The user experience
User experience, often abbreviated UX, is a term used to describe the overall experience and satisfaction a user has when using a product or system. It most commonly refers to a combination of software and business topics, such as selling over the web, but it applies to any result of interaction design. Voice User Interface (VUI) systems, for instance, are a frequently mentioned design that can lead to a poor user experience.
The designers
This field has its roots in human factors and ergonomics, a field that since the late 1940s has been focusing on the interaction between human users, machines and the contextual environments to design systems that address the user's experience. [2] The term also has a more recent connection to user-centered design principles and also incorporates elements from similar user-centered design fields:
* Human computer interaction
* Information architecture
* Interaction design
* Interface design
* User interface design
* Usability
* Usability engineering
* Visual design
As with the fields mentioned above, user experience design is a highly multi-disciplinary field, incorporating aspects of psychology, anthropology, computer science, graphic design and industrial design. Depending on the purpose of the product, UX may also involve content design disciplines such as communication design, instructional design, or game design. The subject matter of the content may also warrant collaboration with a Subject Matter Expert (SME) on planning the UX.
The design
At its core, user experience design incorporates most or all of the above disciplines to positively impact the overall user experience with a particular system or device. User experience design defines a sequence of screen presentations, user interactions, and system responses that meet user goals and tasks while satisfying business and functional requirements.
Typical outputs include:
* Wireframes (screen blueprints or storyboards)
* Prototypes
* Written specifications that describe the design....
Benefits
User experience design is integrated into software development and other forms of application development in order to inform feature requirements and interaction plans based upon the user's goals. The benefits associated to integrating these design principles include:
* Reducing excessive features which miss the needs of the user
* Improving the overall usability of the system
* Expediting design and development through detailed and properly conceived guidelines
* Incorporating business and marketing goals while catering to the user
User experience design. (2007, December 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 09:05, December 23, 2007,
from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_experience_design&oldid=179106601
