You’ve probably heard/asked the question many times: What is User Experience? Ask it to a 100 people, and you’ll get 100 different answers.
If you look at the job roles in the industry, UX is related to the user research and design of digital products, in particular websites and mobile apps. So it’s understood as a discipline, like Graphic Design or Project Management.
User Experience (UX) involves a person's behaviours, attitudes, and emotions about using a particular product, system or service. User Experience includes the practical, experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human–computer interaction and product ownership. Additionally, it includes a person’s perceptions of system aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency.(Quote from the Wikipedia)
I don’t think User Experience is a discipline, but a way to define the quality of a product.
I’ve said many times that UX happens whether you want it or not. It’s like quality, can be good or bad. You take care of many details and that increases a product’s quality.
When you design a product, you may create a great User Experience, that’s a quality that defines it. But you’re never doing UX. You’re designing to create a great UX.
You can study a product’s User Experience, though, so in that sense UX is more related to research than design. The understanding of an audience’s behaviour and needs, the study of a user journey, the different touch points your customers interact with your business, all that is the study of a particular User Experience. It’s the ammunition you use to create something better.
If you’re creating something, if you’re solving a challenge and exploring new solutions, you’re not UX’ing, you’re designing.