Usability or User Experience?

RE: Usability or User Experience?

I've been thinking about these terms recently anyway, so when I came across this article, I knew that I wasn't the only one.

Usability used to be the umbrella term, but it's been replaced with 'user experience.' 'Usability' has come to mean easy to use and tends to be mostly focused on usability testing and making a product usable.

User Experience is a broader term which takes other factors into account: how people are using the tool or web site and the Brand. The article uses a great example of Apple products: I love them too! My iPhone is a joy to use and it does everything so effortlessly.

My job title is actually User Experience Specialist II. I like the sound of that. Not only am I just conducting research to understand user needs, I am helping design the experience of using the product or site.

I think we can all think more broadly about the application of user research to experience because then you're getting more towards user needs and goals and what's not only functional, but pleasurable to use.

A step closer to the Matrix

RE: Matrix-style virtual worlds 'a few years away'

Yup, you heard me... we're getting closer to the Matrix becomming a reality. That's kinda scarry, isn't it? With the brilliance of the Matrix Trilogy still in the back of my mind, it's a bit ironic that we're working towards even more photo-realism in virtual worlds.

Sure, the concept is cool. Who doesn't want to take a vaction on the beach for 5 minutes during an especially cold and rainy day at the office?

But one of the central messages of The Matrix is to break free from computer-mediated reality into REALITY. The real. I.e. not virtual.

I was reading a bit of Baudrilliard recently as well as some Emerson. I feel torn between the real and the imaginary, the virtual world of the internet and the real world of cities, the dream of living life on MySpace versus hiking in Nature.

OK, now don't freak out... I really don't want to live my life on MySpace, but for a lot of people, it's becoming the new social hangout.

I think the more we come back into reality and away from the virtual, the better off we'll be as a human race. I almost see this as a step back... regardless of how cool it is.

Moderation. Yeah, that's it. Let's just keep everything in moderation.