 What is the difference between UX and UI design? Is there overlap? Are they related? And what can you expect to be doing in each profession? In this video, you're going to find out. Hi, I'm Dee, a senior UX designer here at AJN Smart, and I've worked for over 10 years as both a UX and UI designer. So in this video, I'm going to give you a clear definition of both UX and UI design, some tangible examples of those two different things, and what you can expect to actually do in those two different roles. So if you have any questions while you're watching this video, just pop them in the comments below and we'll answer them as soon as we can. So let's dive in and get some clear definitions of UX and UI design. UX stands for user experience. UI stands for user interface. Let's talk about UI first, and we'll start with actually thinking about what an interface is. An interface is something that helps a human interact with a machine to get something done. Let's think of some everyday examples. The steering wheel of a car is an interface between the driver interacting with the machine, which is the car. The handle of a mug is an interface where the human holds the handle so that they can use the mug. And the screen on your phone or mobile device is an interface where a person wants to interact with this computer, and you have the screen act against the interface to allow the person to do that. Let's take that first example of the steering wheel in the car to differentiate between UX and UI design and think about them in the real world. Did you know that the first cars didn't actually have steering wheels? They actually had a kind of lever or a tiller that's the same as a tiller in a boat. There was one lever that the driver would have to move left or right with one hand, and while they did that their body moved and it was a bit hard to control. So a UX designer would have observed that behaviour, that it wasn't that easy to manoeuvre the car left and right with that lever. They might have interviewed drivers of cars, asked them some questions, written notes, taken examples of why the experience wasn't so great, and then come up with some concepts understanding the reasons behind the bad experience, come up with some ideas of how they could make a better experience and how they could make that easier to drive the car. One of those concepts could have been a wheel instead of the lever because the user could use two hands, it was a lot smoother and they didn't have to move their body from left to right, and they could have sketched up some concepts or even prototyped some examples of how that steering wheel could look and work. And then if we think about the UI designer in this scenario, they would have been responsible for actually crafting and designing how the interface, which is the steering wheel, actually would work. What materials is it made out of? What position does it have for the driver? Where is it placed? How smooth is the steering? How can they make it smooth for someone? In this scenario, the UX designer is looking at the user's experience of driving the car, finding the problems and understanding what's going on, and then designing and concepting how to make that experience better for the user. And the UI designer is actually designing and creating how the interface looks, feels and works for the user. To round off these definitions, it can help to think of the kinds of questions that UX designers ask and the kind of questions that UI designers ask. A UX designer asks questions like, what is the user trying to achieve here? What kind of problems or pain points does the user have? Is this solution solving those problems? How can I make it easier for the user to get this thing done? And the kind of questions a UI designer is more likely to ask are things like, how will the user find their desired action on this screen? Or what's the most important thing for a user on this screen or at this point in time? And how can I present that information so it's clear and simple for the user to find it? So the role of a UX designer is much more analytical, doing things like user research, understanding people's needs, pain points and behaviors, probably doing things like running workshops, sketching concepts and prototyping ideas. And the role of a UI designer is much more visual, almost all visual. How can I put things in front of a user so that they can clearly see what they need to do in a simple way? So now we've heard a clear definition of what UX and UI design actually are. Let's look at what you would really do in a job as a UX or a UI designer. As a UX designer, you'll be working a lot with people, doing things like user research, conducting user interviews, running workshops like ideation workshops or even design sprints, things that help you analyze and solve problems. Really practically, as a UX designer, you'll be doing a lot of note taking, a lot of sketching, using digital tools to make wireframes and mock-ups of your concepts, and you'll be making simple prototypes to validate your ideas. So if you have an analytical mind and love solving problems and love working with people, then maybe UX design is the right field for you. Now let's look at UI design and what you'll be doing as a professional UI designer. As a UI designer, you'll be working a lot more in the digital space, using digital tools to make detailed visual designs of things. The most common or typical flow is that a UI designer would take the mock-ups and wireframes of the ideas from a UX designer, then the UI designer will actually make those really clear detailed visual designs and then pass those designs usually onto developers or a development team in a typical software project. So as a UI designer, you'll be a lot more screen-based using digital tools and doing really detailed work. You still need to have good communication skills because you'll be interacting with those other teams, but you'll be spending a lot more time using digital software, because what you do as a UI designer is present something clearly so that people know what its purpose is and how to use it. So if you love visual things like color, typography, graphic design and visual communication, and you love making complex things clear and simple to understand, then you might really love being a UI designer and it might be a great path for you. So now we've heard a lot of detail about what UX designers and UI designers actually do, and you can see how much they're closely related to each other, but you'll also find, depending on what job you're applying for, that there might be a lot of overlap. As a UI designer, which is usually the much more detailed visual role, you might also be asked to do some mock-ups and wire frames and do simple sketches. And as a UX designer, which is usually the much more analytical role, they might ask you in the job you're applying for to do some more detailed designs to mock up a realistic prototype or something like that. So there really can be a lot of overlap between the two. It's like you're doing the hand bath. Because I did this and then I did this because they might overlap. So to round all of this up, I'm going to give you a couple of really tangible tips to help you get started in either UX or UI design. There are tons of great courses out there, both in person and online, and we've got a great video detailing those that you can watch if you click up here. And my hot tip, if you're looking at doing a course either in person or online, is to find a few people who have done that course before. There are a lot of online forums where people are discussing courses and just ask a few people what they thought of the course. They're usually more than happy to tell you if it was really great and even happier to tell you if it wasn't great. So that can give you some good guidance on how to pick a course. And tip number two is before you think about leaving your current job to go and pursue a course or a career in UX design, try and get some experience first, whether it's just getting some exposure to the UX or UI team, asking if you can work on a project or even just learning some of the principles and asking your current job if you can start trying to apply them. And then you'll have something that you can put on your resume and show that you have some experience and you'll be way ahead of all the other people who have just done a course but don't have any experience yet. So thanks very much for watching. I hope this video has gotten you a little closer on your path to deciding between UX and UI design. If you've had any questions about UX or UI design while you've been watching this video, just pop them in the comments below and we'll answer them as soon as we can. If you want to see more from AJ and Smart, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel below. You can follow us on Instagram at AJSmartDesign. We have daily blogs and a behind the scenes look at our agency. We also have a podcast that's released every Monday with product design and tech news with Jake Knapp and Jonathan Courtney. It used to be called the Product Breakfast Club and soon it will be called Jake and Jonathan. So thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video and see you next time. Classic. I don't know anything else to do at the end of videos. Thank you. And my battery is still going. You'll spend a lot more time in the digital space. Yeah. As a UI designer, you'll be as a UI designer. You'll take a development team if you're working on a software product, digital product. Cool. Yeah, so. Can we use that too? Okay, I'll just do that much. And I didn't end that very well. Should I do it one more time? And then a UI designer asks questions like, I forgot. Let's play that one. Okay. So that they can then be tested. So if you're really analytical like Ryan and you love solving problems, then maybe UX design is the right career for you. So if you have an analytical mind. And and and and and my pro tip. So I hope you enjoyed this video. Bye. For daily vlogs and a look behind the scenes in our agency. And a behind the scenes look about eight at out. Why is the last bit always so hard? About product, news and tech design. Is it called Jake and Jonathan? Yeah. Yeah, sure. No worries. Oh, and my battery is low. Hello. Do you want to be in a video? Hi. Hi. Hi. Tip number two. Hi.