UX is still not UI

Erik Flowers might not have been the first person to notice that there is a difference between User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) Design, but he certainly left a mark by creating a visual comparison between the two in December 2012. In his original BLOG article, he also stated quite convincingly that “UX is the intangible design of a strategy that brings us to a solution.”

I have hung up his UX is not UI poster everywhere I have worked since I first discovered it. It caught the eyes of Project Managers, Directors, VPs and even a couple of C-level executives. Typically, while reading through the various points – many of them mumbled something like, "Wow! I had no idea. Do you really do all of that?" Yes, we really do.

Even in 2019, with UX Design being primarily segmented into UX Design, UX Research and UX Prototyping, new job titles pop up left and right in job descriptions to refer to specific skill sets within the realm of UX Design (for example, Interaction Designer, Information Architect, Experience Designer, UX Strategist, etc.). The gist of it, in my opinionated opinion, is that the core tasks of UX still remain the same. For example, even though UX Writer, UX Copywriter, Content Strategist or similar job titles have become quite popular lately, copywriting, feature writing and terminology creation have already been mentioned on the UX is not UI poster since the beginning. However, sometimes I cannot help but wonder: Are we still trying to figure out what UX means?

What puzzles me are job announcements for UX/UI Designers. And today, UI no longer just means User Interface Design but also includes front-end development (angular, react, vue, etc.), interaction with databases and a variety of other tasks that traditionally used to be assigned to back-end developers. Change is good, don't get me wrong, but I find the number of requirements for such positions mind-boggling, especially since they vary greatly from one job to another. In the end, the UX/UI job requirement brings us back to the last century, when developers did UX as well, not necessarily by choice or on purpose, but it just kind of happened when software was getting developed. This condition and the accompanying mindset still exist, by the way, among certain experienced software developers – who have always done things their way and who typically say things such as, "So far nobody has complained about anything yet. My software works, and I don't need anyone telling me what to put on a screen or in which order to present information. It just works." If you get the opportunity to work with developers like that, might I suggest an interesting book to read, written by Alan Cooper, called The Inmates Are Running The Asylum?

Finally, this question has popped up a lot lately in UX discussion forums and groups: Do you think that UX Designers are still relevant? Could Business Analysts take on the roles of UX Designers? Or do UX Designers need to start learning how to code in popular front-end development languages? Do UX Designers need to justify their existence? Just looking at the 24 essential UX roles*, it seems obvious to me that a dedicated UX Designer should be an integral part of any development team – regardless of the type of development, ranging from Java software to mobile apps and websites, etc. There is good news though as I have noticed a greater effort to hire "official" UX Designers. Based on my personal research and experience, this seems to happen most frequently in companies who are beginning to realize that their growth does require someone who represents the end user's interests. In a typical scenario, everything goes well. The company releases successful software products, and the functionality of the various software products seems beyond reproach. However, end users (and sometimes even shareholders) are demanding workflows that make sense. They want to work with software that is fairly intuitive, as they certainly don't want to guess what the next step should be or whether a certain feature even exists. And, by the way, end users are beginning to notice what the competition is doing. They especially notice when the competition's products are beginning to look and behave more attractively than the "Salesforce out of the box" solution that they are using.

I feel confident that UX and accomplished UX Designers will keep on playing a very important role on all kinds of development and product teams. Despite dozens of articles I have read that question the traditional role of the UX Designer, I strongly believe that UX Designers will be needed in a variety of companies (not just software or digital) and significantly expand their relatively small presence in other environments (such as buildings, cities and infrastructure). Please, keep in mind that these predictions are entirely unscientific but are based on my observations and hands-on involvement in UX throughout the United States and several European countries.

*24 essential UX functions (according to Erik Flowers' UX is not UI poster): Field research, Face to face interviewing, Creation and administering of tests, Gathering, organizing, and presenting statistics, Documentation of personas and findings, Product design, Feature writing, Requirement writing, Graphic arts, Interaction design, Information Architecture, Usability, Prototyping, Interface layout, Interface design, Visual design, Taxonomy creation, Terminology creation, Copy writing, Presentation and speaking, Working tightly with programmers, Brainstorm coordination, Company culture evangelism, Communication to stakeholders.

Disclaimer: In order to drive a point home or to present meaningful examples, I have used a number of stereotypes in this article. It is not my intention to offend anyone or anything, especially not Salesforce, which is a great software solution in my opinion, but unfortunately, it is being used in unimaginative ways by way too many companies. If you feel offended or if you think that you recognize yourself in this article in a negative way, rest assured that I have no intention of doing you any harm or hurting you in any way. In this article, almost all characters and incidents portrayed are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places and buildings is intended or should be inferred.