What is a user interface (UI)?

UI and UX

The interface is what the user sees and touches. The experience is what happens as a result, including everything the interface is a surface for.

A beautiful interface over a badly-designed flow is a common and expensive outcome, because interface quality is visible and flow quality is not. The reverse — an unremarkable interface over a well-designed flow — is usually the better product.

What a conversational interface changes

A graphical interface presents options: the user sees what is possible and chooses. A conversational interface presents nothing, and the user has to know what to ask.

That inversion has real consequences. Discoverability is the central problem, since capability is invisible until described. Precision is harder, because natural language is ambiguous where a control is not. And error recovery is different — a wrong result requires re-explaining rather than pressing back.

It is also why suggested prompts exist, and why they are commercially interesting: they are the discovery mechanism the interface otherwise lacks, which is what makes a sponsored prompt a native format rather than an intrusion.

Advertising in a conversational interface

• No slots. There is no fixed region to sell — see prompt inventory.
• No creative assets. The assistant renders in its own voice from structured input.
• Interruption is more costly, because the interface holds attention completely during a response.
• Disclosure has to be constructed, since the medium provides no natural separation between content and advertising — see native advertising.