How can usability contribute to user experience? A study in the domain of e-commerce

Abstract

Despite the accepted importance of User Experience (UX) as a concept related to and yet distinct from usability, there is still some ambiguity about the relationship between UX and usability. This paper aims to investigate the role of usability in contributing to a good UX in the rapidly-growing domain of e-commerce websites, where user experience is of paramount importance. We investigate this relationship by usability testing of participants’ interactions with four telecommunication websites and by a questionnaire survey on the user experience of the sites, conducted with the same participants. The complex, context-specific, subtle and subjective nature of UX makes it difficult to measure and design for UX. The contribution of the study is to mention particular usability aspects that influence attributes of UX as an approach towards demystifying designing for UX. The paper should be of interest to designers, developers and researchers in the field of usability and UX.