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That awful UI vs. UX ketchup meme
The infamous UI vs. UX ketchup bottle meme makes its rounds in the tech community every few months or so, and many UI and UX designers resent this oversimplified meme.
At face value, this meme appears to be a quick and easy tool for educating the general public about what the differences are between UI and UX. You might look at the attractive glass bottle labeled “UI” and understand that UI might have to do more with aesthetics. The less attractive but easier to use plastic bottle labeled “UX” is meant to be stored upside down, making it easier for the user to squirt out ketchup, rather than having to smack the bottom of the glass version. This gives the average person the impression that UX might be more about the actual functionality of a product.
The most obvious issue with this meme is that it boils down an entire field of study down to a simple image. UX and UI are complex and multifaceted, with a lot more nuance than this image suggests.
If we then start to look into the history of Heinz ketchup and their packaging design, we can start to see how the UX vs. UI meme starts to fall apart even more.
A brief history of Heinz packaging design
The glass bottle labeled “UI” was created at a much earlier point in history than the upside-down ketchup bottle. As Heinz has grown and developed as a company over the years, so too has its packaging design and the ketchup product itself.
In 1890, the first iconic Heinz glass ketchup bottle was designed and released to the public. The most innovative thing about the attractive glass container was that it allowed consumers to see through the packaging and look at the product inside.
Over the next century, the ketchup bottle went through several rounds of innovation. In 1970, Heinz created a 32-ounce ketchup bottle which contained much more product than its predecessors.
The first squeeze tube from Heinz came out in 1983 when the company created a funny green ketchup marketed towards kids.
It was the popularity of this easy-to-use packaging that lead Heinz to create the upside-down…
