UX vs CX vs Academic Research: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters

If you’re navigating research, design, or organizational strategy, you’ve likely heard of User Experience (UX) and Customer Experience (CX). These terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but doing so obscures important differences that influence how we approach user journeys, client relationships, and research outcomes.

At Bernatchez & Company, we bridge these concepts with the tools of academic research. Here’s how they connect, and why that distinction is important.

UX: A Task-Oriented Experience

User Experience (UX) is all about how people interact with a specific product, service, or system and how they feel during those interactions. UX design aims to reduce friction, improve usability, and spark emotional connection. It’s concerned with both functionality and the emotional narrative that surrounds it.

“By definition, usability is all about developing products efficiently, effectively and to the highest satisfaction of the customer […] However, these three properties should not only be applied to products, but also extended to services and processes to create and design holistic experiences.” (Robier, 2016, p. 13)

UX goes beyond surface-level usability and includes every step the user takes, from pre-engagement to post-use evaluation. It’s about designing for intuitive flow and simplicity, while triggering emotions that make a product or service memorable. The UX value creation model below (Figure 1) illustrates how usability and user experience contribute to long-term business value (Robier, 2016, p. 13).

Figure 1. UX value creation model. Adapted from Robier, J. (2016). UX redefined: Winning and keeping customers with enhanced usability and user experience (p. 13). Springer. Used under fair dealing for review and educational purposes.

UX typically unfolds in three stages: before, during, and after use. These moments shape how the user defines the interaction from, for instance, the clarity of your online booking form to the feeling they get from an onboarding session.

CX: The Full Journey With Your Organization or Business

Customer Experience (CX), by contrast, is more holistic. It includes all interactions with your brand not just the interface or the product, but also the emotions, memories, and meanings people associate with your service over time.

CX is more than usability, it’s strategic. It affects customer loyalty, word-of-mouth, and long-term engagement.

Gustafsson et al. (2024) describe CX as involving both individual encounters and the overall evaluation of interactions with a company. It includes sensory, emotional, cognitive, physical, and social elements that are shaped by the customer’s identity, past experiences, and context.

Customer experience (CX) refers to the spontaneous and instinctive reactions customers have to a company’s offerings. It involves multiple dimensions—thinking, feeling, physical interaction, sensory input, and social connection—and it continuously changes as customer responses evolve over time. (Gustafsson et al., 2024, pp. 336-38)

Think of UX as how your client experiences a specific interaction, like navigating a form. CX is how they feel about your entire business from your website’s tone to your follow-up emails to the overall clarity of your coaching or research process.

Academic Research: More Than Just a Method

Unlike UX and CX, academic research isn’t a customer-centered practice, it’s a critical and interpretive lens. It invites deeper questions: What assumptions underlie the labels we use, user, client, expert by experience? What power dynamics are built into our language?

In his article What’s in a Name?, McLaughlin (2009) explores how the terms used to describe people who receive social work services (e.g., health and social care)—like client, consumer, service user, or expert by experience—are far from neutral.

Each label reflects underlying assumptions about identity, authority, and the nature of the relationship between professionals and recipients. These terms can either reinforce or challenge hierarchies of expertise and legitimacy.

Commonly used terms such as service user oversimplify complex experiences and can inadvertently reinforce power imbalances. Instead of settling on a single, flawed term, we should embrace more reflective and inclusive language—ideally shaped by those directly affected (McLaughlin, 2009).

Academic frameworks help us unpack the implicit values in CX/UX discourse. For example, “user” might imply neutrality, but it’s not a neutral term because it carries assumptions about authority, access, and legitimacy.

Toward HX: A Broader Frame

Today, many researchers and practitioners are moving beyond UX and CX to embrace a broader concept: Human Experience (HX). HX integrates the cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions of both UX and CX—while keeping lived experience and justice at the forefront.

As Gustafsson et al. (2024) report the core definition of HX which encompasses “the totality of each person’s experience with service systems as they seek to meet their basic human needs across their life journey” (p. 346). HX reminds us that people are more than users or customers: they are humans, with interdependent needs and multiple identities.

HX is the full range of a person’s interactions with service systems as they strive to meet basic human needs throughout their life. It reflects a holistic, evolving journey shaped by purpose, empathy, authenticity, and meaningful connection.

This is especially relevant in research, education, and public services, where clients are not just consumers: they are citizens, learners, humans with rights and stories. HX reminds us to center dignity, inclusion, and context in every design and strategy.

Why This Matters to You

If you’re designing services, conducting research, or building strategy, these distinctions matter. At Bernatchez & Company, we don’t treat UX, CX, and academic research as silos—we work at their intersection to offer insights that are not only intelligent but also just.

By aligning user needs, customer perceptions, and deeper human contexts, we help clients—from small business owners to institutions—build experiences that feel coherent, intentional, and meaningful.

References

Gustafsson, A., Caruelle, D., & Bowen, D. E. (2024). Customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX) and human experience (HX): Introductions, interactions and interdisciplinary implications. Journal of Service Management, 35(3), 333–356.

McLaughlin, H. (2009). What’s in a name: ‘Client’, ‘patient’, ‘customer’, ‘consumer’, ‘expert by experience’, ‘service user’—What’s next? The British Journal of Social Work, 39(6), 1101–1117.

Robier, J. (2016). UX redefined: Winning and keeping customers with enhanced usability and user experience. Springer.