Importance of user experience aspects for different software product categories

Abstract

A good user experience is a must for modern software products. However, in software product design we have to often deal with conflicting requirements. A new software product feature may increase efficiency, but on the other hand decrease learnability of the product. Such types of conflicts often cause lengthy discussions, since it is often not clear which user experience aspect has the higher importance or priority for the software product. Thus, to make valid design decisions in such situations requires an understanding of the importance of different user experience aspects for different types of software products. We present a study that investigates the importance of 16 commonly used user experience aspects for a range of 15 common software product categories. The results show that the importance of the user experience aspects vary heavily between different product categories. Results can be directly used by product designers to derive some conclusions about the relative importance of different design requirements for their projects and thus help them to make good design decisions.