What do all of these acronyms mean? More importantly, what do the words they stand for mean?
Most folks truly do not understand what these words mean when using them, yet many of us feel it necessary to turn them into acronyms. Typically, these acronyms are transformed into buzzwords that get completely lost in translation, and we lose sight of the original meaning of the terms. Well, I’m going to attempt to set the record straight.
UX vs UI
‘UX is what something looks like, right? UX is really design… at least that’s what I heard! UX is User Interface design, right?’
As you probably know, UX stands for User Experience. To understand what User Experience is, let’s really define UI (User Interface) first. User Interface is a collection of interactions that a user may interact with to complete goals or a set of tasks. An interface design is critical to how a user interacts with a product. So, User Interface defines the vehicle that a user drives to perform tasks.
This is really just the tip of the iceberg when we talk about User Experience, which is how a user interacts with and feels overall about a product in and/or out of a User Interface. User Experience design is critical to product adoption, time on task, ease of learning, and reducing workflow and task burden. So, User Experience defines the psychology and cognitive behavior of user interactions.
What does all this mean? Both terms are very important to the success of a product or application. User Experience includes User Interface, but User Experience is all encompassing when we break down what it really is:
- Research: understand how users interact with products
- Vision: imagine how users could interact with new products or redesigned products
- Design: creative process leveraging heuristic principles for optimal user experiences to design compelling user interfaces
- Validate: test heuristic principles of the designs against users
- Build: develop User Interface code with familiar interaction components
- Evaluate: survey and test the masses to collect feedback
- Feedback: manage user interactions with a closed feedback loop by vetting product value and market need
PX vs CEM
‘PX, never heard of it! Isn’t PX how people feel about a product? CEM, is that customer experience management? How does that impact UX or UI?’
Correct, PX (Product Experience) is how people feel overall about a product! Remember, a product doesn’t have to be digital or a piece of software. An iPhone is a product. An Amazon Firestick is a product. A TV is a product. Brand marketing, market awareness, buzz, and market position are all important factors that impact the success of a product experience.
CEM (Customer Experience Management) is a collection of processes that a company uses to track, oversee, and organize interactions between a customer and organization throughout the customer life cycle. Businesses manage the customer’s experience by understanding what products and/or services are successes or failures in the market. They collect customer data via several channels of feedback over a long process that commonly starts with customer service.
They’re all necessary
Each one of these practices, processes, and methodologies plays a part in the success or failure of a product or service. All of them focus on the user in a genuine way. Where we see pitfalls between UX and CX is they are often separated by different departments and rarely talk. UX and CX communicating and collaborating to create a better overall experience is a critical part to the success in the age of the customer.
User Experience is one of those terms that gets confused by nearly everyone. So much so that I have actually contemplated revamping our practice name to something like Product Research & Design or Experience Design & Research. Maybe it’s time for a change!