Usefulness of long-term user experience evaluation to product development

Abstract

Understanding the temporal aspects of user experience ( U X ) h a s r e c e i v e d i n c r e a s i n g a t t e n t i o n i n t h e H C I community. However, little empirical evidence is available on how practitioners in product development companies evaluate the usefulness or actually use long-term UX evaluation data in their work. In this study, we explore how practitioners (e.g., managers, designers and UX specialists) evaluate the usefulness of long-term UX evaluation results to their own work. Three case studies were conducted with longitudinal and retrospective methods in a company developing interactive sports products. Our findings suggest that long-term UX evaluation provides results that are perceived as interesting, relevant and useful by practitioners. Potential uses for the results were e.g., verifying practitioners' expectations, planning future work, understanding changes in UX, the development of future products, and updating current software products. Future research should focus on how to provide long-term UX evaluation results in more efficient manner to benefit product development.

Evaluation of the usefulness of path of long-term user experience model in design process

“…While considering the user-related issues, user-centred approach can be followed from the very early stages of the design process with tools and techniques like personas and user journey maps (Han 2016;Hanington and Martin 2012). Yet designers still require inspirational sources for idea generation (Gonçalves, Cardoso, and Badke-Schaub 2014) and efficient ways to incorporate long-term user experience considerations in product development (Varsaluoma and Sahar 2014). In relation to the previous arguments, we agree with Verganti (2009) that, through products, the designer should present possibilities to users, by modelling the intended impact and being aware of the possible negative effects of usage, rather than forcing users toward one, predefined experience.…”

“…However, the researchers report that using cards in the idea-generation process sometimes results in reduction in the translation of ideas into meaningful product properties. To note, there are not many approaches that integrate considerations for (long-term) user experience into the design and product development process (Varsaluoma and Sahar 2014). This is the gap in literature we positioned our study in, through the development of a long-term user experience model and exploring how it can be utilised in the design process.…”

Heuristic Evaluation: Comparing Generic and Specific Usability Heuristics for Identification of Usability Problems in a Living Museum Mobile Guide App

“…This in turn will have impact on the UX, whether the short-term interaction between users and product only lasts for a short time or can be prolonged (e.g., [33][34][35]). The temporally bounded experience or temporality in UX have been discussed by the various researchers in the past (i.e., [33,[36][37][38][39][40][41]). The third perspective, which is beyond the instrumental, aims to create a more holistic computing system that takes human needs into consideration.…”

The peak–end rule in evaluating product user experience: The chronological evaluation of past impressive episodes on overall satisfaction

“…Traditional usability is a widely used criterion in usability labs for product operation assessment. However, as it is not feasible to assess the UX with the same approach, mid‐ and long‐term uses of the product remain essential (Varsaluoma & Sahar, 2014).…”