When working on the design of a product, the terms UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience) are often used. These are usually used interchangeably or entirely wrong, and we want to fix that.
If you want to learn the difference, why these are important in your product’s design, and what you need to know about these terms, then this article is here to tell you what you want to know.
What Is UI (User Interface)?
The user interface is what the user will interact with. It consists of the design elements users will see on the product, such as your website. The UI includes the buttons the user can click, the options they can click on to access different pages on the website, the design of the website, and more.
What A Good User Interface Needs To Be
Consistency
The UI needs to be consistent all over the website. If it isn’t, users will find it harder to recognize your brand when they see it elsewhere. Not being consistent with your UI is wasting your branding potential too. You must ensure all parts of your brand, not just your website, are consistent. If you haven’t already, create a style guide that can be followed when new branding components are created.
Familiarity
Users should not need to learn how to use your website. It should be intuitive. You can do this by creating a UI that is familiar to the user. Let the user draw from their other experiences to use your website easily. This will give them a better user experience.
Simplicity
The user interface for your product should be simple. If It’s complex, users might be intimidated by everything they see and leave without even trying to use your website. All design elements should be simple, and it should be clear what they do and why they’re being shown. Remove everything that doesn’t need to be there.
Removing parts of your UI can be difficult; if you need help doing this correctly, hire a UI UX design firm. It would help if you told them what style you are going for with your website and what needs to be included.
Intuitiveness
If your product’s users aren’t able to figure out how to use the product quickly, they will stop using it. It would help if you prevented this from happening by making the UI intuitive. This will make a great first impression and can help associate this positive experience with the rest of your brand.
To create an intuitive design, you should look at what the competition is doing and how effective it is. If this isn’t enough help, then you can hire a UI UX design agency to support you through the user interface design stage.
What Is UX (User Experience)?
User experience is about how people interact with your product design and their experience when interacting with it. The UX includes all user experiences with the product and your brand. It is important to make a great first impression and keep that experience consistent through your products and branding.
What A Good User Experience Needs To Be
Usability
Who would have guessed? Your UX needs to be usable, or people will not want to use it for long. Keep your website simple, and remove everything that doesn’t need to be there. Just focus on what the users want and what will help them get this user experience.
Making an existing website usable can be difficult; if you need any help doing this, hire a UX design company to help you start with this.
Accessible
Your product should be as accessible as it can be. The more people can use it, the better it will be for you and your brand. Think about users’ visual impairments and other types of impairments and what their experience will be like. How can you improve their user experience? What needs to be done, and why will that help?
If you want your website to have great UX, then an accessible design is something you need. It should not be left until the end. It would help if you thought about this during the start of the UX design process. A UX design company with experience in accessible design can help add to your product and prepare it for everyone who can use it.
Valuable
The user experience needs to be valuable. If the users don’t find it useful, then the UX is not good, and they don’t have a reason to keep using your product. It would help if you gave them a reason to stay and continue engaging with your website.
You can do this by knowing what the users want, why they want it, and what you can do to give them the best user experience. You can find all of this out by doing user research. It would help if you had done this before starting the design of your product. If you haven’t, or you haven’t done enough, then stop what you’re doing and get the user research finished.
Trustworthy
When someone uses your website, they need to trust it. If they think they are using a product that is not trustworthy, they will stop using it. To avoid creating this kind of experience for the user, you need to be transparent about everything you do. Show people they can trust your brand and you are looking after their best interests.
Communicate with them and answer the questions they have. This will help you build better connections with them and create brand loyalty.