User Experience & Design: What Is User Experience (UX) Design?

User Experience & Design are the essential elements for creating websites and apps that people enjoy using. Good design is not just about looks; it’s about functionality and interactivity.

Imagine you are using an app where you can’t find what you need or a website that’s confusing to use, its frustrating right? This is where User Experience & Design come into play. The main aim of User Experience & design is to make every interaction smooth, enjoyable, and efficient.

In this article, we’ll understand everything related to the User Experience & Design, starting from the basics to the skills needed and job role of the same. So without wasting much of your time, Let’s explore how good User Experience & Design can make a big difference!

Table of Contents

User Experience & Design – Key Takeaways

Understanding the meaning of User experience & Design.
Understanding the difference between UX vs UI
Getting insights into the UX design task and responsibilities.
Learning about the User Experience & Design career path.
Getting insights into the UX design salary structure.

What Is User Experience & Design?

User Experience & Design are all about how people feel when they use a product, like a website or an app. It focuses on making things easy to use, enjoyable, and efficient. Let’s break it down with a simple example.

Imagine you have a favorite app for ordering food. If the app has a good design and user experience, it will be easy to find your favorite restaurants, select your meal, and place your order quickly. The buttons are clearly labeled, the text is easy to read, and the process is simple to understand. You feel happy and satisfied using the app because it’s simple and does exactly what you need.

Now, think about a different app that doesn’t have good UX and design. The layout is messy, you can’t find the menu easily, and the checkout process is confusing. This makes you feel frustrated and annoyed, and you might even stop using the app.

So for this, we can understand that a Good User Experience & Design make sure users have a positive experience. UX Designers achieve this by understanding what users need, testing different designs, and making improvements based on user feedback.

UX Vs UI – What’s The Difference

People often see UI/UX together in job postings and get confused, thinking of them as the same term. In reality, these terms are interconnected but have different roles and responsibilities to perform.

UX and UI are often used together because UI is considered a subset of User Experience and design. Let us understand the basic difference between these two terms with the help of the table given below:

User Experience & Design Vs UI
UX Design	UI Design
They focuses on the overall experience of the user	They are responsible for maintaining look and feel of the product
They make the product easy to use	Their task is to make the product visually appealing and attractive.
UX design key skills include- Researching, wireframes, user flows	UI Design Key skills include – Visual design, colors, typography
Their primary goal is to achieve User satisfaction and usability.	UI designer’s main goal is to make the product attractive and consistent.
Tools used by UX designers include- User research tools, wireframing tools	UI designers use – Design software like Sketch, Figma, Adobe XD, etc.
UX Designers take care of how users interact with the product and how they feel after using the product.	UI designer basically take care of how the product looks and feels.

UX Designer Task And Responsibilities

A UX Designer focuses on making websites and apps easy and pleasant to use. Here’s a simple step-by-step breakdown of what User Experience & Designer particularly do:

Step 1- The very first task of a UX designer starts by understanding the users. They ask questions, conduct surveys, and observe how people use similar products. These things help them to know what users really need and want.

Step 2- In the next step, based on the user demands and needs they create a rough plan and the layout of the website or app. This includes deciding where buttons, menus, and other elements should be placed.

Step 3- After creating this rough plan and layout, In the next step, They draw simple sketches of each page, known as wireframes. These wireframes basically show where different elements will go without adding details like colors or images.

Step 4- In this step, UX Designers build a basic version of the website or app, called a prototype. This allows them to test how everything works and make changes before the final design.

Step 5- After designing the prototype, They ask real users to try the prototype and give feedback. This process helps them to find problems and fix them as soon as possible.

Step 6- Once the layout and structure are finalized with zero bugs and errors, UX Designers work with UI Designers to add colors, fonts, images, and other design elements.

Step 7- Even after the website or app is launched, UX Designers continue to gather feedback and make improvements to ensure the best user experience.

In short, We can say that a UX Designer’s job is to make sure that using a website or app is easy, enjoyable, and efficient for everyone.

Essential Skills Of User Experience Designers

UX designers use a mix of technical and soft management skills to create and improve products. Many of these skills can be similar to those of other fields, so even if you’re new to UX design, you might already have some of them. Let us read below to understand what each skills has to offer and why they are important in this role:

Soft Skills

Communication Skills: These skills generally help you to interview users and discuss problems as well as solutions with clients or management clearly.
Empathy: This allows you to see problems and solutions from the user’s point of view.
Collaboration Skills: Having this skill allows you to work well with your team by taking feedback, exploring solutions together, and much more.
Critical Thinking: Having this skill will help you to come up with new solutions.

Technical Skills

Research: Being good at researching and having fluency with research tools will help you in conducting interviews, surveys, and observations.
Information Architecture: This skill involves organizing and prioritizing large amounts of information effectively by using various organizational tools.
Wireframing: This includes creating a basic layout for a website or app that helps you to explore new design ideas while implementing.
Prototyping: Knowledge of building a prototype will let you test the functionality of an application and identify issues early.
Visual Design and Coding: These skills are not compulsory to have but yes having these skills can help you to understand more clearly about the overall product development process.

User Experience & Design – Career Path

User Experience & Design is a vast field with plenty of jobs available, each requiring different levels of experience and expertise. Some of the common roles in UX Design, along with their job role, experience level and UX designer salary include:

UX Intern – As a UX intern, you’ll assist senior designers with various tasks. This includes user research, creating wireframes, and testing prototypes. This is an Entry-level job which is often given to students or recent graduates.
Junior UX Designer – After having several months of internship, you will be then promoted to a junior UX designer. They mainly works on designing user interfaces and improving user experience under the guidance of senior designers. They often handle simpler projects or a specific part of larger projects.
UX Designer – After having 2-5 years of experience in the relevant field, you will be then promoted to UX designer. UX Designer are basically responsible for conduct user research, creating wireframes and prototypes, and working on enhancing the overall user experience. They also collaborate with other team members, such as web developers and product managers.
Senior UX Designer- After gaining 5-8 years of experience in the field you will be then promoted to Senior UX designers, Their main responsibility is to lead design projects, mentor junior designers, and make strategic design decisions.
UX Manager – After 8-10 years of experience you will be on the position of UX manager. They are the one responsible for managing the UX team, they manage project timelines, and ensure design quality. They often interact with stakeholders and product management team to align design goals with business objectives.
UX Director- After having 10+ years of extensive experience in the field, you will be then promoted to the role of UX Director. A UX director is responsible for the overall vision and strategy of the UX department. They work closely with top executives to ensure that user experience aligns with the company’s goals.

Each role in UX design requires a combination of creativity, technical skills, and a deep understanding of user needs. As you gain experience, you can move up on the career ladder, where you will be taking on more responsibilities and leading larger projects. The key to success in UX design is continuous learning and staying updated with the latest trends and technologies.

UX Design Salary

As we have discussed above, about the different roles and positions in the field of User experience & Design, you must be wondering about the basic salary structure and allowances that people get in these positions.

Talking about India, the UX design salary in India varies a lot depending on factors like- geographical location, company you are working in, years of experience you have, skills you know, and much more. However, after thorough research on recent Glassdoor surveys, our experts have gathered the average annual salary of different UX design roles listed above. Let us explore the salary of each one of them with the help of the table given below:

UX Design Salary In India
User Experience & Design Roles	Avg Annual Salary In INR
UX Intern	2 Lakh Per Annum
Junior UX Designer	6 Lakh Per Annum
UX Designer	8 Lakh Per Annum
Senior UX Designer	15 Lakh Per Annum
UX Manager	23 Lakh Per Annum
UX Director	35 Lakh Per Annum

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User Experience & Design FAQs

What tools do UX Designers use?

Common tools used by UX designers include Sketch, Adobe XD, Figma, InVision, Axure RP, and Balsamiq. These tools help in wireframing, prototyping, and designing user interfaces.

How do UX Designers conduct user research?

UX designers use various methods for user research, including interviews, surveys, usability testing, A/B testing, and analytics review. The goal is to understand user behaviors, needs.

How do you measure the success of a UX Design?

The success of a UX design can be measured through user feedback, usability testing results, user engagement metrics, conversion rates, and satisfaction surveys.