Let’s talk about UI and what it means from a marketing perspective. You might not think it’s relevant, but UI is essential to making a website or app that everyone appreciates.
So, allow me to explain what UI stands for and what it means for you.
What Is UI?
UI stands for the user interface. This is the point where people communicate with the computer, usually through their desktop, laptop, or phone screen.
Understanding the user interface and how it works can help you improve the user experience on your website or app. Everything from your keyboard to your sidebar menu is UI. Due to that, there are two different types:
Input Hardware: The devices, such as a mouse or tablet, are used to control your computer or phone.
Output Hardware: The devices, such as a monitor or speaker, receive information to give to the user.
However, there are other UIs too. Command-line interfaces were the first UIs, where users could input a command to have the computer respond with a line of text.
These have been replaced with GUIs, or graphic user interfaces, where icons and cursors allow users to interact with their computers. Lastly, we have voice-enabled user interfaces, which enable users to interact with their laptop or phone with their voice.
UIs tend to correlate with UX, and because of that, many people tend to get confused with one another.
UI And UX
While UI and UX can go hand-in-hand to create a brilliant design, they don’t actually mean the same thing. UI is about creating a website, or an app, to make it palatable to the customer.
However, UX is focused on the function of a website or app. Without UX, you’ll find that your designs will suffer, and your website won’t actually work.
When a UI designer works on a website or app, it means that they will be concerned about the aesthetics. It’s all about the logo, menu options, and color choices. At the same time, a UX designer will make sure that all of these elements work together.
You want your design to be visually pleasing, but you’ll also need it to work correctly. That’s why you need a UI designer and a UX designer.
Understanding UI design
Now, when you’re on a site, what is the first element that you look at? It’s the design. UI is all about designing a website that is easy to navigate and draws your attention to all the right places.
Everything needs to be in a perfect spot that makes sense. You need to anticipate your customers’ needs and ensure that everything makes sense visually and with purpose.
The best way to consider this is to imagine you’re leading a tour. You need to guide your guests through the interface in a way that makes sense.
You’re there to point them in the right direction and ensure everything works harmoniously. You’re like an artist, using design elements to evoke a reaction to your site and persuade them to look around.
Everything in a design needs to be there on purpose. If you implement too many elements into the design, then it becomes cluttered, and the UX will suffer alongside it.
So when adding a feature, consider how it improves the overall function of your design. Then, you need to keep each page consistent, or you’ll find that users become more frustrated as they browse through.
When I talk about consistency, I don’t only mean that the buttons should be in the same place. You need to use the same color scheme and typography on the site so that your audience understands it’s not a different site.
If you don’t remain consistent, your users will leave, and you’ll lose web traffic.
However, that won’t be the only way to lose traffic. While your audience may stay out of curiosity, your typography can make or break your audience. If your text is unreadable, illegible, or just too small, your customers will leave the site.
Make sure that everything is designed so your customers can read and understand it.
Elements Of UI design
Now that I’ve discussed UI design some more, let me give you a list of what you can expect to be a part of the user interface. So, let’s take a look.
Images
Buttons
Text
Scroll Bars
Form Fields
Sliders
Page Layout
Cursors
These are essential elements that make up an app’s UI design. As you can see, these can all be changed for aesthetic reasons but can impact the user’s experience as they browse the site.
If you look at a bad website, you’ll find that there’s too much going on, but a good UI designer can make sure that the design is easy to travel through.
So What Does A UI Designer Do?
A UI designer is a specific role that tends to align with a graphic designer. While you might work alongside a UX designer, UI is all about injecting feeling and life into your product.
As businesses have been thriving online, you need to ensure that you spend more time on your website and app.
Businesses hire UI designers so that they can help give users more control over their purchases. Everything a UI designer does is to improve the levels of customer satisfaction to encourage your customers to come back to the site.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, the user interface is essential to your website or app’s design. Many features of UI correlate with graphic design, as it’s all about making your creation look good.
While functionality is vital, that’s the role of the UX designer, and typically, you would find a UI designer working alongside them for the site. Nowadays, UI design is more important than ever, thanks to the digital landscape that we live in.
So, you need to keep your design in mind when working on your app, or your traffic will go down, and your customers will go elsewhere.
These days, everything is online. You can’t get your business anywhere without a great online presence. With search engines forever changing, it’s difficult to stay on top of it all! That’s where I’ll come in.
Hello, my name is Jack O’Neil and I have been in the marketing industry for almost 10 years. I focus on online marketing, SEO, advertising, and more.
