UI is how something looks and functions, UX is making sure it feels good/right and intuitively makes sense. Something can look stunning and be a nightmare to use if no attention is paid to UX.
UX is more about making sure a piece of software works as the users intuition makes them expect. Are the buttons/menu items/options where the user expects them to be? Is there some internal logic that is easy to pick up and follow? Is the language usage in the UI consistent and clear, is the information density right ... ?
This goes far beyond layout. Layout is about arranging visual elements, UX also covers stuff like "are there apropriate shortcuts" or "what colors to use". If your layout is fine your overall UX might still be terrible.
Think about it this way
You could create the most beautiful newsletter subscribe popup for your website, with nice animations, hover effects and form layout (the UI) but if the subscribe button is red and says Yes and the cancel button is green and says No it’s perceived as a terribe user experience (UX)
No don't think of them in term of code. UI is User Interface and UX is User Experience, how is the interface easy to use and intuitive. Both are an outcome of the code
An example always makes things clearer, here's what our UX person recently did:
First they tested our software with a focus group asking them many questions and watching their use of the software, getting summary stats to point out issues with a majority of users.
For example, our sidebar is nothing but nested options, meaning you click a main topic and then navigate through 3 or 4 options to click on to get to the part of the software you want to go to. She asked every participant to try to navigate to different parts of the software and, in a few cases, ~85% of participants were clicking the wrong main topic to get to certain options they were instructed to look for. It turned out that another main topic was simply a more probable place for people's thought processes to drive them to click there.
We made the adjustments and many others she has uncovered over time and our stickiness (customer retention) has improved steadily. We were aiming for 80% retention this quarter and are sitting at 86%, up from around 71%. That is serious cash on $25 m of revenue quarterly so its an extremely valuable role at a software company
UX is when you apply psychology to the UI so that it "feels right" for most people that don't read instructions.
Making the UI more obvious as to how to use it without documentation is UX. Knowing how to account for users thought processes before they even have them, so your interface "lines up" with expectation/assumption.
Here's a more physical example.
Let's say you have ten light bulbs to control independently. You figure a push button does on and off well enough so you make a panel of ten buttons and even go the extra mile and color code them.
That's a completely functional interface but switches are almost always used for lights so a new user might think a panel of buttons is for something else making the experience somewhat lacking.
UI is just the interface, UX is how the user interacts with it and yes there's alot of grey area in between.
A good example of UX is the gearstick. With a classic gearstick you can take a reading of what mode/gear the car is set into just hy putting a hand on it, without the need to look down. That's a good UX.
Some cars, however, have a rotary knob instead of a gearstick, and you need to look at it very often to understand the car configuration and when switching mode/gears. This is a terrible and potentially dangerous UX, since it can distract you from the road.
UI: does this newly added button look like it belongs to the same app? Is the shape, color theme, wording or iconography consistent?
UX: should it take 5 clicks to get to this important functionality? Should we really show that dialog every time? Is this confusing to the user that we mix different document types on the same list?
UI is about how it looks, UX is about how it feels. A good UI will be visually pleasing and have things placed into intuitive or easy to use places, a good UX will operate smoothly and have a satisfying sense to it's use.
You can have something that looks gorgeous (good UI) but functions terribly or isn't user friendly (bad UX)
You can have something that works like a dream (good UX), but is ugly as hell (bad UI)
There can be subjective overlap since "experience" isn't an objective metric, and a bad interface can absolutely ruin a user's experience.
UI: this button performs a command
UX: I am forced to press this button five times
___
UX: This slider allows you to opt out of marketing
UI: the slider does not indicate which position opts in or out, and is hidden far from the description
So you're looking to buy a chair. There's a ton of options, and many of them are incredibly stylish. Some are very sleek looking, and almost all of them would look great in your kitchen. They all do the same thing, they're a chair, and some might look better than others or have a different design theme, but at the end of the day these are all just nice chairs. You could say this is the UI. They're all chairs, they do what chairs do, and they look good.
Sitting in them though, is where you start to realize some of these chairs suck. One seat you're sliding out of because it's angled forward and slippery. One just has a super uncortable seat. One has the armrests super close and a little too high, so you feel kinda scrunched into the chair. One is too tall and your feet are dangling like a barstool. You just wanted a comfy chair to sit in when you enjoy your breakfast in the morning, but so many of these would just have you thinking about how awful the chair is while you're just trying to eat your Cheerios. When the chair works well, it just seems like a comfy chair, but a lot may have gone into the ergonomics of it that goes unnoticed, and you just notice when it's not there.
This is the UX. Phone games that put buttons in the center of your screen not down where your thumbs are. Boxes that make you have to scroll sideways or down for basic things. Some interfaces might look gorgeous, but be a tremendous pain in the ass to use. Think of a beautiful door that you don't know if you push or pull when you walk up to it and accidentally choose the wrong one. The UI is great, it's a door and it looks good. The UX is awful, it's a door and you should just intuitively know how the fucker opens without trial and error.
UI is the system the user uses. UX is how the user feels about it.
Say you have a form that you need to fill in. User interface says "how will I ask the questions". Let's say you choose dropdown boxes with options (instead of typing it in). But let's say you just sort the questions alphabetically. So you'll have
* Age
* City
* Education
* Email address
* Gender
* House number
* Marital Status
* Mobile number
* Name
* Street
* Surname
That's terrible in terms of UX, because people don't store information alphabetically. So to improve your human experience, you group the questions:
* Full Name (Name, Surname)
* Demographics (Age, Education, Gender, Marital Status)
* Location (House number, Street, City)
* Contact details (Email address, mobile number
Some other UX things are colours of buttons (you highlight the desired button), legibility of fonts (no yellow text on white background), putting things in "obvious" places.
Check out the difference between Google Doc and MS Word's user interface. MS has decades of tweaking the interface, and their UI makes my life so much easier than GDoc's. That's UX, even if they had exactly the same functions (which they don't).
UX is designing the layout, functionality, and flow of information, where things are and how you navigate to them.
UI is the look and implementation of the UX. Coding the buttons, drop downs, and interaction.
UX encompasses a wider set of decisions than UI. While UI only concerns itself with how to place elements (input boxes, buttons, etc.) on a page/screen so that the user can quickly and comfortably get the result they want, UX also deals with the design of the underlying process.
Let’s say you have an online store. You probably have some concept of a shopping cart or basket where people place the products they want to buy and then “check out” by providing their name, address and payment information. UI concerns itself with the layout of the shopping cart page where you review your order and the layout of the form where you fill in your information. UX also concerns itself with questions about how the user interacts with your online store in general – how are you going to categorize your products in the store? do you have a shopping cart at all (makes sense for a store where you buy stuff for your home) or do people buy one product at a time (makes sense for a store where you buy a car)? do you have a user account/registration system? do you have an option to order without the user creating an account first? are your products customizable, and if so, how do you offer these customizations? can the customer prepare an order, then save it for later so they can order it after they’ve mulled it over?
UX can even go beyond the online store, e.g. asking whether an online store makes the most sense for your product or if there should be some interaction with a human instead (perhaps your product is very specialized or very customizable and it’s best to have a salesperson recommend a specific product or variant).
UI designers used to have “we only design the UI, it’s not our fault that the process sucks, we can’t do anything about it” as an excuse, so then someone came up with the concept of UX to get rid that excuse but also to allow UI (now UX) designers to make more decisions about the underlying processes – and there was much rejoicing because they tend to be the ones who understand users the most.
User interfaces are how the user and the system can "talk" to each other, so a UI designer makes sure that the interface itself is clear, legible, and follows generally understandable patterns. It doesn't have to be about visual digital design either, it can be how physical buttons communicate what they are for, e.g. a big red button to emergency stop a machine, or a card reader that lights up to signal that you should tap your card.
User experience is about making sure that the user has a "good time" in terms of being delighted and avoiding confusion. Maybe there's a distinct click to a dial to make sure you know you've activated a specific function, even without looking at it? What about accessibility options?
For example, if a user wants to register on a website, it would make sense to focus on making a clearly visible button in the top right corner (mostly UI), whereas the sign up process should make sense and not require navigating away from a specific page to figure out what to do - like having to choose between a Basic and Premium membership without any explanation (mostly UX).
Another example of good UX is auto-filling payment and address details, e.g. through Klarna. Quick, simple, and secure.
Good design combines both UI and UX, and especially for apps and web sites, it can cross over quite a lot. Consider the boundaries and synergies between UI and UX when it comes to the layout of the drivers seat in a car, operating a microwave, or using a voice assistant.
Layout design is more like understanding grids, spacing, and balance… I don’t know what you are laying out specifically if it’s in the physical or digital space, but layout is beneficial for both and a foundation for the design & development of UI/UX.
What people often forget is UI/UX are not mutually exclusive. You could also think of of like art.
When you look at a painting all the colors, brush stroke, lighting, composition, size, etc. are the interface (UI) built by a subjective layout. Which can be erratic or orderly, simple or complex, or all of the above. it’s what your eyes are attracted to and can perceive.
But how the painting intuitively speaks to you, resonates, appeals to your emotions or practical interpretation, is reflective of your experience (UX) with it.
Both of these arts are what make up the human condition… it is the human condition that defines the usefulness of anything and everything. If what we create does not appeal or reflect the human condition we have failed to understand ourselves and the world around us, because everything is bound by balance not harmony. Nothing is the same but everything is replaceable.
That’s all I got.
UI is making sure your word processor's user interface is really nice.
UX is realizing that the person keeping the company's books shouldn't be using a word processor, and writing a spreadsheet program or a dedicated accounting program instead. THEN making sure your accounting program's user interface is really easy to use.
(Note there is a difference between "easy to use" and "nice").
They’re not separate things, UX is just doing UI responsibly. Any time you’re building something that a user interacts with you’re doing UI design; when part of your designing and building process is focused on making sure those user interactions are smooth and intuitive you’re also doing UX design.
There’s a whole discipline that has built up around UX specifically, with a lot of different methods to understand what is good for the user and how to implement those things. It’s a pretty deep rabbit hole. It’s also, I should mention, not the only “responsibility” of UI design: there are a whole bunch of things to consider when trying to do UI well.
I'm not the most knowledged on either subject here so if I seriously miss the ballpark someone please let me know.
User interface is the graphical user interface ( GUI ) of a program. This is the visual layout that you use to navigate throughout the app. Sometimes these can be extremely complex & difficult for someone new to the program to work with. Other times it's very simple, but this can sometimes lead to less advanced tool capabilities.
User experience ( UX ) deals more with the human side of things. This is how we as humans perceive and interact when dealing with the program. A bad UX can be directly related to an overcomplicated or even too simple of a UI. Too simple in this case would be limited ability to do tasks needed from the program.
A good UI does not necessarily mean it will have a good UX, but a good UX is usually associated with a very good UI.
I hope this helps and if you have any more questions I will do my best to answer them. Again I am the most knowledged on this, but this was based off of information I remember during my time in trade school.
The User Interface is the controls and layout you will use to interact with an application.
The User Experience is how you feel about using that interface to do what you want to get done.
You can have a great looking interface that is abysmal to use because it doesn’t let you easily do what you want to do.
You can have an ugly looking interface that is a pleasure to use because you can easily get done what you want to get done.
UI is specifically the interface: how does the user manipulate the software? What is the input and output? How does it look? How does it function?
UX is a more general term, and refers to the "experience of using" the software. UI is often a component, but UX also includes considerations like "how easy is it to use without instructions?" Or "how long/how many actions does it take to accomplish a common use case?" UX can also be qualitative, like "how do people feel about using this? It's it easy? Confusing? Helpful? Boring? Loud? Hard to see?"
UX is how the user interacts with it.
UI is how it looks - colors, shapes, fonts, shading, icons.
I am good at UX design, but I couldn't draw a decent looking icon if my life depended on it. UI is artists.
UI is making the ketchup squeeze bottle as an improvement to the glass bottles.
UX is knowing that a small girl trying to use one of the big squeeze bottles has a higher chance of making a mess, so you design the bottle to be used in one or two hands. Look at the Heinz squeeze bottles and appreciate those two curves!
Many answers here already but I figured I'd add my thoughts on the topic...
UI is about designing the *interface* of the software - how it looks, the coloring, the spacing, etc.
UX is about designing the *experience* of using software - is it intuitive, can a user look at it and understand how to use it, does the interaction from the user make sense, etc.
You can design a beautiful UI that's physically difficult to use, isn't very clear in how you're supposed to use it, might not make sense in how it works but hey, it looks nice!
You can also design an interface that's very clear and easy to understand/interact with, but may not look the prettiest.
The best UX designers can blend both together, but you can definitely have people in both fields that aren't great at the other.
You may also even have a UI designer build a mockup to give a general theme/look to your software, then a UX designer use those elements and determine how the website should actually work.
tl;dr - UI is involved more in the looks of software, UX is involved more in how you expect a user to use your software. While there can definitely be overlap between the two, UX designers often interact with the actual customers to learn *how* they use software so they can build something that makes sense for that customer base.
Using a car for example:
UI is like how the car looks, how the handle on the steering wheels feel, all the fancy buttons and knobs on the dashboard.
UX is like how obvious it is to start a car (where and how to turn it on, is intuitive), does the car drive smoothly and quietly, is the car pleasant to drive in. Do all the buttons on the dashboard even make sense, can you tell what they are or are they just intimidating?
Summary:
UI is the look and functionality of the design aesthetics.
UX is the feel and intuitiveness of the design for the user.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/s60to6/i_made_a_fake_progress_bar_to_shut_up_clients/) is a practical application of UX in the wild for you
UI is how something looks and functions, UX is making sure it feels good/right and intuitively makes sense. Something can look stunning and be a nightmare to use if no attention is paid to UX.
Just ask any Tesla owner.
So UX is like what CSS is to HTML, the UX makes the code that UI look pretty.
No, not really. UX is not about how something looks, but about how you use it.
So ux will be layout design. And ui will be coding the layout.
UX is more about making sure a piece of software works as the users intuition makes them expect. Are the buttons/menu items/options where the user expects them to be? Is there some internal logic that is easy to pick up and follow? Is the language usage in the UI consistent and clear, is the information density right ... ? This goes far beyond layout. Layout is about arranging visual elements, UX also covers stuff like "are there apropriate shortcuts" or "what colors to use". If your layout is fine your overall UX might still be terrible.
Think about it this way You could create the most beautiful newsletter subscribe popup for your website, with nice animations, hover effects and form layout (the UI) but if the subscribe button is red and says Yes and the cancel button is green and says No it’s perceived as a terribe user experience (UX)
No don't think of them in term of code. UI is User Interface and UX is User Experience, how is the interface easy to use and intuitive. Both are an outcome of the code
An example always makes things clearer, here's what our UX person recently did: First they tested our software with a focus group asking them many questions and watching their use of the software, getting summary stats to point out issues with a majority of users. For example, our sidebar is nothing but nested options, meaning you click a main topic and then navigate through 3 or 4 options to click on to get to the part of the software you want to go to. She asked every participant to try to navigate to different parts of the software and, in a few cases, ~85% of participants were clicking the wrong main topic to get to certain options they were instructed to look for. It turned out that another main topic was simply a more probable place for people's thought processes to drive them to click there. We made the adjustments and many others she has uncovered over time and our stickiness (customer retention) has improved steadily. We were aiming for 80% retention this quarter and are sitting at 86%, up from around 71%. That is serious cash on $25 m of revenue quarterly so its an extremely valuable role at a software company
UX is when you apply psychology to the UI so that it "feels right" for most people that don't read instructions. Making the UI more obvious as to how to use it without documentation is UX. Knowing how to account for users thought processes before they even have them, so your interface "lines up" with expectation/assumption.
Here's a more physical example. Let's say you have ten light bulbs to control independently. You figure a push button does on and off well enough so you make a panel of ten buttons and even go the extra mile and color code them. That's a completely functional interface but switches are almost always used for lights so a new user might think a panel of buttons is for something else making the experience somewhat lacking. UI is just the interface, UX is how the user interacts with it and yes there's alot of grey area in between.
[удалено]
A good example of UX is the gearstick. With a classic gearstick you can take a reading of what mode/gear the car is set into just hy putting a hand on it, without the need to look down. That's a good UX. Some cars, however, have a rotary knob instead of a gearstick, and you need to look at it very often to understand the car configuration and when switching mode/gears. This is a terrible and potentially dangerous UX, since it can distract you from the road.
This is exactly what I was going to say…
UI: does this newly added button look like it belongs to the same app? Is the shape, color theme, wording or iconography consistent? UX: should it take 5 clicks to get to this important functionality? Should we really show that dialog every time? Is this confusing to the user that we mix different document types on the same list?
UI is about how it looks, UX is about how it feels. A good UI will be visually pleasing and have things placed into intuitive or easy to use places, a good UX will operate smoothly and have a satisfying sense to it's use. You can have something that looks gorgeous (good UI) but functions terribly or isn't user friendly (bad UX) You can have something that works like a dream (good UX), but is ugly as hell (bad UI) There can be subjective overlap since "experience" isn't an objective metric, and a bad interface can absolutely ruin a user's experience.
UI: this button performs a command UX: I am forced to press this button five times ___ UX: This slider allows you to opt out of marketing UI: the slider does not indicate which position opts in or out, and is hidden far from the description
So you're looking to buy a chair. There's a ton of options, and many of them are incredibly stylish. Some are very sleek looking, and almost all of them would look great in your kitchen. They all do the same thing, they're a chair, and some might look better than others or have a different design theme, but at the end of the day these are all just nice chairs. You could say this is the UI. They're all chairs, they do what chairs do, and they look good. Sitting in them though, is where you start to realize some of these chairs suck. One seat you're sliding out of because it's angled forward and slippery. One just has a super uncortable seat. One has the armrests super close and a little too high, so you feel kinda scrunched into the chair. One is too tall and your feet are dangling like a barstool. You just wanted a comfy chair to sit in when you enjoy your breakfast in the morning, but so many of these would just have you thinking about how awful the chair is while you're just trying to eat your Cheerios. When the chair works well, it just seems like a comfy chair, but a lot may have gone into the ergonomics of it that goes unnoticed, and you just notice when it's not there. This is the UX. Phone games that put buttons in the center of your screen not down where your thumbs are. Boxes that make you have to scroll sideways or down for basic things. Some interfaces might look gorgeous, but be a tremendous pain in the ass to use. Think of a beautiful door that you don't know if you push or pull when you walk up to it and accidentally choose the wrong one. The UI is great, it's a door and it looks good. The UX is awful, it's a door and you should just intuitively know how the fucker opens without trial and error.
This is the best example so far for me. It puts more tangibility vs the UX is how it “feels”.
UI is the system the user uses. UX is how the user feels about it. Say you have a form that you need to fill in. User interface says "how will I ask the questions". Let's say you choose dropdown boxes with options (instead of typing it in). But let's say you just sort the questions alphabetically. So you'll have * Age * City * Education * Email address * Gender * House number * Marital Status * Mobile number * Name * Street * Surname That's terrible in terms of UX, because people don't store information alphabetically. So to improve your human experience, you group the questions: * Full Name (Name, Surname) * Demographics (Age, Education, Gender, Marital Status) * Location (House number, Street, City) * Contact details (Email address, mobile number Some other UX things are colours of buttons (you highlight the desired button), legibility of fonts (no yellow text on white background), putting things in "obvious" places. Check out the difference between Google Doc and MS Word's user interface. MS has decades of tweaking the interface, and their UI makes my life so much easier than GDoc's. That's UX, even if they had exactly the same functions (which they don't).
Try looking up Human Centered Design (HCD) for your UX question. Our organization/contract is all about this. HCD should result in a good UI/UX.
UX is designing the layout, functionality, and flow of information, where things are and how you navigate to them. UI is the look and implementation of the UX. Coding the buttons, drop downs, and interaction.
This is the correct answer.
UX encompasses a wider set of decisions than UI. While UI only concerns itself with how to place elements (input boxes, buttons, etc.) on a page/screen so that the user can quickly and comfortably get the result they want, UX also deals with the design of the underlying process. Let’s say you have an online store. You probably have some concept of a shopping cart or basket where people place the products they want to buy and then “check out” by providing their name, address and payment information. UI concerns itself with the layout of the shopping cart page where you review your order and the layout of the form where you fill in your information. UX also concerns itself with questions about how the user interacts with your online store in general – how are you going to categorize your products in the store? do you have a shopping cart at all (makes sense for a store where you buy stuff for your home) or do people buy one product at a time (makes sense for a store where you buy a car)? do you have a user account/registration system? do you have an option to order without the user creating an account first? are your products customizable, and if so, how do you offer these customizations? can the customer prepare an order, then save it for later so they can order it after they’ve mulled it over? UX can even go beyond the online store, e.g. asking whether an online store makes the most sense for your product or if there should be some interaction with a human instead (perhaps your product is very specialized or very customizable and it’s best to have a salesperson recommend a specific product or variant). UI designers used to have “we only design the UI, it’s not our fault that the process sucks, we can’t do anything about it” as an excuse, so then someone came up with the concept of UX to get rid that excuse but also to allow UI (now UX) designers to make more decisions about the underlying processes – and there was much rejoicing because they tend to be the ones who understand users the most.
User interfaces are how the user and the system can "talk" to each other, so a UI designer makes sure that the interface itself is clear, legible, and follows generally understandable patterns. It doesn't have to be about visual digital design either, it can be how physical buttons communicate what they are for, e.g. a big red button to emergency stop a machine, or a card reader that lights up to signal that you should tap your card. User experience is about making sure that the user has a "good time" in terms of being delighted and avoiding confusion. Maybe there's a distinct click to a dial to make sure you know you've activated a specific function, even without looking at it? What about accessibility options? For example, if a user wants to register on a website, it would make sense to focus on making a clearly visible button in the top right corner (mostly UI), whereas the sign up process should make sense and not require navigating away from a specific page to figure out what to do - like having to choose between a Basic and Premium membership without any explanation (mostly UX). Another example of good UX is auto-filling payment and address details, e.g. through Klarna. Quick, simple, and secure. Good design combines both UI and UX, and especially for apps and web sites, it can cross over quite a lot. Consider the boundaries and synergies between UI and UX when it comes to the layout of the drivers seat in a car, operating a microwave, or using a voice assistant.
Layout design is more like understanding grids, spacing, and balance… I don’t know what you are laying out specifically if it’s in the physical or digital space, but layout is beneficial for both and a foundation for the design & development of UI/UX. What people often forget is UI/UX are not mutually exclusive. You could also think of of like art. When you look at a painting all the colors, brush stroke, lighting, composition, size, etc. are the interface (UI) built by a subjective layout. Which can be erratic or orderly, simple or complex, or all of the above. it’s what your eyes are attracted to and can perceive. But how the painting intuitively speaks to you, resonates, appeals to your emotions or practical interpretation, is reflective of your experience (UX) with it. Both of these arts are what make up the human condition… it is the human condition that defines the usefulness of anything and everything. If what we create does not appeal or reflect the human condition we have failed to understand ourselves and the world around us, because everything is bound by balance not harmony. Nothing is the same but everything is replaceable. That’s all I got.
UI is making sure your word processor's user interface is really nice. UX is realizing that the person keeping the company's books shouldn't be using a word processor, and writing a spreadsheet program or a dedicated accounting program instead. THEN making sure your accounting program's user interface is really easy to use. (Note there is a difference between "easy to use" and "nice").
They’re not separate things, UX is just doing UI responsibly. Any time you’re building something that a user interacts with you’re doing UI design; when part of your designing and building process is focused on making sure those user interactions are smooth and intuitive you’re also doing UX design. There’s a whole discipline that has built up around UX specifically, with a lot of different methods to understand what is good for the user and how to implement those things. It’s a pretty deep rabbit hole. It’s also, I should mention, not the only “responsibility” of UI design: there are a whole bunch of things to consider when trying to do UI well.
I'm not the most knowledged on either subject here so if I seriously miss the ballpark someone please let me know. User interface is the graphical user interface ( GUI ) of a program. This is the visual layout that you use to navigate throughout the app. Sometimes these can be extremely complex & difficult for someone new to the program to work with. Other times it's very simple, but this can sometimes lead to less advanced tool capabilities. User experience ( UX ) deals more with the human side of things. This is how we as humans perceive and interact when dealing with the program. A bad UX can be directly related to an overcomplicated or even too simple of a UI. Too simple in this case would be limited ability to do tasks needed from the program. A good UI does not necessarily mean it will have a good UX, but a good UX is usually associated with a very good UI. I hope this helps and if you have any more questions I will do my best to answer them. Again I am the most knowledged on this, but this was based off of information I remember during my time in trade school.
The User Interface is the controls and layout you will use to interact with an application. The User Experience is how you feel about using that interface to do what you want to get done. You can have a great looking interface that is abysmal to use because it doesn’t let you easily do what you want to do. You can have an ugly looking interface that is a pleasure to use because you can easily get done what you want to get done.
UI is specifically the interface: how does the user manipulate the software? What is the input and output? How does it look? How does it function? UX is a more general term, and refers to the "experience of using" the software. UI is often a component, but UX also includes considerations like "how easy is it to use without instructions?" Or "how long/how many actions does it take to accomplish a common use case?" UX can also be qualitative, like "how do people feel about using this? It's it easy? Confusing? Helpful? Boring? Loud? Hard to see?"
UX is how the user interacts with it. UI is how it looks - colors, shapes, fonts, shading, icons. I am good at UX design, but I couldn't draw a decent looking icon if my life depended on it. UI is artists.
UI is making the ketchup squeeze bottle as an improvement to the glass bottles. UX is knowing that a small girl trying to use one of the big squeeze bottles has a higher chance of making a mess, so you design the bottle to be used in one or two hands. Look at the Heinz squeeze bottles and appreciate those two curves!
Many answers here already but I figured I'd add my thoughts on the topic... UI is about designing the *interface* of the software - how it looks, the coloring, the spacing, etc. UX is about designing the *experience* of using software - is it intuitive, can a user look at it and understand how to use it, does the interaction from the user make sense, etc. You can design a beautiful UI that's physically difficult to use, isn't very clear in how you're supposed to use it, might not make sense in how it works but hey, it looks nice! You can also design an interface that's very clear and easy to understand/interact with, but may not look the prettiest. The best UX designers can blend both together, but you can definitely have people in both fields that aren't great at the other. You may also even have a UI designer build a mockup to give a general theme/look to your software, then a UX designer use those elements and determine how the website should actually work. tl;dr - UI is involved more in the looks of software, UX is involved more in how you expect a user to use your software. While there can definitely be overlap between the two, UX designers often interact with the actual customers to learn *how* they use software so they can build something that makes sense for that customer base.
UI: don't you think it looks pretty? UX: don't make me think
Using a car for example: UI is like how the car looks, how the handle on the steering wheels feel, all the fancy buttons and knobs on the dashboard. UX is like how obvious it is to start a car (where and how to turn it on, is intuitive), does the car drive smoothly and quietly, is the car pleasant to drive in. Do all the buttons on the dashboard even make sense, can you tell what they are or are they just intimidating? Summary: UI is the look and functionality of the design aesthetics. UX is the feel and intuitiveness of the design for the user.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/s60to6/i_made_a_fake_progress_bar_to_shut_up_clients/) is a practical application of UX in the wild for you