Remember when we were
young and wanted to use ketchup and it did not fall down from the glass bottle in
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 is 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 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, interact with products
and services.
Imagine when you ask a
query to Google and it took more than 1 minutes to get a result. Even if the
interface stayed the same, your experience with Google would be dramatically
different.
UI will more focus on
look and feel, responsiveness of the product. It cares for if the function
works or not. UX design not only cares for its function but the users' emotion,
how the users feel about when their interaction to 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 it fantastic too.
You must have visited
Disneyland with your kids….the attractive colors, and themes they use to pull
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 thrilling user experience.
Your Car’s steering
wheel, brakes, accelerator are all UI, while kind of experience you get driving
is UX.
Your UI design can make
or break the success of your website or app and it is 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
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 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.