A Framework for Understanding, Communicating and Evaluating User Experience Potentials

Designing positive User Experiences with products enables the creation of unique selling propositions. Interdisciplinary design teams need feasible methods to deal with UX factors in design processes. But conventional design tools are not focused on analyzing the holistic influencing factors: User Experience goes beyond usability, considers time periods before, during and after the actual interaction, includes hedonic aspects and is dependent on intangible factors like subjective characteristics of the user. Existing UX approaches range from the emergence of emotions to the fulfillment of psychological needs, making it hard to understand and consequently design products that facilitate positive experiences. The UX framework is introduced to face these challenges by integrating the main theoretical models of User Experience Design in a pragmatic tool – enabling a common understanding, communication and evaluation of User Experience potentials. The paper defines the structure and elements of this framework and suggests a process for applying the framework in product development projects.     «

Designing positive User Experiences with products enables the creation of unique selling propositions. Interdisciplinary design teams need feasible methods to deal with UX factors in design processes. But conventional design tools are not focused on analyzing the holistic influencing factors: User Experience goes beyond usability, considers time periods before, during and after the actual interaction, includes hedonic aspects and is dependent on intangible factors like subjective characteristics...     »