What are the differences between UX, Interaction, UI and graphic/visual designers? Are these distinctions helpful or damaging to our field?
User Experience (UX) or Experience Design (XD) is the general term under which all types of design (visual, interaction, sound, industrial, etc.) fall. Even fields like architecture, writing, HCI, information architecture, ergonomics, and a host of others could all be considered UX, because they are all concerned with the overall impression a user has when engaging with a product.
Interaction design is the definition of how a product behaves in response to human behavior, as well as defining the means to manipulate the product (controls). In many cases, how the interaction design is manifest visually is via a user interface.
Visual designers create visual representation (the form) of the interaction design (and the associated content, if any) to create the UI. Not all products have a UI, although most have some sort of means of input and feedback that should be design.
Sometimes the roles of visual and interaction designer are done by the same person. This is very common in web design, for instance. On complex projects, it is hard to do both very well, although not impossible.
The lines between many of the disciplines can be blurry. For instance, you might use the tools of information architecture to create a site structure, but the tools of interaction design to define the navigation to get between the different areas.
In one sense, most people in the field are UX designers, because most people are concerned with the overall experience of the product. On the other hand, UX is a fairly generic term that doesn't describe what someone specializes in and the types of problems they want to address. Many generalists seem to taking the term "UX Designer" while specialists are still calling themselves "visual designer" or "interaction designer." ("Web Designer" is an unusual anomaly in that most web designers are also front-end developers.)
It is confusing, especially to outsiders and even to people inside the field. But the story isn't that hard. Other fields, medicine being a prime example, have generalists and specialists. If we as a field could simply, clearly, present these distinctions, we'd all be better off.
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