Most of us have probably heard the term user experience, and we have also heard the term user interface. But did you know that user experience and user interface are not the same? Why, then, do I so often see job postings for aUX/UI designeras if UX and UI belonged to a single type of work? They do not. Here is why.
First and foremost, a UX designer focuses on the users of a product or service. Those users include both consumers and stakeholders within the business. At a high level, the designer's ultimate goal is to bring the product or service to a point where it delivers maximum value to the target audience. With that in mind, a UX designer's work may include the following—an incomplete list:
1. Strategy — Conduct research, interview prospective customers, establish business objectives, identify customer needs, build a strategic roadmap, and more.
2. Scope — Create a highly feasible list of requirements that meets both prospective customers' goals and the company's business objectives.
3. Structure — Create a simple but effective information architecture, along with interactions and/or flows between specific steps in the product or service.
4. Framework — Develop high-level interface designs, such as mockups, and navigation design.
5. Surface — Define the final visual expression of the product or service. This includes careful attention to how the eye is guided across different screens, which often helps designers understand how content flows through the design.
As you can see, only the final item focuses directly on design, beyond visualizing the information architecture and interaction flows of the application. In summary, a UX designer does not necessarily need visual design skills or the creative ability to design a system and make it attractive. Even when they have those abilities, ensuring that a product or service is structured to meet customer needs is already a full workload.
I believe the UI designer should be a separate role. Why? Consider some of the responsibilities involved—again, this is not a complete list:
1. User Interface Design — Use different forms and shapes to create an engaging, imaginative user interface. These layouts may target different devices, such as iPhone, iPad, and Android, or simply web applications at different screen sizes. In most cases, both considerations apply.
2. Theme Design — Related to the first responsibility: provide a coherent visual theme and design a product or service that users will remember.
3. Logo Design — Create any Logo required by the product or service. Each Logo may need different shape variations.
4. Digital Asset Creation — Based on the interface design, create assets for developers to use. Some interfaces need to show how a button or another element changes state, and those states must be exported reliably.
5. Web Design (Optional) — If the product or service is a web application, some designers may also create a basic visual prototype without back-end support. This helps the UX designer decide whether the assumptions actually match expectations for the product or service before development begins.
Please forgive any omissions if you are a UX or UI designer reading this. I am only a developer and do not fully understand everything both roles do; I am certain their responsibilities extend beyond what is described here. The central point, however, is that the two roles are fundamentally different and should be treated separately.
I have seen many companies hire only one UX/UI designer. These individuals are often overworked and lack enough time to complete every responsibility properly. Worse, some are essentially UI designers with only limited UX capabilities. You may not see this as a problem, but to me, the user experience is everything in a product or service, and it is a full-time job in itself.
For me, it is important to separate the UX designer from the UI designer. If the budget allowed, I would hire at least two UX designers for every project that needed UX services—that is how valuable the work is. In fact, if I launched a product- or service-based business tomorrow and could choose only one employee to join me, I would choose a UX designer over any other role. Too few people understand how important a UX designer is to a product- or service-based business. If you do not deeply understand what must be done to get the most from the product or service, you may fail no matter how good it looks or how promising its momentum appears.
Keep UX designers and UI designers separate. Both roles are too important to combine merely to save money. Investing in the two positions independently is worthwhile.
