What is UX and UI design?
We explain what UX and UI mean, how they differ, and why they are both vital to making your site user-friendly and engaging.
UX and UI stand for ‘User Experience’ and ‘User Interface’, respectively. Both terms have become well-established and important concepts within digital design. UX and UI both focus on creating a good experience for visitors on a digital platform, whether it’s your website, an app, a game, or even a control panel in an electric car.
UI and UX are closely linked, but there are still some clear differences between the two. We’ll take a closer look at both UI and UX, provide examples of each, and explain the differences between them.
What is UX design?
UX, or User Experience, covers the overall experience of visiting and using a digital platform. A good user experience means the user can easily navigate and complete desired actions on the digital platform without encountering problems or frustrations.
On a website, good UX design ensures that, for example, buttons and menus are placed intuitively, and that the homepage or top menu is designed in a way that makes it clear and easy for users to navigate to different pages.
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UX design work
Working with UX design involves mapping out the target audience that will visit the digital platform to create a design that suits their needs.
It may also involve tracking analytics to optimise the experience and staying up to date with current trends.
Additionally, it’s about making the design intuitive and accessible for everyone.
Tip: If you’d like to learn more about website accessibility, we’ve got you covered with these articles: “Technical basics for website accessibility” and “What the EU Accessibility Act means for your website”.
When you work with UX design, you should put yourself in your audience’s shoes and aim to make the overall user experience as positive as possible for your audience.
In the article ‘UX audits: a key tool to improve your user experience’, you’ll learn how to identify problems and boost user satisfaction by carrying out a careful UX audit.
UX and SEO
UX also plays a role in your SEO. No one knows exactly what the Google algorithm entails, but we know that Google looks at several factors when deciding how your site will rank in the search engine results.
In SEO, we often talk about making sure the website’s content is relevant, contains the right keywords, and provides the information the user is looking for when they search. Google will rank your website higher the more relevant the content is.
This is where UX comes in. In addition to content relevance, Google also considers other factors such as the website’s Core Web Vitals, performance and speed, mobile-friendliness, and previous interactions with your site. SEO is thus based on a more holistic view of the website, meaning UX plays an important role in how both visitors and search engines experience your site.
What is UI design?
UI, or User Interface, also focuses on creating a good user experience, but in a more visual way. While a UX designer decides whether there should be a button in the header, the UI designer decides how large the button should be and what colour it should have.
Good UI design ensures that all elements on the website are cohesive, easy to perceive, and simple to use. For instance, buttons should be large enough to tap easily on both mobile and desktop, the colours on the website should harmonise and be inviting, and the text colour should have strong contrast, so it doesn’t blend into a coloured background.
Working with UI design
UI design is about making the digital platform visually appealing. This involves working with colours, fonts, shapes, widths, and the appearance of individual elements. The visual expression should be attractive but also help the visitor understand what can be clicked and how to navigate the page, allowing the journey on the digital platform to feel natural and cohesive.
Good UI design easily realised
With the Website Builder from one.com, it’s easy to show examples of both good UI and good UX, as both the AI tool that builds the website for you and all the templates you can choose from are designed with a good user interface and user experience in mind.
The differences between UX and UI
UX and UI cover different fields, even though they’re closely linked. UX is about the overall journey a user has with a product, including its usability and structure, while UI deals with the visual and interactive elements, like buttons, colors, and layout.
The difference lies in exactly what each focus on to create a good user experience. UX is primarily about function. A website has good UX if it’s set up in a logical way that’s easy for visitors to navigate, although this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s done in an attractive way.
UI is primarily about aesthetics. A website has good UI if it’s visually appealing and entices visitors to read more or click through, even if this doesn’t translate to a logical structure.
Together, a website with both good UX and UI will be attractive, engaging, and easy for visitors to navigate.
UX and UI on your website
Even though UX and UI are vast fields with many skilled professionals, you don’t need to go back to school to ensure good UX and UI on your website.
Themes and templates
Starting with a completely blank website can be challenging, so a good idea to ensure the best possible foundation is to use a theme.
If you’re using WordPress, there are many themes to choose from to give you a starting point. You can read more about our recommendations for the top 10 free WordPress themes.
The Website Builder from one.com also has several templates to choose from, all specifically designed for good UX and UI, with various industries and businesses in mind.
The same applies to the AI website creation tool within the one.com Website Builder, which can create a website for you. To get started, you just need to answer a few short questions about the website you want, and it will use your description as a basis to create a design that suits your business. It’s also trained to create websites with both good UX and UI.
If you’d like to see for yourself how you can create your website with AI in just a few minutes, check out this short video:
User experience vs user interface
We know now what UX and UI are and why these have become important concepts within digital design. UX and UI are closely linked, and together they create an inviting, attractive, and logical user experience for visitors on your website.
Want to try out building a site and playing with the UX and UI yourself? With one.com, you don’t need to provide any card details to test the Website Builder for free for 14 days. Play around with the tool and see how quickly you can create an aesthetically pleasing website with a logical user experience. You’ll be amazed!