Inside or outside of the industry, everyone hears the terms UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) quite often. User interface (UI) deals with the design aspect of an application (web or mobile), is an access point that users can interact with designs easily.

GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) and VCIs involving 3-dimensional, oral auditory interaction are among a few design interfaces people come across. In short, User Interface is able to cover the whole surface part of the product.

On the other end, experts from a mobile app development company in Halifax explain that user experience (UX) covers the complete spectrum of the company and its product and services that users do interact with. UX applies to anything that can be experienced personally.

It can either be a website, a coffee vending machine, a video game machine, a mobile app, an eCommerce platform and the like.

The behind the perfect UI and UX design are to provide the users a seamless experience. What experience did users have with using their Facebook accounts, Gmail, or Amazon accounts? The experience was worthwhile, wasn’t it?

Users are interacting with the UI of websites (either web or mobile) and the experience they feel is possible due to their UX.

Let us now have a look at how they are different from one another through the following reasons explained.

Interaction as an application

User Interface (UI) acts as a fundamental element of interactions between humans and machines, like mobile phones, computers, other electronics and intelligent machines. It focuses on the outward appearance, layout and looks of a screen either on mobile or web apps.

Basically, the user interface is concerned with the interaction between users and visual elements of a product, like buttons, images, text, checkboxes, placeholders and the like.

UI gives apps the look and feels of the product design. Whereas UX facilitates user interactions with a mobile/web app or another digital product instead of an interface. This determines the ways interfaces work and how people are interacting with them. 

Moreover, User Experience is concerned with the conceptual aspects of both the product and application.

The core functionalities of an application

User Interface (UI) focuses on the product’s appearance, responsible for simulating what UX designers have developed (engineered) in the background. Functional requirements basis requires UI designers to create a product interface using all aesthetics and design theories in making an appealing screen appearance (hire app developer).

On the other hand, the user experience (UX) focuses on the underlying functional aspects enabling these products or applications to work and serve the purpose. For instance, users are looking for an eWallet for their phones for the purpose of digital payments.

Users will vouch for the one that will give them 100% satisfaction while consuming its service. Hence, UX determines the usage value of the product. Hence, UX determines the usage value of the product at hand.

Users’ purpose won’t be fulfilled by just staring at the screen but rather by real conduct that counts, thanks to user experience.

The tangibility aspect

User Interface (UI) focuses on the tangible elements of the app like the external appearance which is its look on the surface. Whereas, User Experience (UX) focuses on the ultimate experience which is the intangible satisfaction thing users get out of the app they use.

Imagine a user being in a cafe and the elements they will handle are the cups, saucers, teaspoons, cream jug, sugar jars, coffee kettles, tables, chairs and napkins which are the appearance of the place. Connect that with the UI experience.

Similarly, the coffee the user drinks, the quality they enjoy, the cookies/bread they take as side order and the quality of them as well as the service counts as the UX role in the context, whether it was average, bad, good or excellent.

This example can give anyone (including a layman) the idea of the difference present between UI and UX.

Conclusion

As much as users hear these two terms interchangeably, they won’t get confused once they read about these visible differences present between User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) with relevant ease.