I had a manager once who referred to the group of people who did UX, IA, user research, visual design AND front-end development as the 'U-something' group.
It always made me smile. I know what he meant - and I felt that as a group of disciplines, we probably don't always do a good job of explaining ourselves.
The 'UX-UI' question has been around for a while. What's the difference, and where does one end, and the other begin? Can one person do both? Or are they mutually exclusive?
Here's how i see the distinction:
UI design = creating the things that can be seen: bringing visual assets into being.
UX design = adding things that cannot be seen: identifying repeated, redundant or inefficient steps, for example, that can be removed to add lightness and flow.
Often I feel I my value on a project comes not from what I make wireframes for, but on what I prevent being built.
As to the question of whether one person can do both, that is harder to answer. I know that, in my case, I will never call myself a 'UI Designer', even though a great deal of my output is visual in nature.
That's why I call myself a UX 'architect': I make blueprints, plans from which to build and add branding, personality and style.
But I do work very closely with UI designers in symbiotic fashion, just as I do all the other people and groups on any project who all contribute to the emergent user experience.
I would like to call myself a 'UX Shepherd', if I could get away with that - corralling all the different views and objectives into a clear and cohesive whole that can sensibly be designed and built.
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