Review: 3 big differences between UX and UI by Alan Smith

Prior to reading this article, I saw UX as structural and technical design and UI as the feely fun part, basically. In my head, UX was for people who like strategizing and managing and UI was for people more interested in the aesthetics of a thing. This article honestly kind of confirmed that perspective for me, especially with the house analogy used by the author. Smith presents the idea that if we were to apply the concept of UX/UI design to a house, that UX would be the functional stuff like plumbing and electric, while UI would be the cute things like doorknobs, paint, faucets, etc. These things aren’t just about looks though, they function too. For example, one might love their faucet both because it looks ~sleek~ but also because it is touch-sensitive. That way they don’t have to smudge up their cool faucet with their grubby little hands. In this way, the UI still has an impact on the User Experience. This brings us to another point made by Smith, which is that UX and UI definitely overlap in some ways, but they aren’t the same thing. They are just deeply intertwined, and one can’t exist without the other. UI informs UX and UX informs UI and on and on. What I didn’t know was that UI was coined before UX. I suppose it makes sense that people developed a vocabulary for the aspect of computing with which consumers would interact before they started thinking about designing the whole experience from start to finish.