Title

User Experience Design (UXD) -

Design of an entity, orchestrated around the user, considering all the impacts and consequences on the user's physical, mental and environmental settings.

User Experience is even not limited to how users feel using a system, it extends to the persisted experience and impacts also after the use. It includes real experiences which are impactful for a long time, rather than considering only the perceptual experience.

Now, the most difficult question is - Is UXD and UI Design same?

Answering it can not be as straight too.

User Interface Design involves the placement and detailed design of the widgets and elements on the screen. It includes the visual look and feel of the screen.

In terms of process, it most often includes the interface design and a visual design using a static prototyping tool.

While the scope of user experience design is much broader and it spans over the complete development process of the system/product. It typically includes a vast research, modeling, requirement analysis, framework set up and many more activities to add.

For a brief and clear distinction between UI & UX in terms of activities involved in both of them, refer  to uxisnotui.com.

All these terms have a different meaning and have different application area.

However, it is indeed true that there are overlapping areas among these domains, which creates  User Experience.

In order to have fair understanding of how these domains interact and collaborate with user experience, we can refer to

Dan Saffer’s  representation of user experience.

In order to practice user experience process appropriately, we need to embrace  some of the thumb rules set by the pioneers of this field.

• design is not a guesswork, it is a well defined logical & practical process to be followed for a better and happier world.
• 
  
• 
  
• sustainable design can be made
• 
  
• desirable by designers
• 
  
• viable by managers
• 
  
• capable by technologists.
• 
  
• 
  
• focusing on a fine balance of user goals, business requirements and technological constraints begets a good & sustainable design.
• 
  
• 
  
• ux is the key component to bring innovation into the development process.
• 
  

For more about UX in Enterprises, download the article UX in Enterprises.