When does a UI designer become a UX designer?
A UI designer becomes a UX designer the moment they stop decorating screens and start designing the story that helps each type of user move from question to decision on a page.
Years of mindful practice
This will sound obvious. But there’s often a long distance between “that makes sense” and “that’s actually how I work.” Sometimes years.
User goals
If you want to call yourself a UX designer, you start from the user’s task. Write down why someone comes to the page in the first place. What exactly are they trying to get done? Then look at those tasks and separate them by user segments. Different people arrive with different goals. Some of those segments will be obvious. Others you’ll only notice if you stop and think about who might be missing.
What helps?
Next question: what information on the page actually helps a person complete their task? And in parallel, what tasks does the business need the user to complete?Those two things rarely line up perfectly. So the real work begins there. You figure out what information helps the user move through the points where they usually hesitate, doubt, or drop off. The places where business goals and user goals collide. Then you decide which segments matter most. Which scenarios are primary. Which are secondary.
Give priority
Only after that do you prioritize the information on the page. Define the metrics for the page funnel. Write down the decisions you made and why you made them. And only then do you start designing the UI. Because good pages aren’t just layouts. They’re stories that guide a user from question to decision.
If you want to build that kind of story on every page, I’m happy to show you how.
