What is the Difference between User Experience (UX) and Usability?

UX which used to be ‘look and feel’ in the 90’s has taken on increased importance given today’s software applications. But what about usability? Is it the same thing? In a nutshell, no. Usability, as defined by ISO, reflects a user’s efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction in carrying out a specified task in a specified context of use. But, Bevan [1] examined the ISO 25010 quality standard [2] from the viewpoint of usability and user experience (UX) and regarded usability as performance in use with satisfaction relating to user experience. Hassenzahl [3] similarly classifies user experience in two categories, hedonic and pragmatic with hedonic referring to satisfaction in a broad sense while the pragmatic viewpoint deals with accomplishing tasks or doing things. So in summary, usability and UX are not equivalent. UX is a much bigger concept that includes satisfaction and other intangible elements. The diagram below shows this concept in a more graphical sense.

[1.] Bevan N. Classifying and selecting UX and usability measures, In Proc. of the 5th COST294-MAUSE Workshop on Meaningful Measures: Valid Useful User Experience Measurement, 2008.

[2.] ISO/IEC CD 25010 Software engineering -- Software product Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE) -- Quality model and guide, 2009.

[3.] Hassenzahl M; User experience (UX): towards an experiential perspective on product quality, IHM; V.339, Proc. of the 20^th Int’l Conference of the Assoc. Francophone d'Interaction Homme-Machine, pp 11-15, 2008.

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