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Often I see UX boiled down to this quote from the article: "To build a great UX, one has to step back and think about what’s most important, try to come up with the most simple and shortest path to get there, build, analyze what works and why(not), measure, test, rinse, and repeat." This is the "left-brained" part of UX, while there is the forgotten "right-brained" portion, which is typically based on the psychological impact of copy, typography, and visual polish. For example, I worked for a company that wanted to remove all "distracting copy" from the form page so that the submit button was above the fold (and fewer distractions, etc.). We ran multivariate tests swapping copy, removing copy, rephrasing copy, you name it, to figure out what our visitors were actually responding to. Our original "assurance copy" (letting the user know what the information is for, what's going to happen next, etc.) more than doubled our average time-on-page metric. However, our conversion took a ~27% drop when we removed it entirely, and incrementally better the more copy we had. The users that did convert spent half the amount of time on the page (they were already committed to purchase by that point), but the rest of the users obviously needed assurance in the process, not necessarily the cheapest process. |
What you're referring to is the UI, the aesthetic design, layout and features that lends itself to an effective UX. They work hand-in-hand; like the OP had stated (paraphrasing), coming up with the simplest and shortest path to your goals that works, is important for the UX, and knowing your goals and how you want to reach them will help guide the UI.
It's tough to find someone who can focus on UX or to find someone who can translate the UX to a great UI. But it's the toughest to find someone who can do both. It's even harder to become that person.