<p class="x_MsoNormal">User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) development aren't just for B2C sites and e-commerce platforms. It's becoming more and more important for B2B service providers and municipal resources to offer high-quality experiences and platforms that are easy to use. But before you begin optimizing the design of your platform, you may be wondering - what is UI/UX design? This article explores the differences between them and what unique benefits you should garner from each focus.</p>

<h2>What is UX?</h2>
UX — or <a href="https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/ux-design" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="1">user experience</a> — design is deliberately designing how users engage with your platform from start to finish. Think of this like you're designing a house. What's the layout? How many rooms will the owner (your online target market) need? What's the best way to make sure tenants and short-term visitors can navigate through the property without getting lost or frustrated? UX designers apply this strategic type of thinking to design a platform. They create the layout that will guide how visitors interact with the site and get things done.
<h3>The benefits of exceptional UX</h3>
When you devote time to UX, you get:
<ul>
 	<li>A lower bounce rate because the site is intuitive and helps visitors get to the information they need.</li>
 	<li>High conversion rates from visitors to customers because everything is deliberately designed to lead users toward the desired action.</li>
 	<li>Better insight into visitor behavior: If you intentionally design pathways on your platform, you can study and begin to understand why visitors stay on or jump off those pathways.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What is UI?</h2>
UI — or User Interface — is like the interior design of your house. The colors, the textures, and the small details of the platform give your organization a recognizable style that visitors find comfortable, exciting, fresh, or - if it's not well-done - busy or ugly. Focusing on UI determines whether your platform is immediately visually appealing or not.
<h3>The benefits of good UI</h3>
Compared to focusing on UX, UI can feel almost superfluous. But your platform's color choices, fonts, and images do more than make your platform pretty. Subtle changes in font size and color can make your platform more accessible to all users. Changes in how you phrase calls to action or even the colors of CTA buttons can drastically affect the rate at which users click those buttons. By assessing and improving your UI, you can encourage visitors to move further along the pathways you created during your UX design focus.
<h2>Why you need to think differently about UI/UX design</h2>
UX and UI <a href="https://uxdesign.cc/whats-the-difference-between-ux-and-ui-design-7ad6f732935c" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="2">are often grouped together</a>; many services even describe themselves as "UX/UI developers" without distinguishing between the two. After all, "what is UI/UX design?" is a common question. But it's crucial to understand what actions and improvements belong to each category because:
<ul>
 	<li><strong>UX and UI professionals have different skill sets.</strong> If you don't know whether your platform has a UX or a UI problem, you can't hire the right service.</li>
 	<li><strong>You don't want to focus on one at the cost of the other.</strong> Many website administrators or marketers can easily understand UI changes and improvements. That means they're more likely to focus on UI instead of UX, which leads to them ignoring fundamental flaws in web design.</li>
 	<li><strong>You can better understand problems with your platforms.</strong> Some user behaviors, such as confusion or abandoned carts, are often caused by poor UX. Other behaviors, such as reaching a landing page but not following through, are due to UI. Knowing the difference means you can solve the problem by choosing between UI/UX design solutions.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What is UI/UX design as a package, and how can Webhead help?</h2>
Businesses can occasionally make do with either good UI or UX, but <a href="https://medium.com/@thinkwik/do-you-know-the-importance-of-ui-ux-development-773eae38436e" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="3">they can't excel without both</a>. At Webhead, we can assess your site and improve its UI/UX design for superior performance and more engagement. We specialize in serving B2B organizations and government agencies. If you need an expert with UI/UX design skills, contact us at (210) 354-1662 or <a href="mailto:inquiries@webheadtech.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="4">inquiries@webheadtech.com</a>.