User Experience

By combining communication science with learning theories in the context of interacting with a product or system, we arrive at the discipline of User Experience (UX). The focus of UX is the overall experience of a user when interacting with a product or system. Most often it is associated with software and web applications, but it really applies to any interaction between a user and some kind of technology - which could include autos, toasters...just about anything. UX is inherently interdisciplinary, synthesizing methods, techniques, and knowledge from many sources, ranging from brand design to cognitive psychology to architecture and more.

For UX, the basic questions asked are:
• Who is the user?
• What are they trying to accomplish?
• How do they accomplish this while using this technology?
• What is their overall experience while interacting with this technology?

Using the fundamental principles of user-centered design (UCD) product development is guided by understanding the goals, needs and experiences of real users. Using a user-centered perspective, developers attempt to balance the users' needs with business goals and technological capabilities and limitations. As the study of User Experience has evolved, it has enveloped the knowledge and efforts of many disciples:

1. Usability Engineering - A subset of human factors specific to computer science and is concerned with the question of how to design software that is easy to use.
2. Human-Computer Interaction - The processes, dialogues and actions of a user with a computer.
3. User Interface Design - Designing the method of interaction between users and information systems.
4. Interaction Design - Examines the role of behaviors and intelligence in physical and virtual spaces as well as the convergence of physical and digital products.
5. Information Architecture - The process of creating clarity and human understanding through the organization of information.
6. Industrial Design - Addresses the aesthetics and usability of products.
7. Graphic Design - Use of graphic elements and text to communicate a concept.
8. Knowledge Visualization - Visual representations used to transfer knowledge.
9. Cognitive Psychology - Study of the workings of memory, attention, perception, knowledge representation, reasoning, creativity and problem solving.
10. Learning Theories - Development of structures, processes, and representations that mediate between instruction and learning. •