As we take further steps in the world of internet marketing , sooner or later we'll encounter concepts like user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). Both are crucial in website design and development – they largely determine whether a website receives valuable search engine traffic (sic!) and whether customers will leave immediately after entering, or perhaps decide to complete a transaction or submit a contact form.
User Interface and User Experience – what is it?
A user interface can be defined as a representation of the way a user issues commands to a program, which in turn performs specific tasks. The interface communicates with the user. This primarily encompasses technical aspects – quick access to required functions, accurate descriptions, content layout, and information hierarchy – but also visuals – such as color schemes and typography. The same menu on a website can be either transparent or unintuitive, depending on the font, colors, icons, contrast, or borders used. In the case of websites, a UI includes any interactive element that, after performing an action (e.g., clicking), triggers a specific response. When creating or redesigning websites and applications, when we talk about UI, we usually mean GUI, a graphical representation of HCI (human-computer interaction) relationships.
UX is a much broader term. It encompasses the entire user experience when interacting with a product. While the concept often refers to websites or apps, it can be applied to virtually any product or service. Even when using a pen, a wallet, a TV remote control, or a tea cup, we experience specific emotions stemming from the product's functionality, ease of use, usefulness, or aesthetic appeal. A user experience specialist's task is to make the entire process of interacting with a product as simple and enjoyable as possible for the customer – this requires continuous testing of the solutions implemented.
According to Forrester research, the right UI on a website can increase conversion rates by 200%, while the right UX can increase conversion rates by as much as 400%. Of course, in most cases, the results won't be as dramatic, but there's no doubt that these issues are crucial to a website's ability to generate profits.
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UI and UX – differences
ux ui differencesThere's no online business that doesn't prioritize user interface and user experience. Behind every website, portal, online store, and app are business goals, which a well-designed UI and UX will help achieve. Furthermore, a flawed interface or user experience can deepen declines and lower conversion rates, something we'll never know without audits, testing, and expert error-finding.
An interface specialist designs and implements solutions, while a UX specialist plans and analyzes the entire structure of the user experience – he or she conducts research before and during product development, tests behavior on an existing product, checks how competitors have handled certain aspects, conducts an audit, and detects errors that users encounter during use.
UI is one of the elements that make up UX – just as UX is one of the elements that make up web development.
The best example of what constitutes UI and UX is the design of many paths in city parks. They are often designed to require walkers (users) to turn only at 90-degree angles—like characters in games from the era of 8-bit consoles. This is aesthetically pleasing and theoretically sensible, but practice shows that almost immediately, well-trodden paths appear in places the designer hadn't anticipated. Walkers choose a route that provides a shorter route to their chosen destination—creating their own UX solution, despite the original UI. While it may not be the prettiest, such a well-trodden path through the grass is more convenient than beautiful, paved, and well-thought-out paths.
When it comes to the UX/UI of websites and applications, it often happens that the website owner invests in a new version of the site – a more attractive and modern one. Visitor numbers remain stable, but sales decline – very often this is the result of flaws in the UX design. When conducting tests and analyzing heat maps, it sometimes turns out, for example, that users attempt to click on images or other non-interactive areas of the page. The design proves misleading, and as a result, visitors abandon the site. Although the UI was designed correctly, the UX and user flow modeling failed.
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Why is UX/UI so important?
UX and UI have a huge impact on a website's ability to generate conversions (e-commerce) or collect leads (services). These concepts also impact website positioning – when ranking pages in search results, Google's algorithm considers whether the site is intuitive to use, meaning whether the user is likely to spend more time and interact with it.
- User perspective
Anyone entering a website—no matter the source—expects clarity and ease of use. Users want the path to obtaining specific information or making a purchase to be as seamless and short as possible. Research shows that the vast majority of website visitors won't return if the user experience doesn't meet their expectations. When an online store requires too many steps to complete a transaction, conversion rates remain low. As internet users, we're more likely to use websites that simply aren't irritating, are fast, don't waste our time, and are aesthetically pleasing and visually appealing.
- Google Crawler Perspective
Web crawlers that visit websites for indexing purposes once only considered keywords embedded in the content and the number of links. This is a thing of the past – today, Google analyzes not only content and links but also a range of other factors during SEO . There are hundreds of them, including loading speed and how the page displays at different resolutions (for example, whether text extends beyond the borders). The crawler attempts to embody the user and promote the pages that the user is likely looking for when entering a given phrase into the search engine.
- The website owner's perspective
Websites have different purposes depending on their business model. Content-based websites that rely on advertising primarily focus on increasing traffic. For websites of stores or service companies, a large number of visitors isn't as important—what matters is the quality of the traffic. Ultimately, the website owner cares about users who browse and purchase products or request a quote. As with point two, acquiring users through SEO makes sense if the targeted keywords and the traffic generated from them ultimately lead to an increased conversion rate. Some keywords significantly increase traffic, but if they don't generate profit, they're of little use. The UX of a website or app should also be designed to ensure customers are guided seamlessly toward both their personal and business goals. A win-win.
Taking all three aspects of UX and UI design into account simultaneously is not easy. For this reason, it's crucial that when designing or modifying a website, the team includes UX and UI specialists. Intuition in web development takes a back seat to analysis, data, and testing. Just because something seems functional and aesthetically pleasing doesn't mean it is—the devil is in the details, even those seemingly trivial ones like the size or color of the "add to cart" button.
The work of a UI specialist and the activities of a UX expert
ux ui scope of work UI and UX are aspects that must be addressed when designing and/or optimizing a website. What will the specialists be responsible for?
What will a UI specialist pay attention to?
- Broadly understood good graphic design practices: inter-object lighting, complementary colors, composition;
- Mental models and design usability, such as Hick's and Fitts' laws;
- Typography – selecting the appropriate font and its size;
- Trends in design, technology and industry;
- Color psychology – what colors and their combinations evoke specific feelings in people;
- Goals and constraints resulting from the brief, such as the resolutions for which views are to be designed, adaptation to grids to facilitate the work of front-end developers;
- Comments from a UX specialist and other specialists.
What will a UX specialist pay attention to?
- The entire scope of work of a UI specialist 🙂
- Broadly understood information architecture best practices;
- Solutions used in the industry and at our closest competitors;
- Personas – profile, demographics, behavior, habits, expectations;
- User's level of digital proficiency;
- Technical limits (including CMS or server limitations);
- Objectives and constraints of the brief;
- Business goals and principles of modeling conversion funnels;
- User stories and user flow models or those resulting from research and analysis;
- Available analytics and A/B testing results – for existing sites;
- Comments from UI and other specialists;
- E.t.c.
If you're wondering whether to invest in improving your current website or designing a completely new one, a professional UX/UI audit is an excellent first step . Auditors will thoroughly examine the structure of your purchase funnels and user flow, identify current and potential issues, conduct technology tests, and review the website's information structure. Identifying errors is key to improving results.
What tools does Verseo use when conducting an audit?
Among many tools, depending on the package, our specialists conduct a detailed UX/UI audit using, among others:
- Heat maps – show the page elements where the mouse cursor appears most often, where users click or to what part of the page they scroll;
- Recording user sessions – allows you to see how users browse the website and where there are elements that inhibit the purchasing process;
- Researching areas that confuse and irritate users on the website, such as dead clicks, rage clicks, misclicks, and frustration signals such as “thrashed cursor” (a glossary of these terms can be found below);
- Researching the purchasing process and user journey – you can read more about this in a separate article on our blog;
- A/B testing – we choose two seemingly equivalent options and check which one brings better results in practice;
- User profile research – we check what kind of people browse the site, who converts best, why they abandon their shopping carts and how to tailor the website to their needs.
UI/UX Micro Glossary:
- Dead clicks – clicks that do not activate anything;
- Rage clicks – clicks that occur when a frustrated user clicks vigorously and repeatedly in a given place because they have difficulty activating a button or link;
- Misclicks – unintentional clicks on a button other than the one intended by the user;
- Thrashed cursor – this is a term used to describe a situation in which a user begins to make chaotic, uncoordinated mouse movements – most often while waiting for a page to load or when a page/page element does not function as it should.
User Interface and User Experience are crucial for both users who land on a website and search engine crawlers, and consequently, they impact a company's bottom line. If you're dissatisfied with these aspects of your website or are wondering what could be improved, contact a UX audit specialist at Verseo!
Summary
The above article covers the following topics:
- what do the abbreviations UI and UX mean,
- differences between UI and UX,
- the role of UX/UI in effective websites,
- division of roles in UX/UI design,
- visual elements analyzed by UI,
- UX analysis areas,
- technologies used by Verseo in the UX/UI audit,
- a small glossary of UX/UI terms.
