Clara Kliman-Silver: AI & design: imagining the future of UX

UI and UX are two terms that are often used interchangeably and confused for one another, but what do they actually mean? And is there a crossover between them?

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These two terms have only grown in use in recent years, thanks largely to the exploding technology sector. This is great news. For organizations, effectively harnessing UX and UI enables them to build products and services that people will actually want to use – and continue using. For users, they’ll have access to products designed for them. 

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What is UX? 🤳🎯

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User experience (UX as it’s commonly called) refers to the experience that a person has with a product or service. 

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We can determine whether a user experience is good or bad based on how easy (or difficult) it is for users to interact with the various elements of a product or service. Is the sign-up flow easy to use? Does the CTA button on the homepage encourage users to click? UX design exists to answer questions like these – and here’s how.

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At the core of UX design is user research, which you can use to understand customer pain points and actually build products designed for the people using them. Typically, user research involves the use of a number of different research methods designed to answer specific questions. Card sorting, for example, can show you how people think the information on your website should be arranged.

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Designer and information architect Peter Morville came up with the user experience honeycomb, which demonstrates the various components of UX design.

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Don Norman of Nielsen Norman Group defines UX as “[encompassing] all aspects of the end-users interaction with the company, its services, and its products”.

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If this seems broad, that’s because it is. UX actually extends beyond just the digital products of an organization and can be used for areas like retail, customer service and more. In fact, there’s actually a growing movement to replace UX with customer experience (CX), as a way of encompassing all of these disparate elements.

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What is UI? 🪄📲

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User interface (UI), in the most stripped-back definition, is the interface by which a user and a computer system communicate with one another. This includes the touchscreen on your smartphone, the screen on your laptop, your mouse and keyboard and countless other mechanisms.

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With this in mind, user interface design is focused on the elements that users will see on these interfaces, such as buttons, text and images. UI design is all about layout, look and feel. The objective of UI design is to visually guide users through an interface so they can complete their task. In a nutshell, you don’t want a user to think too hard about what they’re doing.

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UI has its origins in the 1980s, when Xerox developed the very first graphical user interface (GUI). Instead of needing to interact with a computer through a programming language, people could now use icons, menus and buttons. The rest, as they say, is history. Apple came along with the Macintosh computer in 1984 (bringing with it the first point and click mouse), and now we’re all carrying smartphones with touch screens that even a baby can operate.

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Like UX, UI has grown significantly – going far beyond what you’ll see on a computer screen. Those involved in the field of UI design today will work as much on the interfaces of computer programs and apps as they will on the user interfaces of cars, wearable devices and technologies in the home. If current trends continue, UI design is likely to become an even bigger field in the years ahead.

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What’s the difference between UX and UI? 👀

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UX and UI are both essential components of a product or service. You can’t have one without the other, and, as we’ve explored, neglecting one could have serious consequences for your product’s success.

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The difference between UX and UI is that UX is focused on the experience of using something and UI is focused on the look and feel of the interface. 

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“User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) are some of the most confused and misused terms in our field. A UI without UX is like a painter slapping paint onto a canvas without thought; while UX without UI is like the frame of a sculpture with no paper mache on it. A great product experience starts with UX followed by UI. Both are essential for the product’s success”. - Rahul Varshney, co-creator of Foster.fm

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The difference between UX and UI is that UX is focused on the experience of using something and UI is focused on the look and feel of the interface. 

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Or, if you’d prefer a statement from venerable Nielsen Norman Group: “It’s important to distinguish the total user experience from the UI, even though the UI is obviously an extremely important part of the design. As an example, consider a website with movie reviews. Even if the UI for finding a film is perfect, the UX will be poor for a user who wants information about a small independent release if the underlying database only contains movies from the major studios”.

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With this in mind, let’s now take a look at the people behind UX and UI. What do the roles look like in these fields? And, more importantly, what do they involve?

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UX and UI jobs guide 📱🧑🏻💻

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• Visual designer: This role works with other design roles in the organization (brand, marketing, etc) to ensure designs match brand guidelines. Visual designers also work with UX designers to verify that designs meet accessibility and usability requirements.
• UX strategist: At the core, a UX strategist should act as a champion of good UX. That is to say, work to ensure the principles of usability and human-centered design are well understood and utilized. They should also assume some of the responsibility of product-market fit, and work with product managers and the ‘business’ side of the organization to mesh business requirements with user requirements.
• UX designer: The most common UX profession, UX designers should have a strong understanding of the principles of UX design as well as some research ability. Essentially a jack of all trades, the UX designer will float between all stages of the UX lifecycle, helping out with usability tests, putting together prototypes and working with other areas of the organization.
• Service designer: The service designer looks at the entire end-to-end process and works with other designers, pulling them when required to liaise on visual designs and UI work. In a smaller organization, the responsibilities of this role will typically be absorbed by other roles, but eventually, there comes a time for the service designer. 

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Wrap up 🎬

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UX and UI as terms are only going to continue to grow, especially as technology and technology companies continue to proliferate across the globe. If you want to make sure that the user experience and user interfaces of your product or service are fit for the people using them, there’s no better place to start than with user research using powerful tools.

It’s a chicken and egg situation when it comes to securing funding for a large transformation program in government. On one hand, you need to submit a business case and, as part of that, you need to make early decisions about how you might approach and deliver the program of work. On the other hand, you need to know enough about the problem you are going to solve to ensure you have sufficient funding to understand the problem better, hire the right people, design the right service, and build it the right way. 

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Now imagine securing hundreds of millions of dollars to design and build a service, but not feeling confident about what the user needs are. What if you had the opportunity to change this common predicament and influence your leadership team to carry out alignment activities, all while successfully delivering within the committed time frames?

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Meera Pankhania, Design Director and Co-founder of Propel Design, recently spoke at UX New Zealand, the leading UX and IA conference in New Zealand hosted by Optimal Workshop, on traceability and her learnings from delivering a $300 million Government program.

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In her talk, Meera helps us understand how to use service traceability techniques in our work and apply them to any environment - ensuring we design and build the best service possible, no matter the funding model.

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Background on Meera Pankhania

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As a design leader, Meera is all about working on complex, purpose-driven challenges. She helps organizations take a human-centric approach to service transformation and helps deliver impactful, pragmatic outcomes while building capability and leading teams through growth and change.

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Meera co-founded Propel Design, a strategic research, design, and delivery consultancy in late 2020. She has 15 years of experience in service design, inclusive design, and product management across the private, non-profit, and public sectors in both the UK and Australia. 

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Meera is particularly interested in policy and social design. After a stint in the Australian Public Service, Meera was appointed as a senior policy adviser to the NSW Minister for Customer Service, Hon. Victor Dominello MP. In this role, she played a part in NSW’s response to the COVID pandemic, flexing her design leadership skills in a new, challenging, and important context.

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Contact Details:

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Email address: meera@propeldesign.com.au

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Find Meera on LinkedIn  

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From funding to delivery: ensuring alignment from start to finish 🏁🎉👏

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Meera’s talk explores a fascinating case study within the Department of Employment Services (Australia) where a substantial funding investment of around $300 million set the stage for a transformative journey. This funding supported the delivery of a revamped Employment Services Model, which had the goal of delivering better services to job seekers and employers, and a better system for providers within this system. The project had a focus on aligning teams prior to delivery, which resulted in a huge amount of groundwork for Meera.

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Her journey involved engaging various stakeholders within the department, including executives, to understand the program as a whole and what exactly needed to be delivered. “Traceability” became the watchword for this project, which is laid out in three phases.

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• Phase 1: Aligning key deliverables
• Phase 2: Ensuring delivery readiness
• Phase 3: Building sustainable work practices

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Phase 1: Aligning key deliverables 🧮

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Research and discovery (pre-delivery)

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Meera’s work initially meant conducting extensive research and engagement with executives, product managers, researchers, designers, and policymakers. Through this process, a common theme was identified – the urgent (and perhaps misguided) need to start delivering! Often, organizations focus on obtaining funding without adequately understanding the complexities involved in delivering the right services to the right users, leading to half-baked delivery.

After this initial research, some general themes started to emerge:

1. Assumptions were made that still needed validation
2. Teams weren’t entirely sure that they understood the user’s needs
3. A lack of holistic understanding of how much research and design was needed

The conclusion of this phase was that “what” needed to be delivered wasn’t clearly defined. The same was true for “how” it would be delivered.

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Traceability

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Meera’s journey heavily revolved around the concept of "traceability” and sought to ensure that every step taken within the department was aligned with the ultimate goal of improving employment services. Traceability meant having a clear origin and development path for every decision and action taken. This is particularly important when spending taxpayer dollars!

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So, over the course of eight weeks (which turned out to be much longer), the team went through a process of combing through documents in an effort to bring everything together to make sense of the program as a whole. This involved some planning, user journey mapping, and testing and refinement. 

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Documenting Key Artifacts

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Numerous artifacts and documents played a crucial role in shaping decisions. Meera and her team gathered and organized these artifacts, including policy requirements, legislation, business cases, product and program roadmaps, service maps, and blueprints. The team also included prior research insights and vision documents which helped to shape a holistic view of the required output.

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After an effort of combing through the program documents and laying everything out, it became clear that there were a lot of gaps and a LOT to do.

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Prioritising tasks

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As a result of these gaps, a process of task prioritization was necessary. Tasks were categorized based on a series of factors and then mapped out based on things like user touch points, pain points, features, business policy, and technical capabilities.

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This then enabled Meera and the team to create Product Summary Tiles. These tiles meant that each product team had its own summary ahead of a series of planning sessions. It gave them as much context (provided by the traceability exercise) as possible to help with planning. Essentially, these tiles provided teams with a comprehensive overview of their projects i.e. what their user needs, what certain policies require them to deliver, etc.  

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Phase 2: Ensuring delivery readiness 🙌🏻

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Meera wanted every team to feel confident that we weren’t doing too much or too little in order to design and build the right service, the right way.

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Standard design and research check-ins were well adopted, which was a great start, but Meera and the team also built a Delivery Readiness Tool. It was used to assess a team's readiness to move forward with a project. This tool includes questions related to the development phase, user research, alignment with the business case, consideration of policy requirements, and more. Ultimately, it ensures that teams have considered all necessary factors before progressing further. 

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Phase 3: Building sustainable work practices 🍃

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As the program progressed, several sustainable work practices emerged which Government executives were keen to retain going forward.

Some of these included:

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• ResearchOps Practice: The team established a research operations practice, streamlining research efforts and ensuring that ongoing research was conducted efficiently and effectively.
• Consistent Design Artifacts: Templates and consistent design artifacts were created, reducing friction and ensuring that teams going forward started from a common baseline.
• Design Authority and Ways of Working: A design authority was established to elevate and share best practices across the program.
• Centralized and Decentralized Team Models: The program showcased the effectiveness of a combination of centralized and decentralized team models. A central design team provided guidance and support, while service design leads within specific service lines ensured alignment and consistency.

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Why it matters 🔥

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Meera's journey serves as a valuable resource for those working on complex design programs, emphasizing the significance of aligning diverse stakeholders and maintaining traceability. Alignment and traceability are critical to ensuring that programs never lose sight of the problem they’re trying to solve, both from the user and organization’s perspective. They’re also critical to delivering on time and within budget!

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Traceability key takeaways 🥡

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• Early Alignment Matters: While early alignment is ideal, it's never too late to embark on a traceability journey. It can uncover gaps, increase confidence in decision-making, and ensure that the right services are delivered.
• Identify and audit: You never know what artifacts will shape your journey. Identify everything early, and don’t be afraid to get clarity on things you’re not sure about.
• Conducting traceability is always worthwhile: Even if you don’t find many gaps in your program, you will at least gain a high level of confidence that your delivery is focused on the right things.

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Delivery readiness key takeaways 🥡

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• Skills Mix is Vital: Assess and adapt team member roles to match their skills and experiences, ensuring they are positioned optimally.
• Not Everyone Shares the Same Passion: Recognize that not everyone will share the same level of passion for design and research. Make the relevance of these practices clear to all team members.

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Sustainability key takeaways 🥡

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• One Size Doesn't Fit All: Tailor methodologies, templates, and practices to the specific needs of your organization.
• Collaboration is Key: Foster a sense of community and collective responsibility within teams, encouraging shared ownership of project outcomes.

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The user research landscape has evolved significantly in recent years, but not all platforms have adapted at the same pace. UserTesting for example, despite being one of the largest players in the market, still operates on legacy infrastructure with outdated pricing models that no longer meet the evolving needs of mature UX, design and product teams. More and more we see enterprises choosing platforms like Optimal, because we represent the next generation of user research and insight platforms: ones that are purpose-built for modern teams that are prioritizing agility, insight quality, and value.

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What are the biggest differences between Optimal and UserTesting?

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Cost

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Optimal has Transparent Pricing: Optimal offers flat-rate pricing without per-seat fees or session units, enabling teams to scale research sustainably. Our transparent pricing eliminates budget surprises and enables predictable research ops planning.

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UserTesting is Expensive: In contrast, UserTesting has very high per user fees annually plus additional session-based fees, creating unpredictable costs that escalate the more research your team does. This means that teams often face budget surprises when conducting longer studies or more frequent research.

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Return on Investment

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The Best Value in the Market: Optimal's straightforward pricing and comprehensive feature set deliver measurable ROI. We offer 90% of the features that UserTesting provides at 10% of the price.

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Justifying the Cost of UserTesting: UserTesting's high costs and complex pricing structure make it hard to prove the ROI, particularly for teams conducting frequent research or extended studies that trigger additional session fees.

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Technology Evolution

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Optimal is Purpose-Built for Modern Research: Optimal has invested heavily over the last few years in features for contemporary research needs, including AI-powered analysis and automation capabilities. Our new Interviews tool exemplifies this innovation, transforming hours of manual video analysis into automated, AI-powered insights that surface key themes, generate highlight reels, and produce timestamped transcripts in a fraction of the time.

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UserTesting is Struggling to Modernize: UserTesting's platform shows signs of aging infrastructure, with slower performance and difficulty integrating modern research methodologies. Their technology advancement has lagged behind industry innovation.

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Platform Integration

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Built by Researchers for Researchers: Optimal has built from the ground up a single, cohesive platform without the complexity of merged acquisitions, ensuring consistent user experience and seamless workflow integration.

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UserZoom Integration Challenges: UserTesting's acquisition of UserZoom has created platform challenges that continue to impact user experience. UserTesting customers report confusion navigating between legacy systems and inconsistent feature availability and quality.

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Participant Panel Quality

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Flexibility = Quality: Optimal prioritizes flexibility for our users, allowing our customers to bring their own participants for free or use our high-quality panels, with over 100+ million verified participants across 150+ countries who meet strict quality standards.

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Poor Quality, In-House Panel: UserTesting's massive scale has led to participant quality issues, with researchers reporting difficulty finding high-quality participants for specialized research needs and inconsistent participant engagement.

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Customer Support Experience

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Agile, Personal Support: At Optimal we pride ourselves on our fast, human support with dedicated account management and direct access to product teams, ensuring fast and personalized support.

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Impersonal, Enterprise Support: In contrast, users report that UserTesting's large organizational structure creates slower support cycles, outsourced customer service, and reduced responsiveness to individual customer needs.

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The Future of User Research Platforms

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The future of user research platforms is here, and smart teams are re-evaluating their platform needs to reflect that future state. What was once a fragmented landscape of basic testing tools and legacy systems has evolved into one where comprehensive user insight platforms are now the preferred solution. Today's UX, product and design teams need platforms that have evolved to include:

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• Advanced Analytics: AI-powered analysis that transforms data into actionable insights
• Flexible Recruitment: Options for both BYO, panel and custom participant recruitment
• Transparent Pricing: Predictable costs that scale with your needs
• Responsive Development: Platforms that evolve based on user feedback and industry trends

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Platforms Need to Evolve for Modern Research Needs

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When selecting a vendor, teams need to choose a platform with the functionality that their teams need now but also one that will also grow with the needs of your team in the future. Scalable, adaptable platforms enable research teams to:

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• Scale Efficiently: Grow research activities without exponential cost increaeses
• Embrace Innovation: Integrate new research methodologies and analysis techniques as well as emerging tools like AI 
• Maintain Standards: Ensure consistent participant, data and tool quality as the platform evolves
• Stay Responsive: Adapt to changing business needs and market conditions

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The key is choosing a platform that continues to evolve rather than one constrained by outdated infrastructure and complex, legacy pricing models.

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Ready to see how leading brands including Lego, Netflix and Nike achieve better research outcomes? Experience how Optimal's platform delivers user insights that adapt to your team's growing needs.

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