07 Jan 2026
|19 min
UX vs UI
Learn the key differences between UX and UI design, including roles, skills, and how they work together to create user-centered digital experiences.
User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design are two of the most commonly confused design specializations. Because these terms are closely related and often discussed together, the difference between UX and UI is frequently misunderstood.
We’re here to settle any confusion around UX vs UI.
In practice, UX and UI design work closely together. Each function is crucial to how we interact with a product or website. But both disciplines have different focus, roles, and purposes.
In this article, we explore the fundamental differences between UX and UI, what each discipline involves, and how they collaborate to create intuitive, user-centred digital experiences.
Key takeaways
UX ensures a product is useful; UI focuses on making it usable. UX design encompasses the entire user journey and experience, while UI design focuses on the visual and interactive elements users engage with directly.
Different focus areas, complementary goals. UX designers conduct research, create user flows, and solve problems across the full product experience. UI designers craft visual designs, build component libraries, and define how interface elements look and behave.
Both disciplines are essential for success. UX design drives conversion rates, reduces development costs, and improves customer satisfaction. UI design builds brand trust, increases engagement, and optimizes for accessibility and platform-specific needs.
Collaboration creates better products. When UX and UI designers work together from research through implementation, they create cohesive experiences that are both functionally sound and visually appealing. Tools like Lyssna support this collaboration by enabling both UX and UI designers to test their work with real users.
Overlapping skills with distinct specializations. While both roles require some shared knowledge, UX designers need research methods and analytical thinking, while UI designers need visual design skills and technical implementation understanding.
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Difference between UX and UI?
The fundamental difference between UX and UI lies in their scope and focus. UX ensures a product is useful and UI focuses on ensuring it is usable.
User Experience (UX) encompasses the entire journey a user has with a product or service. It includes every touchpoint, from initial awareness through ongoing use and support. UX designers focus on understanding user needs, solving problems, and creating meaningful experiences that align with business goals.
User Interface (UI) refers specifically to the visual and interactive elements users engage with directly. This includes buttons, menus, typography, colors, layouts, and animations. UI designers focus on making these elements intuitive, accessible, and visually appealing.
Aspect | UX Design | UI Design |
|---|---|---|
Focus | Overall user experience and journey | Visual design and interface elements |
Scope | End-to-end product experience | Screen-level interactions |
Primary Goal | Solve user problems and meet needs | Create intuitive, attractive interfaces |
Key Activities | Research, strategy, wireframing, testing | Visual design, prototyping, design systems |
Deliverables | User personas, journey maps, wireframes | Mockups, style guides, interactive prototypes |
Success Metrics | Task completion, user satisfaction, conversion rates | Usability, visual appeal, brand consistency |
Think of it this way: UX is the foundation and structure of a house – it determines the layout, flow, and functionality. UI is the interior design – it makes the space beautiful, comfortable, and reflective of the brand's personality.
For example, a beautiful website (UI) would be ineffective if we couldn't find the info we're looking for (UX). On the flip side, poor aesthetics, visual hierarchy, or unreadable fonts may impact excellent site functionality.
What is UX design?
UX design is the process of creating products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. It involves understanding user needs, business goals, and technical constraints to design solutions that are both useful and usable.
UX design encompasses several key principles:
User-centered approach: Every decision starts with understanding user needs, behaviors, and pain points. UX designers conduct research to uncover insights about how people actually use products, not how we assume they do.
Problem-solving focus: UX design is fundamentally about solving real problems for real people. This means identifying the right problems to solve before jumping into solutions.
Holistic thinking: UX considers the entire user journey, from awareness and acquisition through onboarding, regular use, and even offboarding. It looks at how all touchpoints work together to create a cohesive experience.
Evidence-based decisions: UX design relies on research, data, and user feedback rather than assumptions or personal preferences. This includes both qualitative insights from user interviews and quantitative data from analytics and testing.
Iterative process: UX design embraces continuous improvement through testing, learning, and refinement. Rather than trying to get everything perfect upfront, UX designers create hypotheses and validate them with users.
The UX design process typically includes:
Research and discovery: Understanding users, market context, and business requirements.
Analysis and synthesis: Making sense of research findings and identifying opportunities.
Ideation and concept development: Generating and evaluating potential solutions.
Prototyping and testing: Creating testable versions of ideas and gathering feedback.
Implementation and iteration: Working with development teams and continuously improving based on real-world usage.
UX design draws from multiple disciplines including psychology, anthropology, design, and business strategy. This interdisciplinary approach helps create products that work well for users while achieving business objectives.
What does a UX designer do?
UX designers wear many hats and their responsibilities vary depending on team size, company stage, and project needs. However, core activities typically include:
Research and user insights
UX designers conduct various types of research to understand users and validate design decisions:
Generative research methods include:
User interviews
Card sorting
Design surveys
Evaluative research methods include:
Usability testing
Preference testing
Tree testing
UX designers also analyze existing data from analytics, support tickets, and user feedback to identify patterns and opportunities for improvement.
Strategy and planning
UX designers help define product strategy by:
Creating user personas based on research insights.
Mapping user journeys to identify pain points and opportunities.
Defining information architecture and content strategy.
Establishing design principles and success metrics.
Collaborating with product managers on roadmap prioritization.
Design and prototyping
While UX designers focus more on structure than visual design, they create various deliverables:
User flows and task flows
Wireframes and low-fidelity prototypes
Content strategy and messaging frameworks
Interaction design specifications
Accessibility guidelines and requirements
Testing and validation
UX designers continuously test and refine their work:
Planning and conducting usability tests.
A/B testing different approaches.
Gathering and analyzing user feedback.
Iterating based on findings.
Measuring success against defined metrics.
Collaboration and communication
UX designers work closely with cross-functional teams:
Presenting research findings and design rationale to stakeholders.
Collaborating with UI designers on visual implementation.
Working with developers to ensure feasible and accessible solutions.
Partnering with product managers on feature prioritization.
Coordinating with marketing and customer support teams.
The specific mix of activities depends on the organization. At smaller companies, UX designers might handle everything from research to visual design. At larger organizations, they might specialize in particular areas like research, interaction design, or content strategy.
What is UI design?
UI design focuses on the visual and interactive elements that users directly engage with when using a digital product. It's the practice of designing interfaces that are not only functional but also aesthetically pleasing and aligned with brand identity.
UI design encompasses several key areas:
Visual design: This includes typography, color schemes, imagery, iconography, and overall visual hierarchy. UI designers make decisions about how information is presented visually to guide users' attention and create emotional connections.
Layout and composition: UI designers determine how elements are arranged on screen, considering factors like balance, alignment, proximity, and white space. Good layout makes interfaces scannable and helps users understand relationships between different pieces of information.
Interactive elements: This covers buttons, forms, navigation menus, and other components users interact with. UI designers define how these elements look in different states (default, hover, active, and disabled) and ensure they provide clear feedback.
Design systems and consistency: UI designers create and maintain design systems that ensure consistency across products and platforms. This includes component libraries, style guides, and documentation that help teams build cohesive experiences.
Responsive design: UI designers ensure interfaces work well across different devices and screen sizes, adapting layouts and interactions appropriately for mobile, tablet, and desktop experiences.
Accessibility: UI designers implement accessibility best practices to ensure interfaces are usable by people with disabilities. This includes considerations for color contrast, keyboard navigation, screen readers, and other assistive technologies.
UI design requires both creative and technical skills. Designers need to understand visual design principles, user psychology, and technical constraints while staying current with platform guidelines and emerging interaction patterns.
What does a UI designer do?
UI designers focus on crafting the visual and interactive aspects of digital products. Their day-to-day responsibilities typically include:
Visual design creation
UI designers develop the visual language of products:
Creating high-fidelity mockups and visual designs.
Selecting and implementing typography systems.
Developing color palettes and visual hierarchies.
Designing icons, illustrations, and other visual assets.
Ensuring brand consistency across all touchpoints.
Component and system design
UI designers build scalable design systems:
Creating reusable component libraries.
Documenting design patterns and guidelines.
Maintaining style guides and design tokens.
Collaborating with developers on component implementation.
Ensuring consistency across different product areas.
Interaction design
UI designers define how users interact with interface elements:
Designing micro-interactions and animations.
Specifying hover states, transitions, and feedback.
Creating interactive prototypes to demonstrate behavior.
Defining gesture-based interactions for mobile.
Ensuring interactions feel natural and responsive.
Interaction design (IxD) is a broad term. Jon Kolko, author of Thoughts on Interaction Design, describes IxD as "the creation of a dialogue between a person and a product, system, or service." IxD involves words, visual representations, physical objects/space, time, and behavior (e.g. how users perform actions on a website or with a physical product). This is another area of crossover between UX and UI design, but is often the focus of UI designers.
Responsive and adaptive design
UI designers ensure interfaces work across devices:
Creating responsive layouts for different screen sizes.
Adapting interactions for touch vs. mouse input.
Optimizing designs for different platforms (iOS, Android, web).
Considering performance implications of visual choices.
Testing designs across various devices and browsers.
Collaboration with development teams
UI designers work closely with developers to implement designs:
Creating detailed specifications and redlines.
Providing assets in appropriate formats and resolutions.
Reviewing implementations and providing feedback.
Troubleshooting visual and interaction issues.
Ensuring designs are technically feasible and performant.
User testing and iteration
UI designers validate their visual and interaction decisions:
Conducting preference tests to evaluate visual designs.
Testing usability of interface elements and interactions.
Gathering feedback on visual hierarchy and clarity.
Iterating based on user behavior and feedback.
A/B testing different visual approaches.
Accessibility implementation
UI designers ensure interfaces are accessible to all users:
Implementing proper color contrast ratios.
Designing for keyboard navigation.
Creating clear focus states and error messages.
Considering screen reader compatibility.
Following platform accessibility guidelines.
The role of UI designer has evolved significantly with the rise of design systems and component-based development. Modern UI designers often think more systematically about design, creating flexible systems rather than one-off screens.
The importance of UX and UI
Both UX and UI design are essential for creating successful digital products, but their importance manifests in different ways and at different stages of the product lifecycle.
Business impact of UX design
UX design directly affects business outcomes through:
Increased conversion rates: Well-designed user experiences remove friction from key user flows, making it easier for people to complete desired actions. Research shows that every $1 invested in UX yields a return of $100.
Reduced development costs: Identifying and solving usability problems during the design phase is significantly cheaper than fixing them after development. UX research helps teams build the right features and avoid costly mistakes.
Improved customer satisfaction and retention: Products that meet user needs and provide smooth experiences create loyal customers who are more likely to continue using the product and recommend it to others.
Competitive advantage: In markets where features are becoming commoditized, user experience often becomes the primary differentiator between products.
Reduced support costs: Intuitive designs reduce the need for customer support, training materials, and user documentation.
Business impact of UI design
UI design contributes to business success through:
Brand perception and trust: Visual design creates first impressions and communicates brand values. Professional, polished interfaces build credibility and trust with users.
User engagement: Attractive, well-designed interfaces encourage users to spend more time with products and explore additional features.
Accessibility and inclusion: Good UI design ensures products are usable by people with disabilities, expanding the potential user base and meeting legal requirements.
Platform optimization: UI design that follows platform conventions and guidelines improves app store rankings and user adoption.
Conversion optimization: Strategic use of visual hierarchy, color, and layout can guide users toward desired actions and improve conversion rates.
The cost of poor UX and UI
The consequences of neglecting UX or UI design can be severe:
High bounce rates: Users quickly leave products that are confusing or unattractive.
Low adoption: Even great features go unused if they're hard to find or understand.
Negative reviews: Poor experiences lead to bad ratings and word-of-mouth.
Increased support burden: Confusing interfaces generate more support tickets.
Lost revenue: Friction in key flows directly impacts business metrics.
Competitive disadvantage: Users switch to better-designed alternatives.
How to measure the ROI of UX and UI
Organizations can measure the impact of UX/UI investment through:
Usability metrics: Task completion rates, error rates, time on task
Business metrics: Conversion rates, revenue per user, customer lifetime value
User satisfaction: Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer satisfaction surveys
Engagement metrics: Session duration, feature adoption, return visits
Support metrics: Ticket volume, resolution time, user self-service rates
The key is establishing baseline measurements before design improvements and tracking changes over time to demonstrate ROI.
How do UX designers and UI designers collaborate together?
Successful digital products require close collaboration between UX and UI designers. While their focuses differ, they must work together seamlessly to create cohesive experiences.
Collaborative workflow
The most effective UX/UI collaboration follows an integrated workflow:
1. Joint research and discovery
UX and UI designers participate together in user research.
Both contribute to understanding user needs and business requirements.
UI designers gain context for visual decisions.
UX designers understand visual and brand constraints.
2. Parallel design development
UX designers focus on structure, flow, and functionality.
UI designers explore visual directions and interaction patterns.
Regular check-ins ensure alignment between structure and visuals.
Both contribute to design system development.
3. Integrated prototyping and testing
UX wireframes inform UI visual design.
UI designs are applied to UX prototypes for testing.
Both designers participate in user testing sessions.
Findings inform both structural and visual iterations.
4. Collaborative handoff
UX and UI designers work together on developer handoffs.
UX provides context and rationale for design decisions.
UI provides detailed specifications and assets.
Both support implementation and review.
Communication strategies
Effective UX/UI collaboration requires clear communication:
Shared vocabulary: Teams develop common language for discussing design decisions, user needs, and technical constraints.
Regular touchpoints: Daily standups, design reviews, and planning sessions keep both disciplines aligned.
Documented decisions: Design rationale, user insights, and technical considerations are captured and shared.
Cross-training: UX designers learn basic visual design principles; UI designers understand research methods and user psychology.
Common UX and UI collaboration challenges
Teams often face the following collaboration obstacles:
Siloed workflows: When UX and UI work in isolation, designs may not integrate well or may conflict with each other.
Timing misalignment: If UI design starts too early, it may not reflect user research findings. If it starts too late, development timelines suffer.
Different success metrics: UX focuses on user outcomes while UI focuses on visual quality, potentially creating conflicting priorities.
Tool and process differences: Different software, file formats, and review processes can create friction.
Skill overlap confusion: Unclear boundaries between roles can lead to duplicated effort or gaps in coverage.
Best practices for UX and UI collaboration
Successful teams implement these collaboration strategies:
Shared design systems: Both UX and UI contribute to component libraries that ensure consistency and efficiency.
Cross-functional workshops: Joint ideation sessions, design sprints, and problem-solving workshops align perspectives.
User-centered reviews: Both disciplines evaluate work against user needs and business goals rather than personal preferences.
Iterative feedback: Regular, specific feedback helps both disciplines improve their work and alignment.
Shared ownership: Both UX and UI designers take responsibility for overall user experience, not just their specific deliverables.
Tools like Lyssna support this collaboration by enabling both UX and UI designers to test their work with real users, validating both structural and visual design decisions.
“The ability for us to design a quick mockup, run it on Lyssna and receive feedback within an hour has helped us reach definitive design decisions much sooner than before.”
– Chris Taylor, Canstar
The UX and UI design process
The UX/UI design process integrates research, strategy, design, and validation activities to create user-centered digital products. While specific processes vary by organization, most follow a similar structure.
Discovery and research phase
User research: Understanding target users through interviews, surveys, and observational studies. This research uncovers user needs, behaviors, pain points, and goals.
Market analysis: Researching competitors, industry trends, and best practices to understand the landscape and identify opportunities.
Stakeholder alignment: Gathering business requirements, technical constraints, and success metrics from internal stakeholders.
Problem definition: Synthesizing research findings into clear problem statements and design opportunities.
Strategy and planning phase
User personas: Creating representative user archetypes based on research findings to guide design decisions.
User journey mapping: Documenting the end-to-end experience users have with the product, identifying pain points and opportunities.
Information architecture: Organizing content and features in logical, user-friendly structures.
Design principles: Establishing guidelines that will inform design decisions throughout the project.
Design and prototyping phase
UX design activities:
Creating user flows and task flows.
Developing wireframes and low-fidelity prototypes.
Defining content strategy and messaging.
Specifying interaction behaviors.
UI design activities:
Developing visual design concepts.
Creating high-fidelity mockups.
Building component libraries.
Designing micro-interactions and animations.
Collaborative activities:
Design system development.
Cross-functional design reviews.
Stakeholder presentations.
Technical feasibility discussions.
Testing and validation phase
Usability testing: Observing users interact with prototypes to identify usability issues and validate design decisions.
A/B testing: Comparing different design approaches to determine which performs better.
Accessibility testing: Ensuring designs work for users with disabilities and meet accessibility standards.
Technical validation: Working with developers to ensure designs are feasible and performant.
Implementation and iteration phase
Developer collaboration: Providing specifications, assets, and ongoing support during development.
Quality assurance: Reviewing implementations to ensure they match design intent and function properly.
Launch preparation: Coordinating with marketing, support, and other teams for product launch.
Post-launch monitoring: Tracking user behavior and feedback to identify areas for improvement.
Continuous improvement
Analytics review: Analyzing user behavior data to understand how designs perform in the real world.
User feedback collection: Gathering ongoing feedback through surveys, support channels, and user interviews.
Performance optimization: Iterating on designs based on data and feedback to improve user experience.
Design system evolution: Updating and expanding design systems based on new learnings and requirements.
Process variations
Different organizations adapt this process based on their needs:
Agile/Scrum environments: Design work happens in sprints with regular reviews and iterations.
Lean startup approach: Emphasis on rapid experimentation and validated learning with minimal viable products.
Design thinking methodology: Human-centered approach with emphasis on empathy, ideation, and experimentation.
Waterfall projects: More linear approach with distinct phases, though less common for digital products.
The key is maintaining user focus throughout the process while adapting to organizational constraints and project requirements.
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