UX VS. CX DESIGN: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
User Experience design is a tree that’s constantly growing and shifting to accommodate to the evolving the world around it. Which results in a big tree that’s home to many branches; each with their own skillset, responsibilities, names/ acronyms, and job titles that all seem pretty close in meaning— until you have 12 tabs open trying to figure out which one you need to support your latest project. Or on the flip side, until you’re sitting in an interview and feel the daunting realization that your ux bootcamp didn’t cover calculating customer acquisition costs and you have no idea what the interviewer is talking about.
One of those branches (where knowing the ins and outs of CAC would be pretty important) is Customer Experience Design, or CX. You might be thinking, isn’t the user the customer? Those are the same thing right? The answer is…. sometimes.
The perceived difference between the two can be explained by thinking about it like this:
User Experience designers are focused on the end users (aka the people who will one day experience their designs). So, if I were designing a kids game as a user experience designer I would be concentrating my efforts on everyone who will eventually play my game- so primarily kids. My designs would be informed by the goals, behaviors, interests, feelings and logical/emotional capacity of kids in the target age-range of the game.
On the (sometimes) other hand, Customer Experience Designers are focused on the customer, specifically the person who would be purchasing their designs. Oftentimes the customer is the user, but the distinction shines with something like the kids game. As a Customer Experience Designer, my perspective approaching the kids game would be focused on the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or care-giver’s goals and interests and all that— because kids can play games but they can’t buy them. A CX designer would be more focused on the attributes that would influence the likelihood of the game being purchased rather than focusing on the kid’s experience playing with the toy.
With an example such as this one, it might make sense to have a UX designer and a CX designer work together to develop a marketing strategy that reaches both the users (the kids) and the customer (the care-givers).
That’s all. It’s a marginal difference that isn’t relevant most of the time, but I hope it helps to illustrate when it might be necessary.
For a dive into why UX has so many names, check this out. We’ll be conducting a weekly series breaking down all of the branches and what makes them different, be sure to check back or scroll a little bit and sign up to stay in the loop.
