User experience (UX) is how a user interacts with and experiences a product, system, or service. It includes a person's perceptions of utility, ease of use, and efficiency. Improving user experience is important to most companies, designers, and creators when creating and refining products because negative user experience can diminish the use of the product and, therefore, any desired positive impacts. Conversely, designing toward profitability as a main objective often conflicts with ethical user experience objectives and even causes harm. User experience is subjective. However, the attributes that make up the user experience are objective.
Definitions According to Nielsen Norman Group, 'user experience' includes all the aspects of the interaction between the end-user with the company, its services, and its products. The international standard on ergonomics of human-system interaction, ISO 9241, defines user experience as a "user's perceptions and responses that result from the use and/or anticipated use of a system, product or service". According to the ISO definition, user experience includes all the users' emotions, beliefs, preferences, perceptions, physical and psychological responses, behaviors, and accomplishments that occur before, during, and after use. The ISO also lists three factors that influence user experience: the system, the user, and the context of use. Note 3 of the standard hints that usability addresses aspects of user experience, e.g., "usability criteria can be used to assess aspects of user experience". The standard does not go further in clarifying the relation between user experience and usability. Clearly, the two are overlapping concepts, with usability including pragmatic aspects (getting a task done) and user experience focusing on users' feelings stemming from both pragmatic and hedonic aspects of the system. Many practitioners use the terms interchangeably. The term "usability" pre-dates the term "user experience". Part of the reason the terms are often used interchangeably is that, as a practical matter, a user will, at a minimum, require sufficient usability to accomplish a task, while the feelings of the user may be less important, even to the user themselves. Since usability is about getting a task done, aspects of user experience like information architecture and user interface can help or hinder a user's experience. If a website has "bad" information architecture and a user has a difficult time finding what they are looking for, then the user will not have an effective, efficient, and satisfying search. In addition to the ISO standard, there exist several other definitions for user experience. Some of them have been studied by various researchers.
History Early developments in user experience can be traced back to the Machine Age, which includes the 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by the machine age intellectual framework, the quest to improve assembly processes and increase production efficiency and output led to the development of major technological advancements, such as the mass production of high-volume goods on moving assembly lines, high-speed printing presses, large hydroelectric power plants, and radio technology, to name a few. Frederick Winslow Taylor and Henry Ford explored ways to make human labor more efficient and productive. Taylor's research into the efficiency of interactions between workers and their tools is the earliest example that resembles today's user experience fundamentals. The term user experience was brought to wider knowledge by Donald Norman in the mid-1990s. He never intended the term "user experience" to be applied only to the affective aspects of usage. A review of his earlier work suggests that the term "user experience" was used to signal a shift to include affective factors, along with the pre-requisite behavioral concerns, which had been traditionally considered in the field. Many usability practitioners continue to research and attend to affective factors associated with end-users, and have been doing so for years, long before the term "user experience" was introduced in the mid-1990s. In an interview in 2007, Norman discusses the widespread use of the term "user experience" and its imprecise meaning as a consequence thereof. Several developments contributed to the rise of interest in user experience:
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