Design is one of the most important aspects to consider when designing a website. If the resource is memorable, user-friendly and attractive, the user is guaranteed to want to read it.

There are several terms in the IT Dictionary for visual designers, corresponding to different stages of the IT product development process.

To begin with, mock-ups and prototypes are not the same thing. The boundaries of these terms are blurred, but nevertheless, when you see something interface-graphic, it is not difficult to classify it.

1. Sketch - an initial snapshot by hand of what comes to mind.

2. Wireframe - a diagram or drawing that represents the "skeleton" of a website page or application. No embellishments, just location and approximate sizes of headers, text blocks, illustrations, multimedia and navigation panels.

3. Prototype - a model for testing a concept or process. Pictures can be inserted, colour-tone gradations can appear, etc.

4. Simulation - on complex projects also a model for testing the concept or process, but Hi-Fi (high accuracy, in contrast to the prototype, which is a low accuracy model - Lo-Fi).

5. Mockup - a non-working model made life-size and looking like what a working instance would look like. That is to say, a photoshopped web page which has been given over to a layout is a mockup. But it will become a design when it acquires interactivity. For example, business card mockup is very popular these days.

Projects in which all these stages are fully represented are extremely rare. And since developers don't have the time to understand the nuances of what they don't use, the term "prototype" can refer to anything between a first draft and a finished product.

Why do designers do not like this division of labor? - Very simply: because of the significant loss of control over the process of creating a product.

Whether they are different professions is not the question. They are different, and it has been proven time and again. Can the talents of an interaction designer and graphic designer be combined in one person? Not always, but they can. In the same way that some pianists are able to play the guitar. The question remains, should the processes of creating UX and graphics always be separated and given to different people?

A project is divided into sprints (usually a month or a month and a half) and the UX group in close daily interaction with service directors begins to gradually build user experience models and the basic principles of working with the product from sprint to sprint. A UX group can consist of 2-3 or more UX designers and a visual designer.

UX designers have their own leader who is actually a business analyst and has to dig deep into the industry specifics. Based on the work with the service directors he defines which interface design methods and techniques will be used and which will not, i.e. he develops some kind of a vision of user interaction with the future product.

It is up to the project manager to decide whether or not to entrust UX to a visual designer. As a rule, interaction design is the more time-consuming and more important part of the product work, and if the designer wants to control the process of creating interfaces, he should migrate towards UX. But you have to be prepared for the fact that one day you will be pushed away from creating visuals and will have to observe them from afar.

And a visual designer develops his own vision of how to manage user's attention and emotions within the framework of a certain visual identity. We could say that he creates a script for attention and emotion management, but there is no documented "script", only an idea and some initial blocks which are gradually "fleshed out". And the designer doesn't dance from the stove itself along with the business analyst but spends all his creative energy cumulatively, spending few hours a week discussing already created interaction models and using videos with UX-sequences. That said, of course, he can propose his own UX solutions and implement them as long as they don't break the overall concept of interaction scenarios.

On the other hand, no one interferes with the designer's work on product visualization, because it's like a symphony that hasn't been written yet - no one but the author can know how appropriate this or that note will be in the finished work.

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