In yesterday's post, we talked about user experience design. Today, we're going to look at what user interface design or UI design is, a term closely related to UX design and often confused with it.
Let's think for a moment about how you look at a painting: how you perceive it and how it makes you feel are part of the UX, while the material and the technique it was made with are the UI. This is a clear way to distinguish the different aspects of the same product.
UI design includes everything that determines how a product or service looks. As its name says, the user interface is the point where the user interacts with a service. For example, the text, images, logos, menus and links on this page are all part of its UI and every one of these elements has a purpose for being used.
Another way to look at the relationship between these terms is through their hierarchy: the user interface is part of the user experience. In the example of a website, the elements mentioned are part of UI development, but they also contribute to the broader area of the experience that the service as a whole provides to the user.
We can conclude that something that looks beautiful but is hard to use is an example of excellent UI but poor UX. Something very easy to use that isn't beautiful is good UX but poor UI. One can indeed exist without the other, but a successful product or service requires both.
We hope these tips are very helpful! However, the jungle of terms in the field of web design doesn't end here! Don't miss our next post, where you'll learn about the terms IxD (interaction design) and UCD (user-centric design).
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