Visual Elements of User Interface Design - Learning Week 1 What IS a user interface anyway?

What IS a user interface?

Key components are the user and the interface. User is the viewer interacting with the content and the interface is the way that the user gets to that content. Interface is a bridge between the user and the content. It has a level of flexibility to shape the experience of the user with content.

Therefore, interface is a medium shapes the experience and design interface is design experience.

Relationship between UI and UX

UI cares about 

- how it looks as visual design and how we access digital content -> rooted in graphic design

- aesthetics

- look & feel

- organization

- design-driven

- tangible and physical

UX cares about 

- how it feels as non-visual design and what the experience of it is -> on the experience of the user 

- feel

- navigation

- story

- structure

- user-driven

- proportional

USER - designer - designer

SEES - experiences - shapes

FORM - interface - content and

FIRST - before content - form

The visual look of the site will be the first thing a user sees, before they jump into the content of the site.

A designer will be given raw material (text, images, and other material) to style into a form. The most successful websites are “content-specific”, meaning the form is derived from the content, organized and presented in a way that makes sense for the user.