There are so many terms that are often thrown around in UX Design and used interchangeably. While they might not be totally wrong, this reduces the effectiveness and specific efforts used in the field. The case study for you is the popular trio—Digital, UX, and Product Design.
Let’s put these terms into context and learn how to use them more appropriately in daily business interactions with users, stakeholders and even designers.
What is Digital Design
This umbrella term is for any visuals you see on digital screens or platforms. It is a mix of art and science to ensure that creativity and innovation meet. It is a part of visual communication and is designed for digital interfaces.
It consists of various disciplines, such as:
- UI/UX Design
- Graphic Design
- Animations
- Web Design
Technology has made the role of digital designers across almost all industries, such as films, Tech, Logistics, Finance, Health, Business, etc. The core principle of digital design is communication with interactivity, aesthetics and functionality.
What is Product Design
Product design is an age-old form of design. It involves creating any product that people can use and see, whether physical or digital. A product can be a good, service, or experience if it is functional, usable, and meets users’ needs.
It was known as industrial design, but technology has made it a subset of product design. Industrial design focuses solely on physical products, but product design encompasses more than that.
It takes a similar process to UX design— Ideation, User Research, Design, Prototyping, and Iteration.
What is UX Design
UX, or User Experience, is the feelings or familiarity you get from using a digital product, whether an app, website, or anything else with an interface. For designers, It’s the science of understanding user needs, behaviours, and motivations and then designing solutions that cater to those needs.
UX designers focus on the entire user journey, from initial interaction to final satisfaction. They do this by:
- Identifying the problem
- Conducting user research
- Creating User Personas
- Tracing User Journeys
- Ideating for Solutions
- Designing the wireframes
- Collaborating with UI designer to develop Prototypes
The work of a UX Designer may cover part of this or even extend beyond this; it depends on the structure of the organisation and business. Small businesses have UX designers who typically perform all the roles outlined, but big organizations usually have specialists for UX Research, UI Design, Interaction Designers, etc.
Why Do You Need to Know The Differences?
Whether you are a designer, stakeholder, or key player in a product development process, it is important to understand the differences between the various concepts of design.
Designers
- Understanding your clear role in an organization can improve productivity. It is easier to know when to contribute and how to take charge of your work when you are not interfered with.
- Collaboration is much easier; you’d know who to meet when a UX issue occurs, or one card is wonky in a design.
- Knowing where you stand gives a whiff of stability while working on a project. It keeps you focused on a goal but leaves room to hop on other aspects of the project if needed.
- It is also better for fast career advancement if you are a specialist. Knowing these three specializations will help you take a more holistic approach to building your career if you choose to generalise.
Clients and Stakeholders.
- It is understandable to have expectations from a project, but misplacing the roles and responsibilities of the people working with you will help you create a more defined expectation. Knowing the difference between the roles will avoid stories touching the heart.
- Your knowledge of the roles will help you supervise the project better. There will be a reduced tendency for conflicts; when one arises, you can easily step in to dissolve the conflict without looking lost.
- It helps you articulate your needs accurately to the designated person, reducing a long chain of communication that might frustrate you. You know, it’s the UX design you need to meet when there is a problem with the user’s journey.
Difference between UX vs. Digital Design vs. Product Design
Here, we have discussed the difference between UX, Digital Design, and Product Design based on a few factors. Let’s understand them.
Tools
Tools used in UX Design
- Figma is a cloud-based tool that supports real-time collaboration among designers, members, and stakeholders. It is usually used for prototyping and vector editing.
- Sketch is a vector-based design tool used for basic UI and UX design.
- Balsamiq is a tool that focuses on wireframes and automates the layout process.
Other tools and software that UX designers swear by are Framer, Proto.io, Origami Studio, and FlowMapp.
Tools used in Digital Design
The Adobe Creative Cloud is helpful in more than one way when it comes to digital design. It provides a full suite of applications for different design practices, such as:
- Photoshop is used for creating and manipulating raster graphics
- Illustrator for vector images
- After Effects and Premiere Pro for videos
Web design tools include Wix, HubSpot, Squarespace, Shopify, WordPress, Webflow, Adobe Dreamweaver, Canva, and InVision Studio.
Tools used in Product Design
A tool like Hotjar is better suited for product design. It offers visual behaviour insights, real-time user analysis, and individual interviews—all in one source.
Scope
- A UX designer ensures the user-friendliness of a digital experience by conducting user research, creating user personas, empathy maps, and journey maps, and designing information architecture, interaction design, visual design, and user interface design.
- In digital design, graphics, animations, and other visual elements are considered part of the scope of work.
- Product designers look at the product from a business perspective. They conduct market research, define and manage product roadmaps, and identify ways in which the product can increase market share and revenue.
Key Elements
UX design
- Usability: How easily a user can interact with the design, including efficiency, learnability, and error prevention.
- Accessibility: Designing for equal access and usability for people with disabilities.
- Consistency: Using familiar design patterns and elements throughout the design to reduce confusion.
- Visual hierarchy: Creating meaningful relationships between elements on a page to direct the user’s eye and make it easy to skim through information.
- Information architecture: Structuring and labelling content effectively, considering information location and process flow.
Digital design
- Colour is a powerful tool for conveying messages, evoking emotions, and creating visual impact. Designers use colour to establish a mood, convey brand identity, and guide the viewer’s perception.
- Space: The proper use of space can help convey a clearer message. For instance, elements that are closer together can be perceived as more related, while those with more space in between can be seen as less connected.
- Texture: It adds a sense of touch to visuals, making elements stand out or blend in. Textures can range from smooth and sleek to rough and tactile.
Other elements include Line, Typography, Contrast, and Balance.
Product design
- User experience (UX): Designing a product that is intuitive and easy to use for the target audience.
- User interface (UI): Focusing on the visual elements users interact with, creating an aesthetically pleasing but also intuitive and responsive interface.
- Visual communication design: The visual aspect of the product that helps the brand to communicate with the users.
- Innovation: Ensuring that your product design is creative and unique within its category.
Salary
- A UX designer typically earns ₹9,37,500 annually, with an average salary of ₹8,37,500 annually.
- A Digital designer typically earns ₹8,50,000 annually, with an average salary of ₹7,50,000 annually.
- A Product designer typically earns ₹12,00,000 annually, with an average salary of ₹11,00,000 annually.
Deliverables
- A UX designer’s deliverables include personas, user flow, interactive prototypes, wireframes, customer journey maps, storyboards, sitemaps, and more.
- A digital designer’s deliverables include graphics, animations, other visual effects, photography, interactive elements, banner ads, and logos.
- A product designer’s deliverables include a usability report, information architecture, personas, journey maps, competitive analysis, and storyboards.
| UX Design | Digital Design | Product Design | |
| Tools | The popular tools for UX Design are Figma and Adobe XD. | Since digital design encompasses everything, they make do with any design tool, e.g., Adobe products. | Hotjar |
| Scope of Work | They strictly focus on the user experience of a digital product. This includes the usability and usefulness of the app, website or digital experience. | It entails creating visual communication for marketing, user experience, aesthetics, etc. | It focuses on identifying design strategies to achieve business goals and increasing market share and revenue. |
| Key Elements | Usability
User Centricity Accessibility Technology feasibility |
Colour, Space, Texture, Shape, Line, Typography, Contrast, Balance | User experience (UX), Functionality, Market |
| Salary | ₹9,37,500 annually | ₹8,50,000 annually | ₹12,00,000 annually |
| Deliverables | Personas, User flow, Prototypes, Wireframes | Graphics, Animations, illustrations etc | Usability report, Information architecture, Journey maps |
Similarities between UX vs. Digital Design vs. Product Design
It is common knowledge that UX, digital, and product design are all visual communications, so they share similar principles and guidelines for design. These are the overarching similarities that key players need to understand to progress their projects.
Similar goals
They all have similar goals regarding user problems, user satisfaction, and business goals. Every digital design aims to satisfy users through aesthetics, functionality, simplifying their tasks, or simply providing information.
There is an incentive to users, which is expected to tell them to give something like increased user engagement, customer loyalty, and revenue in return to the designer/brand. This will, in turn, bring profit to the company. So it is like a cycle from digital designers to user needs, from user action to business, and then back to the designers.
Iterative Process
Digital design has an iterative loop due to users’ evolving needs. This simply means there is always room for continuous improvement, even after launching to market or delivering to clients.
The typical iterative process is
- Research
- Ideation
- Prototyping
- Testing
- Iteration
While they might have different scopes in each specialization, they have their roots in these five processes.
Collaboration
All designers or design processes have an iota of collaboration. In a standard organization, designers often work with marketers, engineers, developers, and clients to ensure the following.
- The technical feasibility of the design
- To ensure it is appropriate for the target audience
- To ensure it brings in the desired business outcome
- To turn the designers into code
- To understand and assess the needs of the clients.
Specialized or Generalized Design?
Selecting a generalist or a specialist is a personal decision that should be influenced by individual strengths, weaknesses, and career goals. Specializing allows you to narrow down and become an expert faster in a field.
Generalizing makes you more versatile and fits into any project. However, becoming proficient and expert in any field takes more time.
For stakeholders/clients, consider a specialist if your project heavily relies on that aspect of design for the major business outcome, but a generalist would be ideal for a project that needs all hands on deck for completion.
Recruiting talent—- specialists or generalists can be tardy and stressful. YellowSlice has designers who can help you bring your dream project to life. Let’s discuss how we can get into action to kickstart your project.
FAQs
1. What is the difference between UX Design and Digital Design?
UX (User Experience) design centres upon users’ satisfaction with a product or service so that it meets their expectations and is navigable, intuitive, and interesting to use. UX designers are responsible for the entire user journey.
However, digital design, on the other hand, is only responsible for the design part created for digital platforms such as websites, apps, digital ads, social media graphics and animations. Its focus is visual aesthetics.
2. How does Product Design differ from UX and Digital Design?
Product design has a broader scope of work than UX and digital design, as it encompasses both aspects and covers even more. Its main focus is on designing a product from concept to completion. Even after completion, a product designer ensures that the product meets user needs and has technically and financially feasible features.
UX design focuses on users without determining whether the product is technologically viable and monetarily rewarding. Digital design focuses on the visual elements of the design.
