Usability and UX are often used interchangeably, but UX is more than usability. Yet, we’re always told as designers that usability is the most important thing.
But, we also know what it’s like to be a user. We know that the full user experience goes far beyond usability. Of course, it’s important, but it’s not everything.
It’d be like saying love is just about being the same species, not about personality, compassion and communication. UX is a lot like love – complex, but perfect when we work hard at it.
Usability Is Just The Foundation
Interaction Design Foundation explains usability best by saying it’s the “bare minimum requirement.” We always love when a product goes beyond just the bare basics, so why should UX stop at usability?
All that wonderful stuff that we love about a website, app or product is what happens when a UX designer decided to go beyond the basics and give the user a full experience. Think of it like a rollercoaster. One small hill would make the rollercoaster usable, but who would want to ride that? It’s all those loops, upside down segments and speed that create an experience.
Learnability Is Equally Important
Some experts argue that learnability is just as important, if not more so than usability. Learnability is what makes the difference between quickly adapting to a product versus grabbing a hammer in frustration. Think of it like the difference between Windows 7 and Windows 8. Both systems are usable, but Windows 8 was so different than many users instantly hated it because it was so much harder to learn.
Emotional Experiences Matter Too
We’ve all used a product or app that elicited an emotional response from us. Maybe a photo sharing app brought us closer to family who lived far away. Or maybe a board game was designed specifically to get a teen talking and laughing with parents.
UX is more than usability. It’s about an entire experience, which means emotions too. While every UX design doesn’t have to elicit laughter or tears, it should at least make a user feel something. Even if it’s just relief that the weather app alerted someone about an upcoming rain shower so they could grab an umbrella, that’s part of the experience.
Desirability Gives UX An Edge
Desirability may not sound like something related to UX design, but it’s one of the four basic UX levels as defined by the Nielson Norman Group Conference in 2008. This element is kind of an advanced UX concept and it’s the one thing that can set extremely similar products apart.
This element is what makes us want Product A over Product B, even if they’re technically the same. For instance, a startup company may be struggling, but let a well-known brand take over and suddenly, everyone wants to interact with that company’s products.
Desirability gives the user experience an edge over the competition. It’s some small aspect that makes it stand out and makes users want it over anything else. For instance, let’s take weather apps for a moment. In a sea of apps, the first app to add real-time weather alerts for the current GPS location make that app more desirable because it created a better UX.
Usability Means Nothing Without Value
It doesn’t matter how usable a UX design is if it’s not valuable to the user. Stay up and watch some late-night infomercials and it’s easy to see which products went with usability only and which ones considered the value aspect.
Think about cars. We could buy the cheapest car possible as long as it runs. The car may not have heat and air or the engine might sound like it’s in pain every time we crank it, but it’s usable because it gets us from Point A to Point B.
Or, we could buy a car that costs a little more and makes the ride more comfortable. The car has newer parts, which means it should last far longer, making it more valuable to us.
This is also where UX research is important. It helps us as designers figure out if the experience we’re trying to create is actually valuable to the user or not.
UX is more than usability. Think of it like cooking. We could just eat a plain piece of chicken. Or we could add some spices, a few sides and bake a cake for dessert for a great meal. So, usability alone is plain chicken. UX is a great meal that makes our mouths water.
Images: Ben White, Danielle MacInnes, Josh Felise, Fabian Blank