User Experience (UX) is a concept used nowadays probably more than the one of usability. In the 21st century, it has become a buzzword in the field of human-computer interaction and interaction design (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2011). According to EN ISO 9241-11:2018, UX is “a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use and/or anticipated use of a system, product or service”.  Thus, contrasting to usability, UX is even more subjective as UX is something that can be relevant even before the use of the system. Despite being highly subjective, or perhaps because of that, UX explains more of users’ preferences and usage of the system than usability. Furthermore, UX moves towards a more emotionally appealing relationship between the user and the product. Usability theories focus on pragmatic aspects of product use that are at least partly objectively definable; for example, task completion, efficiency, effectiveness, and ease-of-use. UX is more associated with vague, dynamic, and hard-to-quantify concepts, such as “experience,” “perception,” “pleasure,” and “emotions.” The main challenges related to UX can be divided to (1) designing a user experience that is pleasurable, engaging and stimulating, and appropriate in the user’s context, and (2) evaluating the UX and overall acceptability of the applications. (Olsson, 2013.)

UX is a dynamic concept; its quality is not, roughly stated, a matter of a moment but captured by how it changes over time (Harbich & Hassenzahl, 2016).  Thus, one should not trust on the evaluated UX at some point but reflect its possible change during the time of its usage and, in accordance with time, the possible changing needs and preferences. It is, however, found that more playful users lose their interest than the less playful ones (Harbich & Hassenzahl, 2016). Regarding BIMprove, this fact facilitates the development of interesting applications as the BIMprove users are professionals who need it in their work.

User experiences can be asked already in the concept phase to receive feedback of the concept from the usage point of view. UX can also be studied when the device or system in question has been used for a long time to, for example, find out, why that device or system is used, if its use is not obligatory (like tools for professional use). When UX is studied to guide design, user experiences can be collected to form UX goals and, based on them, UX vision. For example, in the study by Kaasinen et al (2021), it was identified that building ecosystem members, here, tenants, had the goals for a smart building such as ’Enjoyable’ (I enjoy working and living in this environment) and ‘Responsive’ (the environment knows my needs and reacts to them smoothly). The UX goals were combined to form the ultimate goal for design, the UX goal of ‘Feeling cared for and empowered as part of the community’ (Kaasinen et al., 2021).

To conclude, user experience is something that can be studied at any phase of a system development, starting from an idea, a concept or a mock-up and to a ready-made product. Studying user experience is not restricted to any specific aspect of the usage of the system, as long as there is the idea of the usage of that system included.

References

  • Harbich, S., & Hassenzahl, M. (2017). User experience in the work domain: A longitudinal field study. Interacting with Computers, 29(3), 306-324.
  • Hassenzahl, M., & Tractinsky, N. (2006). User experience-a research agenda. Behaviour & information technology, 25(2), 91-97.
  • Kaasinen, E., Aromaa, S., Halttunen, M., Jacobson, S., Lappalainen, I., Liinasuo, M., Nuutinen, M., & Turtiainen, R. (2021, February). User Experience Goals for Cognitive Systems in Smart Business Buildings. In International Conference on Intelligent Human Systems Integration (pp. 440-446). Springer, Cham.
  • Olsson, T. (2013). “Concepts and subjective measures for evaluating user experience of mobile augmented reality services.” In Human Factors in Augmented Reality Environments, eds W. Huang, L. Alem, and M. A. Livingston (New York, NY: Springer), 203–232.

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