User interface (UI) design is important because it prioritizes a user’s experience. A good user interface is functional, reliable, and easily understood.
Since good UI design minimizes user effort, it helps users complete your goals and follow along the user journey, making your app or site more effective, useful, and profitable.
orBelow, we take a close look at: What UI design is, how it differs from UX design, why it's important, how to create a clean UI, UI design tools, and UI best practices.
Key takeaways:
User interface design is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur
Though often confused with UX design, UI design focuses more on the visual feel of a user experience
UI design can be the difference between a business’ success and failure
There are three types of user interfaces: graphical user interfaces, voice-controlled interfaces, and gesture-based interfaces
Designers need to seek a lot of internal and external feedback
There are many UI tools to help you create a clean design
What is user interface (UI) design?
User interface (UI) design is the process of designing the visual look or style of an interface.
Designers aim to create interfaces that are easy and pleasurable to use. UI design refers to graphical user interfaces and other forms—like user-engaged interfaces.
The UI is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur.
UI is an integral aspect of user experience (UX) that consists of two major parts:
Visual design—which translates the look and feel of a product
Interaction design—which is the functional and logical organization of elements
The goal of user interface design is to create products, apps, and services that are easy and enjoyable for users to interact with, while minimizing user frustration and abandonment.
The difference between UI and UX design
Often confused with UX design, UI design is more concerned with the surface and overall feel of a design.
What UX design is and isn't
UX is the end-to-end experience a user has when they interact with a product. Unlike UI, UX is not limited to digital, but also includes physical products.
UX design covers the entire spectrum of the user experience—from qualitative and quantitative user research to user flows to wireframes—and includes how the user would engage with it.
UX design is the process of understanding user needs and goals, then making a usable and enjoyable design that helps them meet these needs. They solve product problems to boost business and make users' lives easier.
What UI design is and isn't
A UI