In today’s competitive economic environment, businesses need every edge they can get. A company’s success hinges on attracting customers, keeping them happy, and ensuring they stick around and tell others about their great experiences. And this economic reality underscores the importance of good UI UX design.
This article gives you a detailed, in-depth look at the importance of UI and UX design in the context of web and app design. We will define both UI and UX design, highlight the differences between the concepts, the importance of UI and UX, and other interesting facts about UI/UX design. We’ll also share an online UI UX program you can take to master the field’s skills, tools, and techniques.
Let’s begin our UI/UX journey with a few definitions and distinctions. We start with UI.
What is UI Design?
User interface, in the context of web pages and apps, defines what the user clicks, touches, speaks to, and interacts with. It’s the process of making the web and mobile app presentation and interactivity better. Every screen, page, button, and other visual element the user sees while interacting with the application makes up the user interface.
Note that UI can also apply to non-digital goods. For example, an automobile’s dashboard and steering wheel are considered user interfaces.
What is UX Design?
On the other hand, UX design, short for User Experience, deals with improving the user’s overall experience when interacting with the website or application to achieve maximum customer satisfaction. In the context of applications and websites, UX design keeps the customer in mind and develops the basic skeleton of the web pages and applications. UX design chiefly focuses on wireframing the application and building all its components and elements to facilitate user flow best.
And just like UI, UX exists outside of the digital marketplace. Using the automobile example again, UX would cover everything from how the car looks, feels, and drives to how the customer was treated during the purchase and even future maintenance visits. It’s the whole experience of driving and owning the car, not just the transaction or the physical car.
UX is typically broken down into four separate disciplines:
- Experience Strategy (ExS). This discipline involves creating a holistic business strategy that combines the customer’s and the company’s stakeholders’ needs.
- Interaction Design (IxD). Interaction designs cover the interaction between the user and the product. Interaction designs aim to create products that let users achieve their objectives as best as possible.
- User Research (UR). This research covers extensive research and feedback from existing customers.
- Information Architecture (IA). Information architecture organizes a website before starting work on its design and development to support usability.
We see why UX is important now, so we should define the difference between user interfaces and the user experience.
What is the Difference Between UI and UX?
The user interface is part of the overall user experience. Once again, turning to our automobile example, we see that the user interface (dashboard and steering wheel) is part of the overall user experience. So, the UI is a subset of the UX.
So, the user experience is a holistic term that covers things like the customer’s feelings and emotions while using the product, and the user interface focuses on the actual product design, creating a platform that includes a color scheme, images, buttons, icons, and other interactive elements.
What Are the Primary Components of UI/UX Design?
Here are the UI/UX design essential components. We already touched upon two of them earlier, but they come into play when discussing the importance of UX and UI.
- Information Architecture. Information architecture satisfies the business strategies by designing the sites or application’s information structure. IA’s primary purpose is to provide users with easy navigation regardless of their browser choice. In summary, it’s about optimizing permutations and combinations to give users a navigation experience.
- Interaction Design. Interaction Design creates a conceptual design where users can interact with the application, service, or product. This interaction encompasses many elements like aesthetics, images, graphics, color, font, icons, motion, sound, and space.
- Usability. Usability can alternately be called user-friendliness. Usability covers deciding if users can get the information they want when visiting the site or using the application for the first time if it is easy to navigate, and how to handle errors.
- Wireframing. Wireframing involves creating a sample of the application. This sample is used to test the application’s look, features, and usability before it’s launched. Wireframing is a cost-effective way to test the product’s functionality and evaluate if it serves its intended purpose.
- Visual Design. The application or website’s visual design defines the organization’s brand. Finalizing the visual design potentially affects the users’ behavior, so it’s the most essential part of the user interface design. Visual design is not only about choosing the best icons, fonts, images, and colors but also discerning how the application’s appearance impacts the interaction of the users.
Now, let’s answer “Why is UI important?” by exploring the significance of a good UI/UX design.
The Importance of UI UX Design: A Detailed Look
Here are the five main reasons why a good UI/UX design is essential.
- Good UI/UX increases user engagement on your website. UI and UX contribute equally to the website’s graphic element, allowing website visitors to navigate around the web page. If visitors don’t find your webpage engaging and interesting, they will most likely abandon your website and jump to one of your competitors. But if your website is visually attractive and easy to navigate, it convinces users to stay on it longer and browse the goods and services your brand offers. So, a good UI/UX design equals more user engagement, which in turn means more outstanding potential leads, ultimately increasing company revenue and brand awareness.
- UI/UX helps build your brand. A website that makes UI/UX important will likely have happy, satisfied customers. People tend to gravitate toward businesses that focus on good customer experiences. Also, if you allow customer feedback, you can pinpoint minor problems and resolve them before customers face them when they visit the website. These efforts help improve your business’s credibility, creating good customer relationships, which improves your business in the long run.
- UI/UX saves time and money. Investing in good UI/UX reduces the chances of customer complaints and means your website or app won’t require more changes in the future, saving money and time. In other words, a sound UI/UX strategy and implementation done at the start, making it a one-and-done effort, saves you the headaches of making potentially expensive, time-consuming changes.
- Good UI/UX design supports SEO. SEO ranking is one of the most vital aspects of a website’s success. Solid UX design and SEO fit together and are essential in helping the website achieve higher Google search results. A search engine’s chief goal is to provide information to users quickly and conveniently. A good UX design means rapid page load speed, increased mobile responsiveness, and a user-friendly URL structure, contributing to an effective SEO strategy.
- UX design boosts website conversion. Many websites offer similar products and services and products. Customers typically pick websites that offer attractive and easy user experiences. Well-optimized accessibility and usability can heavily influence customer satisfaction. Additionally, a website that respects the importance of UI/UX design can increase users’ willingness to check out the products the site offers.
How Does Ul/UX Design Make a Mobile App/ Web Page Successful?
Mobile users like engaging and easy-to-use applications to better accommodate the “on the go” lifestyle. Successful applications like WhatsApp have continuously offered users seamless navigation and an attractive interface. Most app users prefer their apps to look good and be user-friendly and care less about an unattractive app, even if it has robust functionality.
An excellent interface gives users a realistic feel and provides a continuous flow of essential information. If you give users a good UI/UX experience, more users will be interested in your app, leading to increased natural traffic. This traffic boost will lead to a rise in conversion rates, growing your brand name.
More people than ever use mobile devices, so it’s essential to offer customers good mobile apps, and a solid UI/UX strategy is a critical step in creating apps and web pages that people flock to.
Do You Want to Learn More About UI/UX Design?
If you’re interested in learning more about the exciting field of UI/UX, check out this fantastic UI UX bootcamp. This bootcamp offers live lectures and hands-on learning for 20 weeks of high-engagement learning that teaches you how to become a UI/UX expert.
According to Glassdoor.com, a UI/UX designer in the United States earns a yearly average of $85,561. The world needs more mobile apps and web pages. Will you be the one to answer the call? Check out this fantastic bootcamp today, and raise your design skills to a higher level.
FAQ
What is the importance of UI design?
A good user interface is a part of a successful UX project. A solid UI lets people easily access your apps and web pages.
What is the importance of UX design?
Successful businesses don’t sell products and services; they sell an experience. If businesses give customers a great user experience from start to finish, they not only become loyal customers; they tell others about their experiences, bringing new customers into the fold.
Where is UI design used?
UI design is commonly used in point of sale (POS), mobile devices, self-service units, websites, and applications.
Where is UX design used?
User experience design is used anywhere a business creates an application, product, application, or website. Successful businesses sell customers a whole experience, not just a product. Ideally, the customer should leave the experience feeling good and eager to return and tell their friends and family about it. So, UX design is used when a business wants to have a successful product.
