UI/UX Designer and Developer: What’s the Difference?

Did you ever encounter a time when you are browsing a website to find some information only to end up feeling lost, confused, and dizzy? From pointless animation, unnecessary objects to unsupported data, many businesses suffer from bad UI/UX design and development. According to Amazon Web Services, 88% of online shoppers said they would not return to a website after a failed user experience.

Your website is the frontline to customer service and relationships. You need to make sure that it’s accommodating customers properly. However, creating a top-tier and well-designed website is more complicated than it looks. Likewise, hiring UI/UX Designer and developer is perfect for business.

This article will tackle the difference between UI/UX Designer and developers, which one you should hire, and if you should hire both.

What is UI/UX, and Why is it important?

Before jumping into the difference between UI/UX Designer and Developer, first, we must understand what UI/UX is and why it is essential in a website and application. To begin with, UI stands for User Interface, and UX represents User Experience. The critical difference between the two is that UI is more design-related. At the same time, UX is focused on technical and usability.

UI/UX is a crucial element in a website as a good UI/UX enhances the user experience and satisfaction of the customer and helps with retention. With today’s technology-focused society, people hate using buggy apps and websites. And if your website crashes more often, people will likely switch to your competitor sooner than you thought. A well-designed app and website will retain loyal customers and invite potential clients.

In addition to this, UI/UX plays a vital role in a website SEO that creates more traffic and conversions. A good thought and design UI/UX is your key to call to action, funnels, and conversion. If a website is excellent, customers will get hooked and spend more time on your website.

What’s the Difference Between a Designer and a Developer?

UI/UX designers and developers work hand in hand to create the perfect website or application. However, the scope of their work, skills, and expertise usually differs from each other. UI/UX designer focuses on brand research and design while UI/UX or frontend developers code it.

We will discuss the in-depth difference between the two below:

What Is a UI/UX Designer?

Basically, a UI/UX designer works to improve the interface of a website or software whilst including the company’s brand. The works of a UI/UX designer is focused on two main things: ensuring the usability of the interface (UX) and visually translating the identity of the company is sophisticated and smooth design (UI). The UI Designers also select elements including colors, fonts, and others that will speak branding to the user.

Likewise, below are additional tasks of a UI/UX Designer.

Tasks of a UI/UX Designer

• Collaborate with the marketing team in implementing business goals and branding into the design
• Explore and learn user habits and needs
• Develop mockup of interface and websites
• Create eye-catching designs
• Developer interfaces elements such as tabs, arrows, call-to-action-buttons, bars, and menus
• Test and troubleshoot user experience issue

Skills Required to be a UI/UX Designer

As mentioned earlier, a UI/UX designer is tasked to research and design interfaces based on user habits and experiences. They must understand user behavior to formulate concepts and design that consumers will love the most. As such, designers need to have a great understanding of behavior, psychology, and trends. They need to know how to walk in different consumers’ shoes and see the best thing they would want.

A UI/UX designer needs to have skills and experience in designing and using the latest tools on a technical aspect. They need to know all the industry-standard design tools, especially those commonly used by other designers such as Photoshop, Figma, Sketch, and more. They also need to know the professional designing process, including consultation, collaboration with developers, research, analysis, and design.

Likewise, below are other not required but good to have skills for a UI/UX Designer:

• Knowledge of common coding languages like JavaScript, HTML, XML, and more
• Expertise in wireframe tools and tasks
• Follow the latest design trends and tools

What Is a UI/UX Developer?

When working on the website, you will meet three different developers – backend, frontend, and full-stack Developer. Backend Developers take care of the functionality and maintenance of the server-side code of the website. Full Stack, on the other hand, is capable of doing everything.

Meanwhile, frontend developer focuses on implementing and improving the visual elements that most users interact with. While UI/UX designers create the interface’s aesthetic and creative aspects, the UI/UX or Frontend developers implement it and make sure that these elements are running smoothly.

The following are more tasks of a UI/UX Developer

Tasks of a UI/UX or Frontend Developer

• Implement visual designs from UI/UX Designers
• Conduct user and brand research
• Create wireframes and user flows
• Develop prototypes and improve accordingly to comments
• Write information architectures

Skills Required of a UI/UX or Frontend Developer

As mentioned earlier, UI/UX Developer is more technical than the designer. After the designer conducts the research and designing part, they will collaborate with the Developer to create a wireframe and understand the process behind the design. They need to identify how to make it work and functional on all browsers and devices.

The Developer’s job is to make the final design practical and usable. He must translate wireframes and concepts in a practical output. Therefore, he needs to have many technical and design skillsets.

A UI/UX Developer must know at least one frontend programming language: HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and others. He also must learn different applications and technology based on what the company or client uses for the frontend development.

Since the UI/UX developer will fine-tune the design, they need to keep in mind how it will behave in a different browser, how much time it will take to load, how many resources it will consume, and how users will respond to it. Likewise, below are more skills that a frontend developer might need:

• Experience and command in using advanced programming languages like PHP, Dot Net, Ajax, Java, Ruby, Python, Etc.
• Knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and more.
• Understanding of the backend
• Knowledge of Restful APIsof social networking website
• Experience with content management platforms such as Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, WordPress, Wix, etc.
• Understanding of SEO

Should You Hire a UI/UX Developer or a UI/UX Designer?

In summary, the responsibilities of a UI/UX Designer are to research, translate, and design. While UI/UX developer implements interactive visual design and frontend development. The UI/UX designer is more concerned with the feel and looks of the interface. He needs to understand user behavior, competitor, and branding and conceptualize it into the design. He needs to develop the aesthetics and graphics for the website.

On the other hand, a UI/UX developer is concerned with implementation, responsiveness, and usability. He needs to study UI prototyping and implement interactivity and animation aspects. He then needs to take into account the serviceability of all devices, browsers, and platforms.

To build a website from scratch, you need both UI/UX designers and developers. In most cases, both experts work and collaborate. However, make sure that you write down your specific needs before hiring the proper skilled professional.

And if your budget lets you, you can hire a small team of developers to create your website. A remote Developer can help you find a dedicated remote team to develop your website. Contact us now!