Utility and Experience in the Evolution of Usability

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss the evolution of usability and its implications for usability research and practice. We propose that the concept of usability evolved from a narrow focus on individual performance to a more inclusive concept of experience and the collective. We address three major trends: cognition-performance, emotional-experience, and social context-experience which, together, seem to reflect those pervading the field of usability. We argue that the movement away from the strictly cognitive, performance-oriented concerns to embracing emotion and eventually social and cultural aspects can largely be attributed to two forces. One is a change in tasks, technologies, and the objectives of systems. The other is the realization that performance alone in the cognitive sense is not enough to account for the richness of phenomena influencing people’s interactions with technology. We then discuss the importance of aesthetics and emotion, and finally, usability in the context of collaborative and social computing.