What Is UX, XD, UXD, UED, UI, CX, IxD, UXE, IA, SD and What’s the Difference?

Nirmani warakaulla
Geek Culture
Published in
5 min readJul 16, 2021

Nowadays, a non-arguable fact is that investing in user experience is vital for product success. Almost everyone has heard the words UX, UXD, CX, UI, IxD, UXE, IA, SD but seems to not know the difference between all these terms.

Here, we suggest finding out what is the difference between these words. What is the mean of user experience ecosystem (UXE) and service design (SD) and how to use these terms wisely?

Let’s start with the most commonly used terms UX (user experience) and UI (user interface).

1. UX or user experience

What happens here is a process of defining the user’s problem and solving the problem before the user understands it.

A good UX design allows the customer to easily and quickly find the information they need and complete the desired task in the shortest possible time without additional problems.

If the product interface is clear and runs smoothly, the UX designer will be very successful. However, there is a situation where the user does not know how to solve their problem in the product interface and this is a direct indicator of low UX quality.

Some people use the term UXD or UED — user experience design instead of UX. You may also meet XD — experience design. Actually, all these abbreviated forms mean the same.

2. UI or user interface

Jesse Garrett is one of the co-authors of this term and co-founded Adaptive Path defines this term as an area of interface elements. The interface color codes, buttons, text, fonts are the parts of this area.

The main function of the UI is to make the interface visually appealing, user-friendly, and user-friendly. The user interface is some kind of intermediary between the user and the device and is also responsible for the interaction.

UX is more about science while UI is more about art.

UI-designer is responsible for visual product user perception. Quality typography, wisely chosen colors, good textures, and spaces in the design help user easily reach his final goal.

3. CX or customer experience

This is a set of factors that can be associated with the client, including the sales process phase and future product usage.
This can be interpreted as the general feeling that the client gets while collaborating with the company.

CX consists of a number of factors, starting from the first contact and the truth of the purchase, the product used over a period of time, and the end of the partnership.

CX-design is oriented on a number of factors such as user-friendliness, client feedbacks, Net Promoter Score (NPS), etc.

4. IxD or Interaction Design

This is called the design of the interaction between the product and the user. How the user and product respond to each other. Typically, this application is used for software products such as apps or websites. The main purpose of IxD is to create an interesting product for the user. This product always helps the user to achieve their goal in the easiest and most effective and inviting way. It maximizes sound, movement, aesthetics, space, and much more.

Crampton Smith described 4 aspects of interaction design:

Words,
Visual representations,
Physical objects or space
Time.

Later Silver strengthening the list with a fifth, and it was
Behavior.

5. UXE or user experience ecosystem

Dave Jones defines a UX ecosystem as, a set of interdependent relationships between components within an information environment.

Under “components” he means people, their aims, digital technology they use for exchanging the information and in communication purpose and, of course, the information they are sharing.

UX ecosystems make the designer look at the bigger picture, in other words how comfortably the product is into the “world” the product user is operating.

The UX designer’s goal here is to design a user-centered ecosystem of devices, services, and objects across platforms in an easy and clear way.

6. IA or information architecture

It Covers 2 main components. They are content and functionality identification, and product hierarchy. This hierarchy represents the connection between the product content and functionality.

IA may be pretty simple so quite complicated (for the large-scale projects).

Information Architecture (IA) is not a part of the user interface, visible screen. IA specifies the look and set of user interface options.

7. SD or service design

the process of building communication, people organizing, planning, and other actions oriented on improving the product quality and the interaction between the service provider and its customers.

The main aim of service design (SD) is company services improvement according to the consumer's and product users' expectations. The services should 100% meet the customer’s expectations, be quick, pleasant, and competitive.

Reference: -

https://ossmium.com/journal/what-is-ux-xd-uxdued-ui-cx-ixd-uxe-ia-sd-and-whats-the-dif/

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Nirmani warakaulla
Geek Culture

Experienced UI/UX engineer deeply committed to creating impactful solutions through innovative design.