For someone who’s been in the UX/UI, Product, or Graphic Design fields, this topic might seem like I’m stating the obvious. However, one of the things that I often wondered when I first started working in the UX/UI recruitment space was the difference between UX, UI, Product Design and often, adding graphic design into the mix– just to make things more interesting! It seemed that some people and organisations were able to draw the line between where one ends and the other starts. Meaning that, although similar in some aspects, these are completely different roles. Whereas other times, it seemed like these were used as blanket terms to refer to the same roles; where you’d read similar job descriptions but one company would be looking for a Product Designer while the other one needed a UX/UI Designer.
UX Design
User Experience (UX) Designers have the objective of designing a product to ensure that it fulfils the user’s needs. That’s why the term “human centred” is often mentioned in this space. UX should design with humans/their audience at the core of their process since their main focus is to improve the usability and accessibility of a product. The design process in UX often involves research all the way to ideation, testing, prototyping, and optimization.
Product Design
Product design stems from industrial design and just as its name might suggest: it’s the design of products. However, with the digitalization of the world and with advances in technology, the anatomy of what is considered a product remains elusive. Today, the role of a product designer is very flexible. Product designers often dip their toe in UX, UI, coding, project management and problem solving. In the timeline of the design process, product designers should be the ones designing solutions to problems that might arise during the initial stages of design to also look after the cost-effectiveness of the product and manage stakeholder interactions, and then provide support to the developers during the launch stage.
UI Design
User Interface (UI) Designers look after the interactive elements of a product within the digital sphere. Their roles are often for products that can exist within a computer, a tablet, or a smartphone.
Graphic Design
Graphic Design uses colours, shapes, images, and fonts to create visual content for print and digital media. Unlike designs created by UI Designers, these are often non-interactive such as logos, brochures, displays, or advertisements.
UX Designers and Product Designers have very few differences in their job, however the role of a UX Designer is often to answer the question of “is this product easy to use?” whilst Product Designers work to answer the question of “Is this product relevant in this current economy?” Product Designers, as mentioned above usually have experience in UX and UI design whereas UX/UI Designers not always have experience with Product Design-like skills that gear more towards product and project management. So, although it might make sense that someone with Product Design experience can have a role as a UX/UI Designer, it does not mean that these two areas are the same. A similar thing could be seen with Graphic Design and UX or UI Design. It could be said that UI Design, stemmed, in the beginning from graphic design; and for this reason, skill sets used in graphic design can be translated to UI Design however, there is also a learning curve that a Graphic Designer would have to go through when moving towards UX or UI Design such as information architecture, user research, and testing and iteration.
Savant is informed by market research and has a specialised Digital Design team with extensive experience and expertise in UX/UI talent solutions. If you are looking to build or expand your Design and/or Development function, we can support you with the best talent in the industry with experts and market leading onboarding advice and consultation. To find out more about how we can assist you, please reach out to us at technology@savantrecruitment.com
