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UX Design vs. Graphic Blueprint: Choosing the Right Career Path

Written by Coursera • Updated on Nov 23, 2021

What'south the difference between a UX designer and a graphic designer? Learn what sets these roles apart and how you can transition between them.

User experience blueprint (UX design) and graphic design—these two design-centric job titles may sound similar, but they really perform distinct tasks using different skill sets within the product development process. While graphic designers focus on visual elements, UX designers focus on the complete interaction betwixt a user and a product.

In this article, we'll become over the deviation between UX designers and graphic designers, clarify some other blueprint roles, and talk over how you can make the transition from graphic blueprint to UX.

Read more: What Does a UX Designer Practise?

A quick guide to design roles

Browse some chore boards, and you'll likely see several different roles that include the word "designer." To confuse matters further, some hiring managers utilize some of these terms interchangeably. Only each typically has a specific role to play in the product development process. Let'south have a quick look at 4 common pattern roles.

• Graphic designer: Graphic designers use color, shapes, images, and fonts to create visual content for both print and digital media. These designs frequently serve as static, non-interactive layouts—logos, product packaging, advertisements, signage, brochures, or displays—used to communicate with customers.

• Visual designer: Visual designers typically focus on designing a product or brand identity that spans multiple platforms and customer touchpoints.

• UI designer: Where graphic designers create static visual content, user interface (UI) designers create interactive visual content. This includes the graphical elements of apps, websites, and electronic devices that users interact with.

• UX designer: UX designers focus on the entire interaction between a user and a product, including how that experience fabricated them experience. This type of design goes across the visual to include information architecture and product prototyping.

UX designer vs graphic designer: What's the departure?

1 of the biggest differences betwixt graphic design and UX design is the telescopic. Graphic designers focus on visual elements. UX designers take a broader perspective by focusing on the entire interaction betwixt a user and a product. Graphic blueprint is often just 1 part of the bigger user feel.

There are other differences too. Let's take a look at a few of them.

Graphic designer	UX designer
Designs visual elements	Designs interactions
Brand-axial	User-centric
Specialized role	Multidisciplinary function
Skills include creativity, typography, color theory, calculator-aided design	Skills include empathy, user research, wireframing, prototyping, information architecture
Popular tools include Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Procreate, Pixlr	Popular tools include Balsamiq, Adobe XD, Figma, Sketch
May have a bachelor's degree in graphic blueprint	May have a available's degree in human-computer interaction, estimator science, psychology, or blueprint
$48,541 boilerplate salary (US) [1]	$77,200 average salary (US) [2]

Type and focus of design

Graphic designers blueprint visual elements. UX designers design interactions. The former might involve a specialized set of design-related skills, like color theory, typography, and computer-aided design. The latter involves a multidisciplinary set of skills that includes not only blueprint, merely user research, information architecture, wireframing, and prototyping.

Graphic designers use visual elements to communicate a make bulletin. Therefore, their focus will often be on staying truthful to a brand identity. UX designers advocate for the user, making sure a product meets user needs in a style that is accessible, intuitive, and enjoyable.

Tasks and responsibilities

With such dissimilar focuses, UX and graphic designers often spend their time on different elements of the product development procedure.

Twenty-four hour period-to-day tasks for a graphic designer might include:

• Collaborating with clients and art directors

• Creating logos, images, and illustrations

• Choosing colors, images, and fonts for layouts

• Using digital illustration tools and photo editing software

Day-to-day tasks for a UX designer might include:

• Identifying user needs, goals, behaviors, and pain points through user research

• Creating user personas and user journey maps

• Designing site maps, wireframes, and prototypes

• Validating designs through user testing and iterating with new features or fixes

• Collaborating with product designers, developers, UI designers, and stakeholders

Tools and software

The tools and software UX and graphic designers utilise to complete their tasks also differ.

Graphic designers might use pen and paper, a tablet and stylus, or a calculator at different stages of the design process. While item software choices differ from designer to designer and visitor to company, many volition use illustration apps, photo editing software, graphic vector editor, and layout editing software.

A UX designer might use a variety of tools for dissimilar tasks. At that place are tools specifically for low and loftier-fidelity prototyping, flowcharting, edifice questionnaires and surveys, wireframing, and usability testing.

Graphic and UX designer bacon

How much you earn equally a graphic or UX designer volition depend on a number of factors, including your location, education, amount of experience, and industry. But in general, UX designers tend to draw a bigger salary than graphic designers. Here's a look at how 3 different sources report average or median salaries in the Usa.

	United states of america Agency of Labor Statistics	Glassdoor (U.s.a.)	PayScale (United states of america)
Graphic designer bacon	$53,380 median bacon (2020)	$48,537 average bacon (2021)	$46,162 boilerplate bacon (2021)
UX designer salary	$77,200 median bacon (2020)	$102,056 average salary (2021)	$74,522 average salary (2021)

Educational requirements

UX designers and graphic designers might come from dissimilar educational backgrounds equally well. Graphic design jobs often require a available'due south degree in graphic design or a related field.

Since UX is a relatively new field, you won't observe as many established degree programs in UX specifically. Instead, UX designers might get their degree in information science, human-figurer interaction, psychology, or design.

As the field of UX continues to grow and evolve, some universities are taking notice and offering new programs in user feel. These might take various titles, like:

• Interaction design

• Digital technologies

• Communication design

• Product design

• Multimedia pattern

Which type of design is right for me?

If you take a passion for creativity and technology, a design career could exist a good fit. Which blazon of design will depend on your unique skills and interests. If you're visually-oriented and could spend hours manipulating color palettes and fonts to make a graphic look just correct, graphic design work might exist for you. If you're interested in human psychology and love investigating a trouble through enquiry and data, then consider a move to UX.

From graphic designer to UX designer: Making the transition

If you lot accept some feel in graphic design, there are some compelling reasons to consider shifting into UX. Demand for graphic designers is projected to decline by iv percent over the next decade [3], co-ordinate to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The demand for UX designers is slated to grow past 8 percent—that'southward much faster than average [four]. UX designers also depict a larger salary on average.

So how do you make the transition? Luckily, many of the visual design skills you've developed in the world of graphic design will transfer into user experience. Practiced aesthetics have an impact on UX. An Open up University report in 2005 constitute that we perceive visually pleasing things as more than usable, even when at that place is no correlation between attractiveness and operation [v].

That means y'all tin focus on building out your skills in some other areas of UX pattern, including:

• User research: A big function of the UX designer'due south job is understanding what users need and how a production can best meet those needs. This requires user research.

• Information compages: In UX, office frequently trumps class. It'southward great if something looks good, just that ways little if information technology doesn't work. Learning all-time practices for information architecture can empower yous to structure content on websites and apps that is intuitive to the user and makes every click count.

• Testing and iteration: In graphic design, one time something looks right, your job is likely washed. UX involves a more iterative procedure, where yous pattern something, build information technology, test information technology with existent users, so return to the pattern process to revise.

Michael, a UX designer at Google, explains how he maid the transition from a career in animation into user experience.

Get started in UX

If y'all're gear up to make the shift to a career in UX, enroll for free in the Google UX Design Professional person Certificate on Coursera. This program helps you build job-ready skills in less than six months—no experience or caste required. You lot'll walk through the design process with UX professionals from Google and complete three end-to-cease projects for your portfolio—a website, a mobile app, and a cross-platform experience. Get started with a seven-solar day free trial.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Related articles

• What Does a UX Designer Practise? [Updated 2021]

• What Does a Graphic Designer Do? (and How Practise I Become 1?)

• What Is a User Interface (UI) Designer? Your Guide [2021]

Commodity sources

ane. Glassdoor. "Graphic Designer Salaries, https://world wide web.glassdoor.com/Salaries/graphic-designer-salary-SRCH_KO0,16.htm." Accessed May v, 2021.

2. The states Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Web Developers and Digital Designers, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm." Accessed May 5, 2021.

3. The states Agency of Labor Statistics. "Graphic Designers, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/arts-and-pattern/graphic-designers.htm." Accessed May 5, 2021.

4. US BLS. "Web Developers and Digital Designers."

five. The Open Academy. "Do "attractive things piece of work better"? An exploration of search tool visualisations, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82971727.pdf." Accessed May 5, 2021.

Written by Coursera • Updated on Nov 23, 2021

This content has been fabricated available for informational purposes simply. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional person, and financial goals.

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Source: https://www.coursera.org/articles/ux-design-vs-graphic-design

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