Analyzing Multiple Aspects of User Experience

Recently, understanding the diverse aspects of a user has begun to be one of the critical research issues in product and system development processes. To develop products in a user-centered way, design processes requires a deeper understanding of a user's needs and a way to consistently incorporate those needs into the design process. In order to embed multidisciplinary viewpoints in a user-centered way throughout the design process effectively, the DIF Knowledge Management System (DIF-KMS) was developed. The DIF-KMS, which is applicable to user-centered research and analysis in the design development process, is based on the concept of the Design Information framework (DIF). DIF-KMS is a toolkit that can provide a common information representation platform for the design process. The tools in DIF-KMS support various activities in product and system development, from understanding user needs to evaluating system performance and testing usability. This research provides basic application guideline as to how user experience can be analyzed effectively using DIF-KMS in the design process: user observation, scenario analysis, and analysis using diagrams. This paper consists of three sections as follow: 1) Introduction of the DIF concept, 2) Basic tools in DIF-KMS, 3) Guideline of how DIF-KMS works for analyzing user experience Through this research, the potentialities of using DIF-KMS in the real design process are evaluated, and the further development plan to make DIF-KMS usable is established.