UI vs. UX

As a beginner level UI UX designer, when I started learning to design, the very first question that popped up in my mind was, “what is UI? What is UX? What is the difference between these two words? ”. For me, I didn’t go googling definitions for UI and UX. Instead, I kept learning those principles and other stuff related to designing. So at a point, I found the difference between these two words. I like to explain the key differences in an understandable way hoping it would be easy for someone to understand who is new to this field just like me.

At the most basic level, the UI or the User Interface is the set of screens and pages plus the visual elements such as buttons and icons that enable a user to interact with a product or a service. In the early days, if someone wants to use a computer, they had to use the command-line interface(CLI). Thay had to communicate via programming language, requiring a number of codes to complete a simple task, as the graphical interfaces didn’t exist then.

Once the shift in this technology happened, no longer coding required, and anyone could use a computer. The accessibility and prevalence of personal computers meant that interface needed to be designed having the users in mind. As a result UI designer was born. With the growth of technology, the role of the UI designer has evolved as systems demands more and more features from devices. Now UI designers work not on computer interfaces, but mobile phones, virtual reality, and even invisible or screenless interfaces like voice, gesture, and light.

So when we move to the term UX or the User Experience, it was evolved as a result of the improvement to UI. Once there was something for users to interact with, their experience needed to be considered. Simply UX design is about understanding the users and turning them into a product while it is all about creating a smooth and enjoyable experience for users. So, it is obvious that it should be comfortable, clear, and user-friendly.

So the difference between these two terms is that the UI is made up of all the elements that enable a person to interact with a product or a service while UX is how a user remembers his experience with a certain UI, how he will reuse it and whether the memory he has about the UI is pleasant and inspiring.

Good UX design isn’t just about aesthetics, it’s about the function. No matter how beautiful a website may be, it will fall flat if it’s not user-friendly. As an example, if we think about google it performs over 40,000 search queries per second. Google knows that when a user comes to the site, they are after one thing, that is information and they want it quickly. So the reason why it is the most famous search engine is the ease to use, not necessarily the most beautiful site.