User Experience (UX)

Overview

Have you ever wondered how people get paid to test video games? They're UX researchers! User Experience, or UX, is defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as "a person's perceptions and responses that result from the use and/or anticipated use of a product, system, or service" [1]. In other words, UX looks at how users interact with products and how it makes them feel about said products.

UX vs. Usability

UX and usability are often seen as interchangeable terms, but in fact, they are slightly different. The current agreement among researchers is that UX is a subset of usability research, which takes methodology from usability but also has its own unique methodology. According to Nigel Bevan [2], there are three common measures specific to user experience:

1. Anticipated use

2. Pleasure

3. Frustration

MEasuring UX

A few prominent UX researchers have created a table that helps people understand the different kinds of UX and usability research [2, 3]. An image of this table can be found below*. See if you can find the three UX-specific measures mentioned above!

*Currently, this image is not described by alternative text. However, alternative methods are being explored to include the information in a more accessible way.

References

1. International Organization for Standardization. (2010). Ergonomics of human system interaction - Part 210: Human-centered design for interactive systems (ISO Standard No. 9241-201:2010, formerly 13407). https://www.iso.org/standard/52075.html

2. Bevan, N. (2009). What is the difference between the purpose of usability and user experience evaluation methods. In Proceedings of the Workshop UXEM (Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 1-4).

3. Ketola, P., & Roto, V. (2008). Exploring user experience measurement needs. In Proceedings of the 5th COST294-MAUSE Open Workshop on Valid Useful User Experience Measurement (VUUM). Reykjavik, Iceland (pp. 23-26).