Three terms that get tangled

If you spend any time in the product world, you’ll hear three words used almost interchangeably — UX, UI, and product design. They sound similar. They overlap. Different teams define them differently.

The overlap is real. The differences matter, though. Each describes a different layer of how a product comes together — and a different kind of work that needs to happen for the product to feel right.

You don’t need to be a designer to understand these distinctions. But knowing what each one means makes it much easier to decide what to focus on, what to delegate, and where the next chunk of effort should go.

UX: how the product feels to use

UX — user experience — is the broadest of the three. It’s the entire experience of using your product, from before someone si...

UX vs UI vs product design (what actually matters)