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Figma UI UX Design Essentials

Whats the difference between UI and UX in Figma

Daniel Walter Scott

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 All right, let's talk about what UI versus UX is, if you already know you're allowed to skip this video, it's okay. This is not going to be a very, like detailed, just give you an understanding of like the differences between the two, because it comes up a lot. 

So UI design, the simple way, this is all very simple, the UI, User Interface versus UX, the User eXperience. UI is the way something looks, and the UX is how it works, how somebody uses it, so often, the way it looks, how it's used. 

Now in terms of being a UI designer, like UI designer is in charge, like up until UX became part of my life, and a lot of us, it's kind of newish, and I did a lot of UI design, I designed a website that was based a lot on my intuition, like, "Oh, button should be this big, and it should be over here," and traditionally things go over here in the Nav. So there was a lot of that, and I'd give it to the client, they'd like it, great, but there was a big element missing, the UX, there was very little testing.

 I had a, I had an idea of what would work, but it was totally an idea, it was like a hypothesis of how it should work, and the UX part of being a UX designer is, the taking that kind of UI, that layout, and getting it in the hands of clients and testing it. That part of it turns you from just a UI designer into, you know, the beginnings of a UX designer, is getting it out there and actually testing that, did it work, did it do exactly, you know, what I hoped it would do, is the client, when they click this button, do they go where they expected, or were they surprised? Is the language like, let's say, UI designer designs the button, and the rounded corners, and the beautiful gradient, or the, and the text in the middle. the UX designer says that's great, let's go and test that, and says, you know, is it big enough, can they click on it, is there enough contrast, is it accessible for people, maybe that have, that are visually impaired, it is, you know, is the hierarchy of buttons, is this one too big, because it feels like it should be doing something else. 

There's a lot of that side of thing, is the UX, Now in all honesty, this course is based mostly around UI design, because we're learning Figma. Figma is the creation of these things, the testing side of stuff, I'll give you a, you know, some ex-- some insights as we go along, about what I would do at different testing phases, but it is broader than what can be covered in this course, but we'll do UI with a little bit of UX, but Figma basically is, we're learning software, that's why you signed up, probably. 

So it doesn't make you instantly a UX designer, the UX part is the, you know, taking it further than, just moving pixels around on the screen, is like giving it out there and getting it tested, and changing things, and testing things, that's UX. My little example, that I'm kind of, running through at the moment, example, it's a, yeah, my bank updated its website and its app, and it looks beautiful, the UI, amazing, the UX is terrible, I'm sure it went through some testing, I imagine it went through lots of testing, not right at the end though because there's just, it's just simple things like, let's say that I'm typing in my password, type, type, hit 'Enter', 'Enter', 'Enter', nope, you got to get the mouse and click the 'Enter' button. So I'm like, "Why?" You know, there's a, in code, it's not hard, that kind of, I can't remember what it's called, when you get to the end it will know that when you press 'Enter', you mean this button here. 

So that's just one thing, another thing, you go into, like updating, I want to update a person in my standing orders, like a Direct Debit, or, not sure what you call it in your country, but a regular payment that I'm making, so I went to find how to edit it, I'm like, "Huh.." I have to delete it because I couldn't find anywhere, and I'm tech savvy, I know how to use computers, and I couldn't find it, so I was like, oh, well, maybe we have to delete it, I've been doing this a few time, I'm like, I'm going to email them, they're like, I just got to click the name of the person to edit it, I'm like, huh, oh, it seems simple, go and have a look, and you do, if you click the name of the person, it does go in to edit it but it's missing a couple of things, any sort of indication that that's possible, underline, arrow, big sign, tool tip. 

The other weird thing about it is, you know, when your mouse, your mouse is kind of moving along, and when you go over something clickable, it turns into the little hand, it doesn't do that, you just click it with the arrow, and hopefully, it's like, start clicking everything. That must be hard to turn that thing off, somehow it's off. There is a million in one of those little things, it's just come out, but I do have a problem with it. 

Anyway, I'm burbling, and red, why is it red again? This feels very ominous, my little colored, like I just bought the colored light, you're going to see it all the way through this course, until I get sick of it, but yeah, that's my UX story at the moment. You'll have them as well, and that's the kind of thing, if you're new to UX, is keep those ideas open, like, they're terrible, and they're a pain in the butt, but it's kind of language and stuff that you're gathering as a designer, so that when you're working you can avoid some of those things, or at least, you know, when it comes back from testing, you're not surprised, you're like, "Oh yeah, it's that thing that I hate as well, is in this thing." 

 So UI, UX, that's my explanation for the moment, all right, next video.