Say you have two professionals working on the same project. One is the UX (User Experience) designer in charge of producing a user-centered design, and the other is the UI (User Interface) developer who builds the user interface that supports the exchange of information. Now If you were to ask the UX Designer and the UI Developer who is the principal creator of the user experience, what you might expect to hear is “I am because…” from both of them.”

Now here is the tricky part.

UX Designers see their authority as coming from the research that informs their designs. “We have talked to the customers, and we know what they want.” UI Developers see their validity as coming from their knowledge of the underlying technology’s capabilities and constraints.

However it’s not like any one of them has a monopoly on the secrets about design patterns and best practices for user interactions. It’s part of a UX Designers job to study user and workflow analysis yet all UI Developers have the same knowledge and, in some cases, were even the ones who pioneered those patterns and best practices in the first place.

So what’s the real difference between the two?

Although a UI Developer might conduct general functionality testing and a UX Designer might also conduct real world usability testing on prototypes or finished products to assess the quality of a user experience. A UI Developer’s output is functional, testable, shippable code that lets users accomplish their goals when using an application.

A UX Designer designs the user experience, by producing user-centered design artifacts such as concept artwork, site maps, taxonomies, and wireframes. Whereas the UI Developer builds the user interfaces that support the exchange of information between the users and its back-end processes and databases.

UI Developer could be a fully dedicated role as part of a wider development team or a hat that a developer who is also responsible for coding the back-end processes might wear. The area that tends to fall under the exclusive domain of UI development includes the programming skills and knowledge. Whereas the UX Designer might be responsible for the bigger picture in terms of the general work flow of a user.

Ok, so what’s the big issue?

Sometimes the blurred lines between these two roles has been known to generate hard feelings. UX Designers can resent the disregard developers sometimes give their designs. And UI Developers feel that UX wireframes are too static and don’t take into account what they discover during the process of building a user interface. As a design comes to life, the developers gain new insights; either while interacting with the functionality or by testing the interactions they are building.

Best practise and the “Offset Media” way?

We know that it is a collaborative process of review and refinement. It is better when a design deliverable communicates data-driven requirements and provides a working space for collaborative input. We value both roles equally as key parts of the wider user experience.

UI developers create technology to actually make the best user experience happen. So In that role, the UI Developer is a rightful participant in the design process. Bringing the conceptual design to life is a creative process in itself, and a UI Developer can help the design mature and emerge by applying his or her own expertise. If a UX Designer were to insist that his or her concepts were unquestionable blueprints, we’d lose the insights that could come from a UI Developer’s craftsmanship.

At Offset Media we strive for results that really answer the client’s brief with design flair and supported by robust solutions, this then leads to great user experiences. This why we cultivate good communication between the client the designer and the developer in order for all parties to truly understand the project in hand. We constantly try to cut away the excesses and focus on the real focal point and functional aim by remembering that simpler = better.

The Bar Specialists are a highly skilled and experienced squad of bar tenders, event organisers and bar designers at the cutting edge of liquid catering culture. The client, rather refreshingly (pun intended) came to us with a few gigabytes worth of professional photography and a very slick concept idea.

We then started up the Offset Media machine and the outcome was this rather snazzy, simple yet dynamic full splash website that supports a wide range of devices and browsers and is driven by the wordpress system.

Feel free to take a look at the results.

Some of these diverse projects span e-learning material, websites, e-commerce systems, mobile apps and even branding / logo design. With such a rich variety of challenging projects on the go at the moment, it’s keeping our studio pencils sharp and our minds keen.

It has been a very busy start to the year for us so we are currently working on expanding the team here in London and Bangalore to increase our production capacity whist keeping up our comitment to quality . We will update again as these works progress, so stay tuned.

We have recently built and launched his new blog. The blog will house monthly updates of his work. Friends, clients, colleagues and interested parties can now keep up to date Nick Smith’s progress.

You can view his blog here or visit his main website here.

2012 is set to be a big year for offset media. As well as our plans to expand the team, we are also in the process of opening an office in India.

Why India? You may ask. Well apart from India being one of the world’s biggest and fastest growing emerging markets, we also see a huge potential in the native highly skilled I.T. and software development work force. We will be just a short distance from the Microsoft and Google head offices situated in Bangalore (the new Silicon valley of India). Besides the obvious prestige an international office affords us, Bangalore is well-recognized for its speciality in relevant industries such as software, telecommunications and aerospace.

Even though we are set to be busy with these new changes, we will keep our commitment to delivering quality design and creative technology.

Deluxe 142 offers the highest quality, sound and picture post production services for the media industry and are responsible the post work on many major Hollywood and home grown movies and television series. Such as “Death in Paradise”, ” The Inbetweeners “, “One Life”, “One Day” & “The Hurt Locker” to name only but a few recent works.

We were honored to be asked to play a part in this project. watch this space for the upcoming video promo soon to feature.

Clare is a advocate for allergen free, eco friendly products and ethical principles in business. Premae is the world’s first totally allergen free beauty brand. She has spent much time in the area of research and development in order to discover how to create her comprehensive cleansing and moisturising system. What makes the Premae product range so special is that they are made with only 100% natural allergen free ingredients.

Looking for something special this Christmas for a loved one?  PremaeSkincare.com

We have worked alongside DVL Smith for some time now on many varied projects. It was a lovely evening with an insightful presentation from David Smith (founder of DVL Smith) who talked about the companies beginnings and the future goals of continued high quality services. We also received a highly entertaining and interesting presentation from Stephanie Davies of Laughology regarding the positive impact that Laughter can have on business.

We wish DVL Smith continued success and we are looking forward to working on further exciting projects together in the future.

l Download The Free Festive Icon Pack.

We have been working with the innovative C.E Fish Essentials brand for some time now and we are very glad see them go from strength to strength. Over the last year they have been working very hard on research and development for a range of highly nutritional and colour enhancing Discus fish foods. We are responsible for designing their packaging / branding and we are looking forward to working with them creating more new and exciting world first products.

All in all it was a great show, I would highly recommend next year’s event to anyone who already keeps fish or might be interested in doing so.

The renowned Boris Johnson gave us a great and personal speech regarding all of the things he has been successfully fighting for and the current issues his office is working on. I do like Boris, as well as being an honest public speaker (I say honest because his speeches are not pre-written by a team of swing artists but rather passionate, off the cuff and entertaining ramblings) but also because of his passion towards driving progress for London. He is an environmentalist, an intellectual and a strong believer in building up the strength of London on the world stage. Don’t get me wrong, not every plan Boris has pushed forward has been a raving success but the point is he not scared to try new things and bringing new ideas to the table.

He said to us that we can be expecting the new eco-friendly Routemaster bus to start appearing on the roads very soon. The new Routemaster is built by Londoners for Londoners and will support job creation and in turn the London Economy. Most of all the new bus will be quieter, safer, more comfortable and much more environmentally friendly then the now obsolete bendy bus. The new bus is at the forefront of cutting edge technology and design and will serve as fantastic replacement. In terms of design, the new bus pays homage to the original and much loved Routemaster which has stood as a beloved icon for London and Londoners for so many generations.

Responsibility for the Environment as well as encouraging growth for the London economy is something we at Offset Media hold very close to our hearts. As well as the new Routemaster bus, Boris and his office are fighting for further advancements to transport and business in London. Also look out for plans of a new orbital over ground network which will connect up the whole of London and offer better connections to our airports.

While jQuery UI and a bunch of other plugins support tabbing, sometimes, you don’t need all that overheard just to render a simple tabbed UI. I wrote tinytabs for this reason, to eliminate the unnecessary overhead. At less than 1 KB (minified), it does exactly what it is designed to do.

Rest in peace.

In Apple related news; we have just purchased a brand new iPad 2, now that we are venturing into developing apps for the iOS platform. We think it is a great addition to our collection of development devices that include Blackberries, Android and Windows Phone 7. It’s also now our “weapon of choice” when it comes down to taking minuets at meetings and showcasing work to clients whilst on the move.

At offset we are definitely pro social media, and generally advice our clients to adopt at least one . Although in our experience, it is not about blanketing the brand on every social website, not all forms social media are suited to every brand. Also, social media marketing requires a lot of input and time, and you can only get out of it what you put in (just take a look at Gary Vaynerchuk). With all the positives of online social media, you should not forget the merits of being social in physical world.

I have, however, not yet used a grid system that I really like for print. Then I remembered about the unigrid! The unigrid was created by legendary designer Massimo Vignelli for the  National Park Service.

Much to my amazement, when I went to download the unigrid, I could not find a digital version anywhere. So, based on the information I found on inksie, I decided to create one myself. If you want to mess about with the unigrid yourself we have uploaded a zip file containing an Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator version.

l You can Download the zip file from here: The Unigrid.

There were two principal details that struck me whilst being amongst the rioters and looters. The first was their young age range and the second was that most of them were totting their smart phones as if it were a weapon. After the riots had past and I had the time to think the events over, I realised that this could not be any closer to the truth.

During the worst night of the rioting and looting the Police in London were stretched too thin to control what was happening. I thought, how could this be happening to one of the most modern and effective police forces in the world? That night it seemed as though the MET Police were always one step behind. Large groups of youngsters were mobilising seemingly out of the woodwork, in so many locations at the same time. When the Police finally caught up with these groups, they were dispersed only to later re-emerge in a new location with a new target. How can an unorganised, untrained and unmanaged rabble be so effective at keeping ahead?

The police eventually had to turn to using the same tactics as used by the rioters. They began monitoring Twitter and Facebook to discover any key targets and meeting points being arranged. They also began to rely on the general public’s reports of happenings in their own areas via the same networks. They even requested support from Blackberry as many of the rioters were using Blackberry’s own internal messaging system to communicate with each other.

I have heard many speculations regarding the blame for the riots erupting on such a large and sustained scale. The main one is the important role that the social networks played. I however would rather say the blame lies with the smart phone itself rather than just the social networks. After all the smart phone was the device used to access these social networks whilst on foot. Not forgetting that they would have not only been using Twitter, Facebook and Blackberry messenger to communicate but also simple voice calling and SMS.

Social networks can come and go and the platform we use to communicate can change with the latest fad. However unless we start implanting technology straight into our brains, the mobile device is here to stay. In such a short time the smart phone has organically become the dominant tool for communication and has changed the way we interact with the world around us. Most notably, it has changed the way we socialise, play games and make business. But… has it changed anything else? The answer is most defiantly yes. It has altered almost every facet of modern life, this includes the way we riot and by looking at the recent events in the middle east, also the way we topple governments. When the speed of information whilst on the move is king, the smart phone is defiantly mightier than the pen.

Propeller EP and Waves Of OK EP ( released earlier this year ) make up The Epidural Collection. You can pick them both up from the Moshi Moshi shop.

You can follow The Illustrator’s Lounge’s progress via their twitter page – @the_loungers