What’s the difference between CX, UX and UI?

What is CX?

CX stands for customer experience. It’s the overall impression someone has of your brand, across every interaction, on any channel, from start to finish. That means everything from the first time they see your ad, to talking with customer service, to buying something and how they feel after they’ve made a purchase.

While UX focuses more on specific digital journeys, CX is much wider and looks at entire journeys. It includes things like emails, support chats, in-store visits, delivery experiences, and so on - basically, any moment when a person connects with your brand.

The main goals of CX are to:

• Make sure people have consistently good experiences however they interact with you

• Set yourself apart from competitors with a better service and experience

• Build brand trust, loyalty, and long-term customer relationships

The role of someone working in the CX will often involve things like:

• Mapping out the full customer journey, across all platforms and touchpoints

• Talking to customers and creating personas to understand their needs

• Understanding what customers want from your brand, what they care about, what frustrates them, and what keeps them coming back

• Bringing different teams together to make sure the customer experience lines up with business goals

• Improving things like overall communication and service levels

• Encouraging a customer-first mindset across the company

What is UX?

UX stands for user experience. It’s all about how people feel when they use a digital product, like your website or app. Are they finding what they need quickly? Is it easy to use? Does it feel simple? UX is actually part of the bigger CX picture - but it’s just focused on specific digital moments within that journey.

The main goals of UX are to:

• Help users get things done on websites and apps easily and efficiently

• Make interactions feel smooth and satisfying

• Be accessible and usable for everyone

The role of someone working in UX will include:

• Planning the experience for websites, apps, or other digital tools

• Getting a better understanding of user needs through surveys and interviews

• Organising content and creating user flows

• Sketching wireframes and building prototypes

• Running usability tests and improving designs and digital experiences based on feedback

• Using best practices and patterns to keep things simple and intuitive

• Working closely with UI designers, developers, and product teams to make sure the user stays front and centre as the digital experience is created

What is UI?

UI stands for user interface. It’s the part of the digital experience that people actually see and interact with - the layout, buttons, icons, colours, images and so on. While UX is about how something works, UI is about how it looks and feels on the screen. UX and UI go hand-in-hand - you need both to create a great digital product.

The main goals and role of a UI designer will include:

• Designs visuals like layouts, navigation and menus, buttons, imagery and animations, forms etc.

• Chooses fonts, and colours, and sets the overall visual style

• Create designs and high-fidelity prototypes

• Creates style guides to keep everything consistent

• Works with UX designers and developers to bring the digital experience to life

Bringing it all together

CX, UX, and UI each play distint roles in shaping how people experience your brand. CX covers the full journey - every touchpoint and interaction someone has with your business. UX focuses on how people feel when they use your digital products, and UI is all about how those products look and behave on the screen. They’re all connected, and when they work well together, they help you deliver better products, stronger customer relationships, and a more memorable brand experience.