When working in design, development, business, and digital marketing, we hear many terms used to describe the working experience with a product and its relation to users or customers. The most widely used of these terms are user interface (UI), user experience(UX), and customer experience (CX). These three are often used interchangeably and can have different meanings for different people. However, we tried to explain a standard view of them that is more common among designers today.
In the previous article, we talked about UI design practices. But a good UI designer will not succeed without knowledge of UX and CX. So we decided to discuss UX and CX and then examine the difference between UI, UX, and CX in the next article.
What is a UI?
The user interface (UI) is the appearance of an application. It is the visible and tangible part of a tool that the user deals with directly.
Many designers may summarize the user interface as “beautifulness.” But as we said in the previous article, this is the user’s need that plays the first role. For example, if users prefer simplicity, then having an app with a sophisticated, colorful, and glazed design may be a failure. All components of a page, such as photos, text, buttons, and even colors, need to comply with user design principles.
Regarding the advancement of technology and the widespread use of sites and smartphones, it seems necessary to pay attention to a user-friendly design that can keep the audience satisfied. Improving human-computer interaction is a milestone that UI designers are working on. Their goal is for users to efficiently work with software without system problems causing much disruption to their work.
In summary, what UI designers do is:
- By using the principles of user experience (UX) (which we will talk more about in the next section) and understanding the user’s needs, design a path that the user can easily use the system through which.
- Implement the design and construction of page elements using different tools and languages.
For example, when you want search Google for an article, what does Google show you? A blank page without any additional elements that has a search box. This is precisely what you need.
In this example, Google has designed the correct UI according to the user’s needs.
UI vs. UX
What is UX?
The term UX was first coined in the 1990s. User Experience is the overall process of producing a product, of which the UI is a subset.
In short, the user experience, beyond meeting users’ needs, emphasizes the system’s ease of use so that the user does not prefer to replace the current system with other software.
User experience is a roadmap that helps to design a software product according to the user’s wishes. UX focuses on developing the environment, services, and processes of an app and aims to provide solutions to increase user satisfaction. The most critical stage of user experience is ‘recognizing the user’s needs.’ The design should be such that the user achieves his/her goal and enjoys working with the system.
In addition to recognizing the organization’s brand and identity, a UX designer gets acquired with the audience and tries to find a way to attract them to achieve the organization’s goals.
Finally, it should be noted that one user experience can be used with multiple user interfaces, and one user interface can have various user experiences. A complete set of these is called the customer experience (CX), which we learn more about later.
Customer Experience (CX)
What is CX?
The highest and broadest concept among the three is the Customer Experience (CX), of which UX is a subset. The customer experience includes everything related to the customer; Such as the brand, advertising, services, sales, and products.
For example, if we consider buying from a supermarket, both in-person and online, and add emails and advertisements related to marketing and other services such as insurance, all of these shape the customer experience.
The customer experience’s goal is to create a strong relationship between the customer and the brand and provide a comprehensive and positive experience to customers.
To better understand this concept, imagine that you are a customer. What do you think about the brand at each stage? What are the contributing factors to your experience, and how does an effective relationship develop between you and the brand?
Answering these questions will help you better understand the concept of customer experience.
To better understand the differences between UI, UX, and CX, the following diagram shows the user interface, user experience, and customer experience and outlines the relationships between them:
