What is UX vs. UI? Also what is Dark UX Design? Is it related to Dark Mode on a website?
In: Technology
User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) are two fairly similar realms oftentimes. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably or incorrectly, so you have to parse out what people really mean.
UI design revolves are the physical layout. The buttons, the assets, the graphic design. The visual elements and the actual interface itself and its key components.
UX is about the user’s experience as a whole with the product. They consider every possible interaction a user might have associated with the product. A large part of that is how fusterated a website might make them, which explains the overlap with UI. However, it also encompasses concerns such as: how are users discovering the product? How many pages are they navigating through to find the most common information they need one the website? How does the user feel in this process? What else could make the user happier?
At the most basic level, UI is the indivual pieces and parts that serve UX’s goals of creating a good user experience with the product.
User Interface vs. User Experience.
Good UI: everything is clean looking and easy to navigate on the audio settings screen…
Bad UX: …because it is just one button that increases volume by 1% every time you press it until you have the volume you want.
UI is User Interface, the thing a human must interact with to use a tool, webpage, device, whatever. On a website it’s things like the layout of the webpage, the use of buttons and checkboxes, popouts and overlays, and so on.
UX is User Experience, or what happens when you use something and how you feel about it. When everything works smoothly and quickly, that’s good UX. Bad UX is things like always having to close a pointless pop-up before you can get to the website, not knowing about complicated password requirements except when it tells you there’s an error, or having to sign up before you know if it’s worth it.
Dark UX is the stuff that’s designed to subtly manipulate you into making a particular choice that is not in your best interests. For example, when you go to the checkout on Amazon and it asks you what kind of shipping you want, it’s always an expensive option that’s the default selection, or starting a free trial of Prime. Everyone’s going to change it to free delivery but it’s a subtle nudge that over time, or if you’re in a hurry, may get you to pick the option that earns them more money.
Dark UX is design that is meant to trick the user into doing something they don’t want to do.
An example is an advertisement with a fake close button, to trick the user into clicking on the ad when they were trying to close the ad.
[Here’s an article with more examples.](https://uxdesign.cc/10-evil-types-of-dark-ux-patterns-f5a408c43c62)
Good answers already, and I want to add that to be employed to build UI is probably to be a web designer/front-end designer. To be employed to do UX is to be a professional researcher testing different ideas and products with users. A UX person working for Target, for example, might research and test different aisle configurations to see which one results in a better user experience (however defined).
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