Handbook of Usability and User-Experience

Research and Case Studies

Marcelo M. Soares, Francisco Rebelo, Tareq Z. Ahram, Marcelo M. Soares, Francisco Rebelo, Tareq Z. Ahram

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000436099
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Product Design

This volume of the Handbook of Usability and User Experience (UX) presents research and case studies used to design products, systems and environments with good usability and consequent acceptance, pleasure in use, good user experience, and understanding of human interaction issues with products and systems for their improvement.

The book presents concepts and perspectives of UX; it also discusses methods and tools that use requirements analysis activity elicitation, recording, and analysis to guarantee a good user experience. In addition, it introduces usability and UX in the automotive industry, usability and UX in a digital interface, game design and digital media, usability and UX in fashion design, and some case studies on usability and UX in various contexts in product design.

We hope that this second volume will be helpful to a larger number of professionals, students and practitioners who strive to incorporate usability and UX principles and knowledge in a variety of applications. We trust that the knowledge presented in this volume will ultimately lead to an increased appreciation of the benefits of usability and incorporate the principles of usability and UX knowledge to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of everyday consumer products, systems, and environments.

Section 1
Usability and UX Concepts and Implementations

1 UX Concepts and Perspectives – From Usability to User-Experience Design

Manuela Quaresma, Marcelo M. Soares and Matheus Correia

DOI: 10.1201/9780429343513-2

Contents

1.1 Introduction

1.2 From Human–Computer Interaction, Usability to UX

1.3 UX Concepts and Perspectives

1.3.1 UX as a Result of User Perception Interacting with a Digital Product or the Usability of a Digital Product

1.3.2 UX as a Result of User Perception Interacting with a Specific Product or Service

1.3.3 UX as a Design Process

1.3.4 UX as a Result of User Perception Interacting with Broad System

1.4 Concluding Remarks

Acknowledgments

References

1.1 Introduction

Nowadays, much has been said about user-experience (UX) as an attribute of a product or service intended to be offered. Many companies consider a good user-experience as one of the leading value propositions and work strategically to deliver it in the best way. However, the definition of what a user-experience is and how it affects people’s lives and companies’ businesses is still very plural. Some define the user-experience as a result perceived by the user of an interaction with a digital interface, considering as a fundamental part the usability of the interface (Falbe, Andersen and Frederiksen 2017, Brooks 2014, Tullis and Albert 2008, 2013). While others arrive at broader concepts, interpreting the user-experience as the totality of the perceptions a user has with an ecosystem, where the digital interface can be one of the parts included (Norman 2013, Kuniavsky 2010, Ou 2017, Hartson and Pyla 2019, Rosenzweig 2015). However, UX’s concept comes from a transition that the consumer society is going through, where digital technology has its essential role but is not the only factor.

The focus of consumer society is changing with time. We lived in the agrarian economy, the industrial economy and recently (and occasionally we still) the service economy. It is important to call attention to the fact that, in the last two decades, we are undergoing a transition to the experience economy, where consumption focuses on obtaining experiences (Pine and Gilmore 2020). Since the beginning of the century, studies suggest that experiential purchases (i.e., the acquisition of an event to experiences, such as a dinner, a day at the spa or a trip) make people happier than material purchases (i.e., the acquisition of tangible objects that someone wants to own, such as clothing and jewelry, a television or a computer) of equal value (Boven and Gilovich 2003; Carter and Gilovich 2010). Boven and Gilovich (2003, p. 1200) point out that experiential purchases make people happier because of at least three possibilities: “experiences are more open to positive reinterpretation,” “experiences are more central to one’s identity,” and “experiences have greater ‘social value’.”

Nonetheless, this interest of individuals in experiences is fostered by the society in which they live because it has gone through constant periods of economic prosperity and material wealth. Therefore, the conquest of positive events in their lives feeds these people’s well-being, and the greater demand for these events transforms these societies into Experience Society (Hassenzahl 2011). According to the author, if before it was necessary to go to places called exotic in favor of a search for experiences, today, the search is for simpler experiences, such as being with friends at a barbecue. The idea is to dissociate experience from an expense and slow down the day-to-day work, where much of the focus is to raise resources for their sustenance.

Experiences are inherently personal, unlike products that are factors or systems external to the buyer. Experiences exist only in the mind and memory of the person who has experienced them, whether on an emotional, intellectual, physical or spiritual level (Pine and Gilmore 2020). Thus, each experience originates from the event’s interaction with the individual and his/her mental state. So, it is impossible for two people to live the same experience. Even with products, it is possible to have good experiences. According to Rossman and Duerden (2019), the decision to purchase a product in the experience economy is no longer linked to how many features a product can have. Still, it is associated with what the product can do for the individual’s experiences. Both Hassenzahl (2011) and Hekkert and Schifferstein (2007) point out that the product or a device is a means that leads an individual to live an experience, allied to other factors inherent to the individual and the context in which he/she is located.

As a result, this change in people’s behavior towards their consumption emphases has attracted companies’ attention. In turn, they have placed a greater focus on “selling” the experience highlighting the quality or usefulness of their product or service. From the individual’s point of view, the experience is an experience. Regardless of how the individual realizes it, his/her focus is on what he/she will feel, reflect, take from that moment, store in his/her memory and what he/she will share with those close to him/her. However, it is essential for those who design the experience to distinguish how the individual experiences it. Therefore, the mediator of this experience with the individual (be it a service, a product or an event with which he/she will interact) defines how the designer will approach and shape the user-experience (Hassenzahl 2010). So, a successful design must place the user in the first place in relation to the mediator (product, service or event).

Moreover, it should be noted that with the advent of the Internet, new technologies have emerged as well as new ways of interaction of the individual with the (digital) world. Innovations have appeared in the areas of service and consumption, especially with e-commerce. In the beginning, this digital communication network was restricted to the few consumers with enough purchasing power to acquire a personal computer (PC) or a notebook, added to the costs of Internet plans. This situation was reversed with smartphones’ arrival that allowed greater access to the Internet for various economic classes. Therefore, as nowadays more people interact with digital interfaces, the industry sees as an opportunity the user-experience with these interfaces as a value proposition for its products. Thus, design as a process, especially the “human-centered design” is seen as the means to develop products and services focused on this experience (Norman 2013, ISO 2010).

In order to shape the user-experience, the industry is interested in the design professional who knows how to design for the user-experience (Quaresma 2018). In turn, he/she is called to develop the experience of technological interfaces and services, such as airline services, financial services (fintech – financial technologies) and startups’ proposals (focus on the service experience through technological means) (Farrell and Nielsen 2014, Quaresma 2018). So, what is understood about the concept of user-experience (UX)? What differs between usability and user-experience? What is the relationship between the two terms? This chapter aims to analyze the concept of user-experience, its origins and the various perspectives around this concept.

1.2 From Human–Computer Interaction, Usability to UX

In the evolution of interaction with technologies and at the beginning of what was concluded as the human–computer interaction (HCI) domain, we began to interact with the first computers, still very complicated and complex. Then we started using smaller and simpler computers, the personal computers (PCs), the laptops and, currently, we deal with a wide variety of interactive systems – notebooks, smartphones, tablets and smartwatches (Campbell-Kelly, Aspray, Ensmenger and Yost 2014). During this process, these human–machine communication interfaces have changed a lot (Hartson and Pyla 2012). It was a great novelty in the beginning and people were interested in what that technology could bring benefits to them; now, such technologies are already part of many people’s daily lives. We no longer tolerate poorly designed interfaces, especially in matters of usefulness, usability and experience of use.

Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) began to be considered an area of knowledge around the 1970s. It has its origins in ergonomics/human factors, in Cognitive Psychology, in Design and, obviously, in Computer Science. At first, issues related to interaction with hardware devices (Cathode-ray tube (CRT) terminals and keyboard), training, documentation (manuals) and text editors were dealt with, and then the focus became much more on interaction with the software in general (Hartson and Pyla 2012).

Before the consolidation of the term HCI, the area was called “human factors in computers,” in what refers to interaction with hardware and “human factors in software engineering,” in an approach more focused on interaction with the software. However, there is no way to separate one system from the other because where there is software, there is always hardware support. This includes its relationship with ergonomics/human factors, which is extremely strong, mainly in what concerns the research methods and analysis used in interface design, such as task analysis (Hackos and Redish 1998).

With the various studies that had been conducted in the domain of HCI since the early 1980s, together with the popularization of personal computers and the strong influence of Cognitive Psychology, the field of knowledge that we know today as “usability” (which was initially called “software psychology” by Shneiderman 1980) emerges. Understanding human behavior and performance in interaction, considering cognition, memory (short and long term), perception, attention and decision-making becomes fundamental for developing adequate solutions in communication between the human and the computer.

One of the most widely known definitions of “usability” is that of the International Organization for Standardization – ISO 9241-11 (1998), which defines it as “the extent to which a system, product or service can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.” Thus, after several attempts to define the term “usability,” the three most important metrics of usability – effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction – are specified: the first two being measured objectively and the third more subjectively, but still a result of successful achievement of the first two metrics (Brangier and Barcenilla 2003).

While usability metrics were being established, researchers in the domain of HCI (Shneiderman 1987, Norman 1988, Bastien and Scapin 1993, Nielsen and Mack 1994) worked and researched human–computer interaction issues through the interface, based on the theories and assumptions of Cognitive Psychology. The results of the studies led to what is very well-known in the field as principles, criteria and heuristics of usability, from renowned researchers like the ones mentioned above, Nielsen and Mack (1994) being one of the most well-known for his ten usability heuristics. Until today, all these principles are widely used in interface design and interaction design and are the basis for various methods of analysis and evaluation as well as are used to base guidelines for technologies and interactions of specific contexts – such as human–robot interaction (Campana and Quaresma 2017) and human–vehicle interaction (Harvey and Stanton 2013).

However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, new components beyond usability metrics began to be questioned, such as pleasure, emotion and affectivity in interaction (Norman 2005, Riley 2018, Pavliscak 2018). Since the usability satisfaction metric i...