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UI, UX: Who Does What? A Designer’s Guide to the Tech Industry

Design in the tech industry can be a tricky thing for people to understand, especially for business users or clients working with a design team on a project. What’s the difference between a UX Designer and a UI Designer? And where does a Graphic Designer fit in? This article from Fast Company breaks down these titles as they apply to the tech industry. 

While the article covers the specific roles of UX, UI, Visual, Interaction and Product Designers, UX Researchers, and Front-End Developers, it’s important to remember that at many companies, these individual roles are rolled into one or two people’s responsibilities. For example, here at Briteskies, Michelle Kowalski serves as the UI/UX Designer, with some Visual Designer thrown in for good measure. Here’s how Fast Company describes those roles: 

• UI (User Interface) Designer: They are in charge of designing each screen or page a user will interact with and they are particular about how the product is laid out. They are also usually responsible for creating a style guide to ensure that a consistent design language is applied across the site.
• UX (User Experience) Designer: If the UI Designer is concerned with how the site is laid out, the UX Designer is concerned with how the site feels. Their broad responsibility is to make sure that the site logically flows from one step to the next. They investigate many different approaches to solving user problems.
• Visual Designer (Graphic Designer): This is the job that pops into most people’s heads when they think “designer.” Instead of focusing on site flow or user interactions, Visual Designers are concerned with creating icons and visual elements and leveraging typography.

For a closer look at the responsibilities of the many different kinds of tech designers, be sure to check out the full Fast Company article.

P.S. Want to really impress your project’s design team? Check out these tips for providing feedback.

Overcoming Mobile Measurement Challenges to Drive Sales Growth

It’s no secret that mobile continues to be a driving force in eCommerce. But just as designing for mobile presents unique challenges, so does marketing for mobile. Google’s Director of Marketing, Matt Lawson, spoke with the Global Marketing Practice Lead, Laura Beaudin, of consulting firm Bain & Company about mobile-first advertising.

One of the main issues that Laura identifies is that brands typically fail to consider mobile as a separate medium from online or television marketing. The measurement tools used to determine marketing success for those channels simply don’t work for mobile.

“Take, for example, that 79% of consumers use their smartphones to research, however only ~10% of purchases are on a mobile device. Under the traditional rules of digital metrics, if consumers don't buy from the device the ad is seen on, the activity won't be counted as contributing to the purchase. The methods often used for calculating the effectiveness of mobile are incomplete. We need to move away from last-click attribution models to something that better reflects a consumer journey, which is nonlinear and has gaps in the data.”

In order to optimize mobile marketing, Laura states, brands must be prepared to experiment with and learn from the platform, rather than rely on existing strategies for other channels. To learn more about mobile marketing, along with three tips for marketers using mobile to help achieve broad business goals, check out the full article on Think with Google.