{"id":82195,"date":"2024-06-18T20:42:44","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T19:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?p=82195"},"modified":"2025-01-13T16:49:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:49:17","slug":"ux-vs-ui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/ux-vs-ui\/","title":{"rendered":"UX vs UI: Understanding the difference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UX vs UI. User experience. User Interface. User confused? Let\u2019s break down the key differences between the disciplines.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>The whole \u2018UX vs UI\u2019 thing has been bamboozling product teams since time immemorial. But it needn\u2019t be all that complicated. When it comes to UX vs UI, you just need to know your look and feel from your user journeys. And \u2013\u00a0importantly \u2013 who\u2019s responsible for which part of the pie.\u00a0

So let\u2019s put this to bed once and for all: here\u2019s everything you ever wanted to know about UI vs UX (but weren\u2019t<\/em> afraid to ask, since you presumably Googled it and landed here)…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is UX?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

UX stands for user experience. For digital products like apps, websites and online services, it\u2019s an overarching term that generally speaks to the way people navigate, explore and, well\u2026 Use<\/em> the thing.

That covers navigation and information hierarchy, as well as overall accessibility and ease of use. Great UX is all about answering a core question: can our users do the thing we want to enable in a way that makes sense?<\/em> You get there via market research, user testing<\/a> and fine-tuning until you have a user experience that\u2019s super seamless and intuitive.

And yeah, we know<\/em>; that letter \u2018X\u2019 is doing some heavy lifting here. UX just scans better than UE. It is what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is UI? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

UI stands for user interface. And for all intents and purposes, \u2018interface\u2019 here is synonymous with what most people think of when they think of the word \u2018design\u2019.\u00a0

Well, kinda<\/em>, anyway.

See, if you give a designer access to Figma and absolute free reign they\u2019ll let their imaginations run wild. That\u2019ll give you something incredible to look at, but potentially confusing to use. Great user interface design, then, is all about massaging those cool ideas into something that feels unified, coherent, and obvious to the user.\u00a0\u00a0

In other words, UI builds on the skeletal work done by UX teams, focusing more on the cosmetic and aesthetic parts of your product\u2019s DNA.\u00a0

UI designers are obsessed with color schemes, the way buttons look, the readability of interactive elements, the feel of transitions and animations, and whether everything is crystal clear to the end user.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UX vs UI – what\u2019s the difference? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is where it gets a bit complicated \u2013 since the latter is actually a subset of the former. While the two are different disciplines, everything you do as part of user interface design should be done in the interest of your product\u2019s overall user experience.\u00a0

After all, if you\u2019re fussing over drop-down menus on a product that\u2019s fundamentally broken on a UX level, you may as well be rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.\u00a0

With UX vs UI, the differences between the two disciplines are probably best described with some handy analogies. If you\u2019re a chef dreaming up a new meal, UX design would be the thought process behind the ingredients \u2013\u00a0do they work together? Are the flavors complimentary? UI design, on the other hand, is the presentation, the plating and the garnish.

If you\u2019re making a giant, city-destroying robot, UX would cover the fundamentals of movement, the specifications, and the stomping motions. UI would ensure that the robot\u2019s face and voice feel consistent with your destructive intentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UX vs UI design vs PX<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Product experience (PX) is a slightly different beast, as it has a wider, more all-encompassing focus. So, while user experience looks to fine-tune the actual usage and flow for each customer journey, product experience takes a much more holistic view of everything to do with it.\u00a0

That includes the product\u2019s look and feel, sure \u2013 but also its marketing, customer service, third-party touchpoints, back-end engineering, userbase, and even how it fits into the world in a contextual sense.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UX tasks and responsibilities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

User experience teams look after a range of jobs that coalesce to bring a seamless, simple flow to the product:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Hierarchy and architecture<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    When a user lands on the front page of your app or website, what are they looking at? What information or tools do they need first? What are they there to achieve? Answering those questions helps UX teams decide what\u2019s most important and, ideally, shove those things front and center so that users don\u2019t have to go digging around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. Navigation flows<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      That hierarchy work will also influence your product\u2019s general navigation \u2013 which includes what\u2019s in the main nav menu, but also the page-to-page flow for every kind of user journey. These all need to make intuitive sense and provide users with exactly what they\u2019d expect to see at each step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \n
      1. Wireframing<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

        Once you have your user journeys and information architecture nailed down, UX teams build basic wireframes of every page. These are stripped-back blueprints for the product, app or website that give UI design teams a structure to work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \n
        1. Testing and fine-tuning\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

          UX is never a one-and-done process. Instead, it needs constant testing and finetuning. Focus groups, heatmaps, eye-tracking tools and solicited user feedback forms all help inform areas of the user experience that fall short of expectations \u2013 or that highlight experience gaps you\u2019ll want to close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          UI tasks and responsibilities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

          UI teams tend to pick up where UX leaves off, adding polish to wireframes and finalizing product design \u2013 albeit still with an eye on user-centricity. UI specialists look after\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \n
          1. Branding, fonts and color palettes\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

            AKA: the only part people tend to consciously notice, even though they\u2019re benefiting from all the hard work that went into every other part of your UI and UX design behind the scenes. That\u2019s just the way it goes, sadly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \n
            1. Layout and page density<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

              UI designers need to carefully balance information density, white space, scannability, and a bunch of different psychological hooks that keep people using, scrolling, or pushing buttons. There\u2019s an art and a science to this that requires iteration and user testing. The goal of great UI product design is clarity and useability that implores people to stick around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                \n
              1. Interactivity design<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

                It sounds obvious, but people need to know \u2013 in an instant \u2013 that a button is a button and not just a graphic or aesthetic piece of page furniture. There\u2019s work to be done here in creating a design language that\u2019s easily readable and stays consistent across the whole user journey. Nobody likes surprises, and nobody likes clicking on things that do nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Where do UX and UI overlap?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

                While it’s ideal to have dedicated people for both UI and UX in your product team, the reality doesn’t always work out like that. So, whether you have dedicated Designers for each discipline, or Designers straddling both areas, you should always understand that they are different skills with different priorities – as we’ve outlined already.

                But there is one key facet that UX and UI Designers share: They both need to be intensely user-first in their thinking.\u00a0<\/strong>

                That may be obvious for UX \u2013 making the user journey and flow feel intuitive is the basis of the job. But it\u2019s also true for UI design because success in this space means only making design choices that add to the user\u2019s experience. The alternative is to design fluff for the sake of fluff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                UX and UI examples<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

                Example time! Let\u2019s take a look at a couple of hypothetical products, and dissect what UX and UI teams would handle for each one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                eCommerce website<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

                UX team: <\/strong>What problem are we trying to solve, and how best can this eCommerce website do that job? Your UX team would first get stuck into some research on customer needs and pain points, alongside their existing online shopping behaviors. From this, they\u2019d design the overall user flows for browsing, searching and buying. That would then lead to the creation of wireframes and prototypes that can be used to test, validate and iterate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                UI team:<\/strong> Your user interface team would step in to take those prototypes and turn them into visually appealing pages, complete with your company\u2019s branding. The goal here would be to build a cohesive UI that enhances every step of the journey \u2013 and encourages purchases. Once finalized, UI design teams work with front-end developers to ensure these designs translate into the final product without anything getting lost in translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Mobile banking app<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

                UX team:<\/strong> The key job in this case would be to figure out the various journeys users want to take in their banking app, list them in order or priority, and design an overarching navigational flow that doesn\u2019t get in their way. That would ideally come alongside some competitor research, where you might uncover something your rivals do poorly. Maybe sending money to friends is a pain and should be enabled with a big, no-nonsense prompt on the front page? UX designers need to balance these needs while also adhering to accessibility and regulatory guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                UI team: <\/strong>Once the wireframes are in, your UI team\u2019s job is to take that experience and make it unequivocally yours \u2013 so that no one can mistake it for any other bank\u2019s. That\u2019ll be alongside adding flourishes that give satisfactory feedback that your users have done what they think they\u2019ve done. Maybe confetti rains down on the screen when they receive money? Maybe a button jiggles when they enter information wrong? These are the touches that make an app\u2019s UI feel compelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                How do you measure good UX vs UI?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

                For both user experience and user interface, you\u2019ll use focus groups, heatmaps, eye-tracking and other types of user feedback to stress test everything and generate a host of relevant metrics and qualitative statements about your product: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Measurement method<\/strong><\/td>UX metrics and feedback<\/strong><\/td>UI metrics and feedback<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
                Focus groups<\/td>User pain points and needs. Feedback on the overall experience. <\/td>Feedback on visual design. Perceptions of branding and aesthetics. <\/td><\/tr>
                Usability testing<\/td>Task completion rates. Time on task. Error rates. User satisfaction levels.<\/td>Feedback on visual hierarchy. Ease of navigation. Clarity of UI elements<\/td><\/tr>
                Surveys and questionnaires<\/td>Net Promoter Score (NPS).
                User satisfaction ratings (CSAT).<\/td>                		Ratings on visual appeal. Feedback on branding and aesthetics.<\/td><\/tr>
                Analytics tools<\/td>User flow metrics. Conversion rates. Bounce rates. Feature usage. Time to Value (TTV).<\/td>Click and scroll heatmaps. UI element engagement<\/td><\/tr>
                A\/B testing<\/td>Comparative metrics like conversion rates and engagement. User preferences and behaviors.<\/td>Comparative metrics like click-through rates and engagement. Visual design preferences.<\/td><\/tr>
                Card sorting exercises<\/td>Information architecture insights. User mental models<\/td>Feedback on navigation and labeling.<\/td><\/tr>
                Eye-tracking and heatmaps<\/td>Visual attention patterns. Areas of interest or confusion.<\/td>Evaluation of visual hierarchy. Effectiveness of UI elements.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

                So, while those metrics might be in the form of core KPIs (like Time to Value, which measures how long it takes users to get what they came for out of your product), they could also be a written statement that the app doesn\u2019t work on their device \u2013\u00a0or even that the color scheme gives them a headache.\u00a0

                In either case, these metrics and statements will generate questions that can help you improve things. And the nature of those questions will differ whether you\u2019re looking to improve UX or UI:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Questions that drive successful UX<\/h3>\n\n\n\n