Understanding User Interfaces (UI) Versus User Experiences (UX)

Trying to craft the perfect customer experience, then make sure you understand the difference between user interfaces and user experiences. You need to understand both to craft the most impactful interactions. 

You may have heard the words user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) thrown around, but do you understand what they mean? I often hear people use them interchangeably and although they are related they are definitely different and if you want to craft the best interactions for your customers it is critical that you understand the difference.

Think of user interface as the method of delivering information. Depending on the method select you will have an impact on the interaction but there is not a lot of flexibility when selecting the user interface, so the magnitude of the impact is much smaller. The user experience on the other hand is less tangible and has a higher effect on the interaction. Most variables relating to the user interaction will follow under experience but at a high-level, think branding; what colors, fonts and images were used to help communicate the information.

To help illustrate the difference let me walk you through an example of how the user interface and user experience can affect a customer’s experience. Let’s use a restaurant as our example as most people have been to a restaurant before and there are some great practical examples for both user interfaces and user experiences.

Let’s start with user interface (UI). As the owner of the restaurant, we want to be able to communicate the menu items for the customer to be able to purchase and there are multiple way to be able to do this. We can have the wait staff tell the customer the details, we can have the options listed on a sign of the more typical option is to have a menu with the details.

These different delivery options for the information are different interfaces for the customer to get the information. It doesn’t matter which delivery method is used that customer will get the same information. There is an overall effect on the interaction for the customer though, so the delivery method does need to be thought through.

Let’s dig a little deeper into the user experience portion of the customer interaction. Specifically, I want to look at the menu. There is a lot that goes into a menu layout that is all there to drive a specific desired reaction. Everything from the font face, color, size position next to the price, everything is there to drive a specific reaction. For example, cursive fonts feel fancier and tend to be seen on bistros menus or more fine dining establishments. Understanding how you want the customer to feel or where you want the interaction to go, IE purchase this particular item, will allow you to define the user experience in a way that will influence the customer to behave in a particular fashion.

There is a lot of science that goes into crafting user interactions, and this is just a quick high-level example to get you thinking critically about how you are engaging with your customers. Your likely not in food a service industry but it is a nice visual example that helps communicate the difference between user interface and user experience.

Regardless of what industry you are in think about what do you want the desired outcome of the interaction to be and start working backwards from there.

Angèle Taylor, Strategic Solutions Architect & Adobe AEM Champion.

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