| The thing with not well-defined names is that they're open to interpretation. To me, the difference between UX and UI is on a completely different axis. When I was at university, I attended a UI class which - although in the CS department - was taught by a senior psychologist. Here, the premise was very much on how to design interfaces in such a way that the user can intuitively operate a system with minimal error. That is, the design should enable the user to work with the system optimally. I only heard the term UX much later, and when I first became aware of it, it seemed to be much less about designing for use and more about designing for feel. That is, the user should walk away from a system saying "that was quite enjoyable". And these two concepts are, of course, not entirely orthogonal. For instance, you can hardly enjoy using a system when you just don't seem to get the damn thing to do what you want. But they still have different focuses. If I had to put in a nutshell how I conceptualize the two disciplines, it would be "UI: psychology; UX: graphics design". And of course such a simplification will create an outcry if you're conceptualization is completely different. But that just takes us back to my very first sentence: not well-defined names are open to interpretation. |
> Here, the premise was very much on how to design interfaces in such a way that the user can intuitively operate a system with minimal error.
Yes, that's a good default goal for most software, but not always appropriate.
Eg for safety critical equipment to be used only by trained professionals (think airplane controls or nuclear power plant controls) you'd put a lot more emphasis on 'minimal error' than on 'intuitive'.
We can also learn a lot from how games interact with their users. Most games want their interface to be a joy to use and easy to learn. So they are good example for what you normally want to do!
But for some select few having a clunky interface is part of the point. 'Her Story' might be an interesting example of that: the game has you searching through a video database, and it's only a game, because that search feature is horribly broken.