one of the most prioritized elements in a digital design so that it is logical, fun, and functional for the user. Regarding UX design, it is more related to the practical implementation of ease of usability and more interactivity.

Creating a UX design entails bringing the ideas to fruition so that it is well-executed and well-rendered to the users. It is the course of interaction that a user has through a user interface, ensuring it is seamless that meets the requirements of the target audience.

UX design is based on collecting the target audience or user’s feedback, suggestions, user journey, user persona, reviews, and extensive market research. All those factors help produce an intuitive user experience design to bridge the gap between user expectations and services/products/companies.

 

 

Fundamentals of UI/UX Design

The fundamentals of UI/UX design vary from the nature of their functionality and usage. However, here is the list of UI/UX design fundamentals that focus on their core features and operability.

Fundamentals of UX Design

The core fundamentals of UX design revolve around five factors: 

• Empathy
• Strategy
• Usability
• Inclusivity 
• Validation

 

Empathy

 

It redirects the user experience designer to put themselves in the user's shoes and produce designs that guarantee ease of usability and accessibility. Empathy helps in generating more power and initiative design based on user-centred preferences.

Strategy

It follows a set of goals, guidelines, and flowcharts to execute a user-friendly design. Having a well-devised UX crafting strategy leads to following each process from scratch through testing and till the completion of the design.

Usability

The alphabet ‘U’ is the leader of UX design since every digital UX design and designer revolves around it. To provide easy access, maximum functionality, and ensure user-friendliness, the UX designer must ensure the design fulfills optimal usability. 

Inclusivity

One approach that a design has to follow is ‘design for all.’ This mantra is that user experience design enables designers to create content inclusive to all races, ages, genders, backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, and more. 

Validation

The user validation for the design experience comes above all. Therefore, a user must validate the design, whether it's fulfilling the user's expectations and requirements or not. Feedback forms and suggestions help designers conduct the validation process.

Fundamentals of UI Design

The fundamentals of UI Design revolve around five factors:

• Visibility
• Consistency 
• Feedback
• Predictability
• Learnability 

 

Visibility

It is critical to understand what needs to be visible to the user so they can easily navigate the design. Not everything is important that demands be highlighted. Therefore, making an understandable and easy-to-navigate design is necessary.

Consistency

Keeping the design the same throughout the updates and changes is important to make navigation easier for the user. Consistency should be maintained throughout the updates, from buttons to colors to typography and other design elements.

Feedback

Give feedback to the users as they process action and complete it to ensure that their actions have been well-processed. Playing with the visual elements of the user interface of an app, webpage, and digital pages will give a seamless customer experience. 

Predictability

It is important to let users know of their next action to have complete info on their course of action to complete a process. Not highlighting predictability can lead to confusion for the users which is not a good practice.

Learnability

It refers to all four elements mentioned earlier that add up to developing a user-friendly interface giving cues to the users. Learnability gives the details to the user interface designer to ensure an intuitive design and smooth experience.

 

 

Types of UI Design Patterns

There are five major types of User Interface (UI) design patterns that are: 

• Command Line Interface 
• Graphical User Interface 
• Voice-controlled User Interface
• Touchscreen User Interface
• Gesture-based User Interface 

 

Let's discuss them one by one.

Command Line Interface

This type of User interface is the most-used interface as it runs on textual commands for executing functions and operations. It is used as a basic platform to kickstart code-based projects. The command-line interface is used for developing programming apps and several similar programs.
 

Graphical User Interface

As the name implies, this interface accompanies visual elements, layouts, icons, widgets, buttons, and so on. Compared to the command line interface, the graphical user interface is more user-friendly as it is easier for users to engage with colors and visual elements.
 

Furthermore, GUI is also known by the name 'Natural User Interface' for the fact that users feel more natural and interactive with the graphical user interface. The major aspects of the GUI include storytelling, timeline design, feed, menu-driven interfaces, and amalgamation of other ideas to create a top-notch GUI. 

Voice-controlled Interface

It is synonymously known as voice speech, as most commands and operations are done using human speech. The perfect example of voice-controlled speech is Alexa and Siri, running commands by a discerning human voice.

In such an interface, there is no visual content; rather, machine learning is leveraged for voice recognition through Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Voice Synthesis.

The voice-controlled interface is one of the most recognizable and used interfaces as it is easier for people to put commands by doing the least. For instance, its functionality among blind people is commendable, as they can interact with an interface through speech. 

Touchscreen User Interface

This type of user interface accompanies touch sensors and is more natural s compared to graphical user interfaces. In the touchscreen user interface, the users do not have to worry about the controls and amalgamation of the buttons and other visual layouts.
 

Touchscreen user interface has made its way to games in virtual reality technology. The most common example is its use in arcade games, mobiles, LCD screens, etc.

Gesture-based User Interface

With recent technological advancements, the gesture-based user interface is rapidly evolving and even making its way to game development. With that being said, such an interface is quite prevalent in AR and VR games, where the movements are converted into game actions.

For instance, AR/VR games developed in Unity can be incorporated with the gesture-based user interface so players can interact using headsets and relevant devices. It utilizes technologies such as gesture recognition technologies for the classification of the gestures, input devices for gesture recognition, and overall prospects.

Does UI/UX Design Require Coding? No, but there is a catch for you. 

UI/UX design does not require coding. However, having knowledge and know-how of coding can boost your capacity and understanding of the back-end functionalities. There is a slight chance of instances where UX/UI designers might need a wee bit of coding knowledge. 

Hence, it does not require coding, but it can be a good choice if you want to leg up your expertise.

UX/UI Design Process - 5 Steps of the Ladder 

The UX/UI design process has five simple steps that enable the UI/UX designer to produce top-notch designs. Here are the five steps:

1. Product Definition
2. Research 
3. Analysis 
4. Design
5. Testing 
   
   

Product Definition

 

In this step, the designer must gather all the details about the product, brand, vision, user persona, user journey, and product scope.

Doing this is essential to develop a blueprint for designing and developing user interfaces. Once all of this gets clear to the UI/UX designer, it becomes easy for them to design the interface that fulfills the audience's requirements.

Research 

This process further delves into the following categories: 

Market research and analysis to understand the competition happening in the industry 

Research the business domain to understand the field and its UI requirements

Conducting competitor's analysis to properly design the strategy for fruitful outcomes

Research and development for the latest trends, UI/UX design principles like Hierarchy, Consistency, Confirmation, User Control, Accessibility, and guidelines

Analysis

After the completion of research, a UX/UI designer analyzes the information with scrutiny. UX/UI designers must analyze the information to create hypothetical persons, user experience maps, and product representations.

UX/UI designers create hypothetical personas and product representations to finalize the user flow w.r.t product.

Design 

In this phase, all the gathered information is utilized to create the designs. UX/UI designers start working on the graphics, which is carried out by the concept art/idea, to sketching, creating wireframes, and prototypes, and finalizing the design specifications. 

Hence, for the design part it involves the following important steps:

• Sketching 
• Wireframes 
• Testable Prototypes 
• Design Specifications Development 

 

Testing 

As the name suggests, the testable prototypes developed in the design phase are tested for functionality and operability. User testing and testability are the key aspects of testing to validate the design and its user-friendliness. Different testing tools and techniques are used for the testing phase to ensure the smooth performance of the design.

 

 

Top 5 UI/UX Design Trends In 2023 

UI/UX designs are adopting modern techniques while leaving behind the traditional methods and interface that users find boring now. UI/UX design trends in 2023 will bring the shift by adopting new technologies and making UI/UX trends in accordance with that.

Let’s quickly overview the UI/UX design trends in 2023.

• AR/VR/MR
• 3D Imagery 
• Immersive Scrolling 
• Product Reveal Hover Effect 
• Brutalism 

 

AR/VR/MR 

UX/UI designs are no longer run-of-the-mill as user expectations have changed. They want a more interactive and immersive experience in the design. In the pretext of this, augmented, virtual and mixed realities have become the change users have been looking for.
 

With AR/VR/MR, users can virtually interact with the interfaces, websites, products, and games - using devices and headsets. In UX/UI design, augmented and virtual reality are considered the domain's future.

3D Imagery 

AR/VR and 3D imagery go hand in hand with each other. No more boring and mundane user interfaces, as 3D modeling software are used to give a three-dimensional view for enhanced user experience. 3D UX designs bring 3D assets for dimensions and modeling techniques to the UIs.

Immersive Scrolling 

Do you remember when we only had the option for horizontal and vertical scrolling? Say no to obsolete user interfaces.

Immersive scrolling is a new change and technique in UX/UI designing. It is considered the best for making the journey interactive and enjoyable, leading them to keep the user hooked.

The latest development technologies, such as Javascript, animation libraries, and native implementations accompany immersive scrolling. Immersive scrolling is mostly used in the landing pages giving control to the designers to create the best storytelling UX/UI design.
 

Product Reveal Hover Effect 

When it comes to the product’s UX/UI design, the hover effect is the most initiative one. It enables users to see the product clearly and how it will appear. This gives more of a customized experience to the users and gives a smooth user experience. 

Brutalism 

Brutalism is the latest UI/UX designing trend in 2023 that seems to take over the other mundane trends. To elaborate more on brutalism, it focuses on effectiveness and functionality with a transparent style. It does not contain heavy animations, designs, or Imagery. Here are the main features of brutalism UI/UX design:

• B/W backgrounds
• No gradients or shadows
• Lack of symmetry
• Crowded design
• No distinct hierarchy
• Monospaced typography
• One font used throughout
• Contrasting color palette
• Lack of animation
• Sparse imagery
• Simple or non-existent navigation
• Single-page website design

 

 

What Is a UX Designer, and What Do UX Designers Do? 

A user experience (UX) designer is responsible for creating a design that bridges the gap between the user and the digital product, creating a seamless experience. A user experience designer starts from scratch by creating proper workflows and strategies to make an intuitive and user-friendly interface. 

What does a UX Designer do?

The roles and responsibilities of a UX designer involve a myriad of responsibilities and activities to execute a proper design. Most importantly, UX designers must put themselves in users' shoes to understand their needs and requirements. However, here is a list of roles and responsibilities of a UX designer:

Extensive research about the user persona, user journey, and similar user interface to produce the best user interface design.

Map out the way navigation of the user interface design has to be formed. A proper user experience blueprint is prepared for further work on wireframes and prototypes. 

User experience designers make rough sketches to show the design stages and relevant elements for the product or website. These sketches are further developed into clickable prototypes for the experimentation and implementation of the design.

UX designers test the design for user testing by leveraging different techniques and strategies. UX designer has to ensure that the design delivers intuitiveness, accessibility, inclusivity, and operability.
 

What Is a UI Designer, and What Do UI Designers Do? 

User Interface designers are the experts who create a complete layout for the users to interact through websites, apps, and games. User interface designers work on bringing a visually designed product to the users so that they can leverage interactivity to get the processes done.

What Does a UI Designer Do? 

A user interface designer is responsible for a cluster of activities to create the right look and feel of the interfaces. A UI designer must have a strong command of visual design understanding and the related elements to produce a top-notch design and interface that captivates the users. However, here is a list of roles and responsibilities of a UI designer:

Developing a design guide to achieve consistency throughout the design process. 

Designing a responsive screen to ensure that visual elements and designs are compatible with all placement and adjustment of visual designs, such as buttons, menus, pictures, fonts, icons, scrollbars, text fields, form fields, and so on. 

Creating animations and visual effects in different file formats for visual appearance. A UI designer also focuses on the page's imagery, colors, typography, and padding for proper alignment. 

Optimize the graphical content to ensure the smooth performance of the games, websites, and other mobile applications.

 

 

What Skills Do UI and UX Designers Need? 

UI/UX designers need not only technical skills but soft skills too. UI and UX designers must amalgamate their technical/hard and soft skills to develop a top-notch design that delivers a good user interface.
 

Let’s have a look at the skills UI/UX designers need to have. 

Skills to Become a UI Designer 

Here are the skills to be a UI designer:

Skills to Become a UX Designer

Here are the skills to be a UX designer:

 

Is UX/UI design a good career? Which career path is right for you? 

Many people seem to be in the dilemma of ‘Is UX UI a good career for the future?’. There is no absolute answer to this. However, certain factors define if UX/UI design is a good fit for your career choice. Let's have a look at them.
 

UX/UI design as a career demands a few traits and characteristics from a person that hello you in determining if you should go for it or not. They are: 

You want to be creative and leverage your analytical skills to the fullest. One has to touch the heights of creativity to produce a premium design.
 

Under the canopy of a UI/UX design career, a plethora of opportunities branch out of it. Hence, it gives career growth opportunities and branches out as per the interests regarding the career.

In the long-run UI/UX design career is much more lucrative than you can imagine. It offers a lucrative career and ensures job satisfaction and security. UI/UX designers are the most important of any website, business, company, or product as they bring out the designs and their interactivity for the users.

Common UI/UX Designer Job Roles  

UI and UX designer job roles offer a lot of diversity in the career through which you can seek career growth opportunities. Not only that, but one can have a diverse range of job roles in the UX and UI Design field domain. Let’s have a look at common UI/UX designer job roles:

 

 

How Do UI/UX Designers Work Together? 

UI/UX designers go hand in hand as they are responsible for going through the entire process of producing one final product.

Here the analogy of the destination and wagon would pit perfectly.

 

 

This analogy gives a thorough representation of the UX and UI teams along with their collaboration. To elucidate more on it, UX designers have to determine the working and operability of the design, which comes from extensive research and other technical aspects.

Whereas UI designers, considering the flowcharts and workflow made by UX designers, carry out the interface designing of the process.

The mantra of UX and UI designers is to work collaboratively by creating workflows, layouts, ideas, and blueprints to reach the desired design and interface.

How do I become a UX/UI designer? 

Here is a simple visual guide for becoming a UX/UI designer. Let’s see what it says: 

 

 

Important Tips To Consider When Hiring an Agency in 2023 

Hiring an agency for UX/UI design is a big decision as it involves the projects and stakeholders' investment. Therefore, to streamline the processes, here are some factors that you must consider before outsourcing the work to UX/UI agency. Let's have a look at them.

Expertise 

Make sure that the UX/UI agency is well-versed in the latest technologies and techniques so that they can demonstrate what you want in your project. It is also important that the agency know the latest UI/UX trends, market, and business to provide top-notch UX/Ui designs.

Time-saving 

Time is the money and with that benign said, ensure that agency can deliver projects timely. It is essential to communicate the details about the turnaround time for your project.

Cost-effectiveness

To determine if the UX/UI agency is cost-effective, check for the tools and techniques that are not readily available for everyone due to their high pricing. If a UX/UI agency offers all the high-end tech stacks and provides exceptional results, this is likely the right choice.

Brand Consistency

To build your brand, maintaining consistency is the key. Therefore, a UX/UI agency must ensure that your logo, colors, typography, idea, vision, and website are well-represented in the design that create a long-lasting impression.
 

Access to Management 

Having an executive team for the Game design agency is essential to communicate proper guidance and requirements. Ensuring access to management will save you the worry of teeny-tiny problems, as they will be one call away.

Ultimately, it all boils down to the results, work regulations, standards, trustworthiness, and commitment. Having these characteristics will lead to getting the desired results.

 

 

Create an Enthralling UX/UI Design For Your Game With InvoGames 

InvoGames offer full-scale UI/UX design services for game development that features mapping user journey, creating processes for game environments, optimizing visual content, and creating an overall game look to make it an enthralling one.

Our expert UX/UI designers leverage the best practices to produce a flawless game with fully-functional features and optimization to make a battle-tested game.

Hire our expert UX/UI developers now to make your next project a hit. Contact us at sales@invogames.com.