Understanding User Experience

As the need for information continues to drive the design and development process in society, understanding how one uses solutions is key. Interactions and the information they produce, drive how often and how successful an experience can be, knowing that each interaction may differ from another. User experience determines the quality of an interaction being used by an actor in order to achieve a specific outcome. The actor can have varying roles and evolving needs thus reviewing and predicting experiences are important. As an actor uses and gains feedback, the feedback guides individual and group behavior thus becoming pertinent to how interactions occur. This then questions how artefacts are designed to promote such interactions and what processes should be incorporated to ensure successful interpretation, use, physical reaction and conation. This chapter discusses the effects of user experiences today based on societal needs and expectations. It shows how the field is delineated into numerous sub-topics all of which can stand on their own yet, still draw from each other. The discussions will include fields such as cognitive science, human computer interaction, learning sciences and even ergonomics to show how design and subsequently interactions can assist in having successful user experiences.