What’s the difference between UX & UI?

Remember when you were young and wanted to use ketchup and it did not fall down from the glass bottle into the dish? We had to turn the bottle upside down and smack it on the bottom to pour it. The company did not realize that making the glass bottle with attractive label looks good but actual experience of using it is very bad.  

That ‘s the simple difference between user interface (the glass bottle) and user experience (pouring the ketchup).

A User interface is a simple, intuitive means for a user to interact with PCs, smart mobile devices, websites, communication devices, and software applications.

All our five senses Sight, Sound, Smell,Touch and Taste are the user interface for us to interact with the world and what we get is user experience of the world. 

Today with so much digital all around us, User interface (UI) focuses on the look and feel of screens, pages, forms, text boxes, and visual elements, like images, videos, buttons and icons that you use to interact with a device, web site or product.

User experience (UX), on the other hand, is the experience that a person has as they use and interact with your products and services.

Imagine if you asked Google and it took more than a minute to get a result. Sixty seconds before the page appeared! Even if the interface stayed the same, your experience with Google would be dramatically different.

UI will more focus on the look and feel, the responsiveness of the product. It looks after whether the function works or not. UX design not only cares for its function but the users’ emotions, how the users feel about their interaction with UI.

Positive User experience enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty by improving the usability, ease of use, and pleasure provided in the interaction between the customer and the product.  

UI is when you go to a five star hotel for dinner and see food arranged beautifully and UX is when you eat it to find out it tastes fantastic too.

If you have ever visited Disneyland with your kids….the attractive colors, and themes they use to pull in the crowds of children and adults at same time is user interface, while after sitting on the rides like space mountain, rock n roller coaster, free fall etc. what you get is a thrilling user experience. 

Your car’s steering wheel, brakes, accelerator are all UI, while the kind of experience you get driving is UX.

Your UI design can make or break the success of your website or app and it’s the door to the great or worst user experience.

There are some basic principles for UI to be successful:

• Make UI as intuitive & responsive as possible
• Don’t overload the user with information
• Keep it simple to view 
• Group things appropriately
• Multi language support with proper tool tips

Something that looks great but difficult to use and something that looks terrible but is very easy to use – both are failures in today’s digital age.

UX and UI are the two most integral concepts in the world of website development. Both need to work well in relation to each other to offer the best overall outcome for your customer.

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