So you mean UX > UI?
But that’s not what that YouTube video said…
In 2015, I wrote out a cooking curriculum for myself. I was going to travel the work through food, knife skills, mise en place and Arabian bread but I had to return to school and so I did. Five years later, I wrote out another curriculum, to study UI and UX (this was all I knew about them) and get a job because that was what made sense to me when thinking about where I would be in the future if cooking did not work out. But then I got a job that took me to the other end of a product’s lifecycle, Marketing. Everyone knows that Marketing is the furthest from the UI/UX in the spectrum. So when I discovered Stutern, it was easy to buy into their ISA.
Now about UI and UX….
These terms are not interchangeable. If anything, UI and UX are as different as night and day. Being a fan of the left brain and right brain theory, I agree that UI and UX use completely different parts of the brain and require different kinds of people. I had always thought I could make a very good UX person but the more I read about both fields, I see that I lean towards UI. While this doesn't;t make me the alpha of any project, I think being comfortable with what you are doing is far more important than leading the project itself.
What are UI and UX?
UI, user interaction, comprises the user’s visual journey with the product they are engaging with.
UX means User Experience. It is the field that encompasses the user’s journey with a product from when they meet the product to when they are done with it.
These definitions are off the top of my head after a week of not reading anything on the subject.
Also, I think I should put UX before UI now.
It is easy to imagine that UI is inside UX, as the visual aspect of a product or entity is part of the user experience. While that is not technically false, the bummer there is that humanistic experiences are not cut into quantitative sizes. 2 might be contained in 3 but 2 might have characteristics that 3 lost when it became 3. Qualitative aspects matter just as much in human experiences. Probably even more because not everyone judges things by a strict code unconditionally.
The visual aspect of a product is the fabric of a product’s universe hat is tangible and quantifiable and creating this requires special focus as it is the only area in which the user will directly engage with. The inner workings of the product, it’s behaviour, mental state, character development cycle (sorry, I use theatre terms here because I see products as humans being born) tricks, tips, forks and shortcuts, the reasons why this is this and that is that, are not visible to them an. And this is why the discipline of UI is different. Also, not everyone has great handcraft. So, you know…
Let us pan out for a moment. Got too serious there.
Part of the reason I am stepping into the UI and UX game is also because of blockchain technology. There is going to be a host of products that will be created this decade, an explosion of jobs and skills that will be needed and I would like to contribute to that world. I just finished reading about the SAND token. It is a virtual world that would be decentralized and the activities there would mimic real life. It is as Ready Player One as anything else can be at the moment. What would I not give to work on a project like that?
UI and UX differ in so many ways. One analogy I frequently use to store the difference is that,
UX professionals design invisible experiences while UI professionals create visible components to facilitate these experiences.
UX people provide the code/guide on which the UI designer will base his visual universe. This is like the part in Genesis where God first designed the experience of the Universe in Chapter 1 and then created the UI in Chapter 2.
UX always comes before UI but that doesn’t make it any greater if that is what you are wondering. More disciplines will splinter off UX and we are here for it.
This graphic from Careerfoundry puts it best.
Red Pill Time
One of the things I find lacking in the products designed in Nigeria is that we do not involve UX. As such, the least good thing we can come up with will be a clunky MVP that really is just a pish-posh of solutions and addons, built on a template that a user has to suffer through. There is no one who looks out for the users and records what they want to say. Thus, when the user dwells on the product, they don't feel looked after and they will jump ship at the first sight of a cheaper alternative because the designer was not loyal to them in the first place. The solution was convenient only in solving the problem and disregarded theother aspects of the journey. The world is kinder than it was because people demand kindess. Business, yes cutthroat and all, has to follow.
This is one of the things I hope to change the products made by Nigerians for Nigerians.
Edit.
Now that I’m about to share this I just thought of an alternate title.
So Your Ex is greater than Your Eye? UX > UI? 😅. I crack myself up.
The UI Spirit is an open journal of Shammah Godoz, a student of UI/UX Class at Stutern Nigeria. Feel free to reach him via email at hello@shammahgodoz.com. In fact, he insists.
