UX = UI + Emotions
In 14+ years of my career, I have spent considerable good amount of time in creating better user experiences for the end users. Way back in 2009, post completion of fresher's training at Infosys Ltd. , my first job was to create prototypes for Finacle CRM module. I was playing around HTML, JS and CSS to design mock ups very closer to real application. At that time, I wasn't aware or I would say I was least bothered to understand the difference between the two terms: UX and UI. In last 5+ years, when I started working for the digital transformation of various modules of YONO SBI, I have been interacting with various stakeholders both internal and external. To my surprise, I found out many professionals across various experience levels both from internal and external eco-systems, are either not sure of the difference or they understand both as same. Image used for this article from uxplanet.org articulates the difference very aptly but here my intent to define something new.
I would like to coin this equation "UX = UI + Emotions", you can blame my engineering background for this. When any user is interacting with any digital product then media of these interactions are User Interface (UI) elements. And these UI elements bring out different types of emotions in end user. User might be surprised, happy, frustrated, sad etc. based on interactions with these UI elements while performing a task. Let me share an example for better understanding, suppose a user wants to make a payment on YONO SBI app but user is not sure about any details of the beneficiary except name. User go to payment module and feels HAPPY that available UI has all the options to make payment either through beneficiary's name, mobile number, Unique ID or account number. The happiness of this user through UI elements is certainly a good User Experience (UX).
Well, I have articulated and tried my best to justify the equation "UX = UI + Emotions", in case if any of the readers have some different view on this, kindly share in comments. I would be happy to learn something new or clear my misnomer.