To summarize Christina Wodtke:
User Experience Design is the design of:
- The concept or model for the system (or product) and its organization and use.
- System behavior, including feedback.
- How data is ordered and expressed to users.
- How the user interacts with all of the above, whether it’s a digital, physical, or voice UI, or something else entirely.
Also, this is a terribly boring discussion. But, if a designer is going to post this in public Slack:
Well, my brain won’t let it go and I am going to spend my afternoon obsessing over it.
The UI is part of the UX that users actually experience. The UI is literally how a buyer will experience all of the other work you’ve done, and if it’s not accessible, readable, and usable – it doesn’t matter. The UX perspective takes the constituent parts of the interface, ensures the support the concept or mental model of the product, the information architecture, and the communication loops between user and product, and make sure they work. This applies whether your UI is a smartphone screen, the smartphone itself, a musical instrument, a book, a microphone, or a table at a restaurant.
Stop acting like UI is a dirty word and build it into your UX practice. If you don’t want to do UI, go be an accessibility advocate, a product manager, a developer or any one of the dozens of other incredibly valuable roles in the creation and release of a product.
In short: Get the fuck over it. Design your experiences end-to-end, or don’t be a designer.