We'll talk about the seven factors that describe user experience.
User experience, or UX, is critical
to the success or failure of a product in the market.
But *what* do we mean by UX?
All too often, we confuse UX with usability.
which describes *how easy* a product is to use.
It's true that UX as a discipline began with usability.
But UX has grown to accommodate much more than usability.
And you need to pay attention to *all* aspects of the user experience
if you want to deliver successful products to market.
According to Peter Morville,
a pioneer in the UX field who has written several bestselling books on UX,
there are seven factors that describe user experience:
Useful,
Usable,
Findable,
Credible,
Desirable,
Accessible
and Valuable.
Let's take a look at each factor in turn
and what it means for the overall user experience.
The first factor of user experience is Useful.
You only want to bring a product to market if it's useful
and has a purpose for its target customers.
If the product has *no* purpose, it's unlikely to be able to compete for attention
on a market full of purposeful and useful products.
If we take a simple example like a car,
the primary purpose for most people is if they can drive it where they need to go.
A car that can't drive isn't useful.
It's worth noting that *useful* is in the eye of the beholder.
And we also call products "useful" if they deliver *non-practical* benefits
such as fun or aesthetic appeal.
So, a computer game or a sculpture may be deemed useful
even if they don't enable a user to accomplish a goal that others find meaningful.
*Usable*, or Usability,
is about enabling users to effectively and efficiently achieve
their end objective with a product.
Products can succeed if they're not usable,
but they're *much less* likely to do so.
Besides giving you a competitive advantage, a high level of usability
can also make a huge difference in the safety and comfort of use.
Cars are a good example of a context where everything
you interact with must have a high level of usability.
So, we can keep our focus on driving while changing stations on the radio.
*Findable* refers to the idea that the product must be easy to find.
If you're working with digital and information products such as webpages,
the content within them must be easy to find, too.
Music- and video-streaming services with millions of files
are extreme examples of the importance of designing for findability.
If Netflix users can't find something they're in the mood for on a Friday night,
it doesn't matter how much great content is hidden beneath the surface.
They'll stop using the service.
*Credibility* relates to the ability of the user
to trust in the product that you've provided
– not just that it does the job that it's supposed to do,
but that it will last for a reasonable amount of time
and that the information provided with it is accurate and fit for purpose.
It's nearly impossible to deliver a good user experience
if the user thinks the product creator is lying or has bad intentions.
They'll take their business elsewhere instead.
In 2015, when it was discovered that
Volkswagen had rigged the software of millions of diesel cars to cheat on emissions tests,
it not only cost them up to $30 billion in damages,
but they also lost customer trust and a huge part of the U.S. market share
that they're still struggling to regain.
That's an extreme example of what a loss in credibility will do.
But even if you don't commit fraud, you should always ensure
that your product lives up to what it promises.
*Desirability* is conveyed in design through branding,
image, identity,
aesthetics and emotional design.
The more desirable a product is,
the more likely it is that the user who has it will brag about it
and create desire in *other* users.
To understand desirability, think of a Skoda and a Porsche.
They're to some extent both useful, usable, findable,
accessible, credible and valuable.
But, for most people,
Porsche is much more desirable than Skoda.
That's not to say that Skoda is undesirable.
They have sold a lot of cars under that brand.
But given a choice of a new Porsche or Skoda for free,
most people will opt for the Porsche.
Accessibility is about providing an experience
which can be accessed by users of a full range of abilities.
This includes those who are disabled in some respect,
such as hearing loss,
impaired vision,
motion impaired
or learning impaired.
Doing interface design for accessibility means
that you use colors which color-blind people can see,
that text is legible even for people with low vision and so on.
Sadly, accessibility often gets lost in the mix when we create user experiences.
Design for accessibility is sometimes seen by companies as a waste of money
because the impression is that people with disabilities make up a small segment of the population.
But even if you don't want to design for accessibility just to be a good person,
it's worth remembering that when you design for accessibility,
you'll often find that you create products that are easier for *everyone* to use,
not just those with disabilities.
Don't neglect accessibility in the user experience.
Finally, accessible design is now a legal obligation
in many jurisdictions, including the E.U.
And failure to deliver it may result in fines.
Finally, the product must deliver *Value*.
It must deliver value to the business which creates it
and to the customer who buys or uses it.
Without value, it's likely that any initial success
of a product will eventually be undermined.
A product can provide value to different users in different ways.
For some users, desirability is more important
than accessibility and vice versa.
That means that the value factor is really *the sum*
of all the different factors of *user experience* combined.
In this video, we've taken you through Peter Morville's 7 Factors of User Experience.
What they show is that the success of a product
depends on more than utility and usability alone.
Products which are usable, useful,
findable, accessible,
credible, valuable and desirable
are much more likely to succeed in the marketplace
*and* bring joy to their users.