UI and UX Design In Web Design

What is UI and UX in web design? This is a question that has been kept coming back to us from our clients and others who are interested in web design time and time again. Therefore, in this article, we are going to cover everything about UI and UX in web design.

First things first, UI and UX are not something that is solely related to web design. They are two design elements that apply in designing any platform that users will eventually end up using whether it is a website, a mobile app, or even general software. But here, we will be mainly focusing on how UI and UX design influence a website design process.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s dive right in!

What is UI design?

In the simplest terms, UI stands for “User Interface” and UI design is referred to as how a designer designs the visual layout of a website keeping the end-user in mind to give them what they are looking for via the best possible website layout.

Some elements of a UI design can be identified as:

• CTA (Call To Action) Button Design and placement
• Images
• Sliders
• Readable Text
• Animations

Basically, any and every design of a visual element on a website is known as UI design.

Usually, this type of job is done by UI designers. These UI designers are highly trained to identify important key elements of the target market of the website and design every single visual element accordingly to make the website design as effective as possible.

For example, if a website is targeted towards a younger audience such as teens, the UI designers will consider new trendy fonts, images, and bright neon colors to attract that young audience.

As you are now able to see, UI designers have a lot to do with the success of a website.

What is UX Design?

UX stands for “User Experience” and UX design refers to the way designers make the website function for the users when they are using it.

Some elements of a UX design can be identified as:

• The navigation of the website
• The performance factors such as website speed
• Website/Page structure
• Responsiveness

In short, UX design is the process of making a website enjoyable to use for the end-user without confusing or frustrating them with website issues.

For example, a website with low load speed and nonfunctional navigations will give a bad user experience for the user and make them frustrated with the website. A good UX design, on the other hand, will avoid this situation and make the users’ experience more pleasurable and smoother.

The designers who are in charge of the UX design of a website are known as UX designers.

Before we jump on to the next section, let’s do a quick recap of the two design elements as it is important for you to know the difference between the two. In the simplest form, UI design is the overall design of the visual elements of a website and UX design is the design of all the functionality of the website.

How UI and UX work together

As you may know by now, UI designers and UX designers have to work closely together when designing a website as UI and UX collaborate with each other a lot.

The UI designers will provide the UX designers with a layout or a wireframe of the website and the UX designers will get to work on their design process of user experiences such as navigations and website structure according to the wireframe design and will constantly communicate with the UI designers and workaround any errors or dead ends.

How UX and UI designers do their research

Research is a very important part of UI and UX design. As we discussed above, both UI and UX designers will conduct excessive research on the target audience of the website they are designing to get their design elements as effective as possible.

Some of the ways that UI and UX designers do research can be identified as:

• Competitor research – This is where the competitors of the website will be analyzed to get design inspirations and to see what they are doing right and wrong.
• Target Market research – Target market research is when the end-user of the website is researched. This research consists of finding everything that the end-user of the website likes such as the age, gender, and other demographics that provide valuable information to the UI and UX designers.
• AB testing – This is when a first draft of the website frontend is deployed as a beta version to some of the target market to get their feedback on the overall design. This helps UI and UX designers to see if they have made any mistakes or if they have nailed the overall design of the website and adjust the design according to the feedback.

Conclusion

UI and UX design are two of the most important elements of a web design process, if you are a web designer, make sure you pay attention to these two elements to make your client’s website a success and if you are a business owner who is ready to get a website design and just wanted to know more about the design process before you hire a web designer, make sure that you have an effective discussion on UI and UX by providing the web designer with as much information as possible about your target market as you as the business owner knows more of your customers than anyone else.

Also, remember that UI and UX design is all about balance. These two elements have to go hand in hand with perfect balance to output an amazing website design.