Managing user experience - Managing change

Abstract

Interactive products with innovative user interfaces are being designed while the user interfaces of existing products are being improved. The changes in user interfaces are being prompted by the need to design products that are useful, usable and appealing for an enchanting user experience to the people using the products. It is harmoniously agreed within the user experience domain that a change in the user interface of a product consequently affects the user experience of the people who use the product. Furthermore, user experience practitioners and academics acknowledge that user experience evolves over time. Paradoxically, there is lack of strategies for managing user experience as it evolves, or when a new user interface is introduced. Change in user experience is a process that needs to be managed for a positive user experience to be attained. Literature is awash with models aimed at guiding and managing change implementation. On the contrary, most of the change management models are aimed at managing change in organizations while neglecting managing the user experience of the people to which change is introduced. At the time of writing this paper, no evidence was found of an existing model aimed at managing user experience, both in theory and practice. Following the aforementioned premise, the purpose of this paper is to propose theoretical requirements for managing user experience of the people using interactive products. The paper commences with a conceptual background synthesis of related domain components required for managing user experience. Thereafter, the requirements for managing user experience are determined. After-which the requirements are presented in a User Experience Management Requirements (UXMR) framework. The paper culminates with proposed future work. © 2013 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.