With the growth of ‘user experience’ as an emerging concept in web design and development, we first need to understand how its application differentiates from and is superior to the general concepts of functionality and design itself. In his prominent book The Elements of User Experience, Jesse James Garrett, has shared that the fundamental difference which ‘user experience’ provides is the application of context of a particular design element (in relation to the other elements of the product), driven by an understanding of the psychology and behavior of users themselves rather than a stand-alone focus on design or form.
In the book, there is an interesting example about the user experience of a coffee-maker button. According to Jesse, aesthetic design is what ensures that the button on the coffee-maker has an appealing shape and texture while the functional design makes certain that it triggers the appropriate action. User experience, on the other hand, relates to how the aesthetic and functional aspects of the button work in context with other parts of the product, if the button is placed correctly, and is of the requisite size in relation to the rest of the machine, etc.
User experience thus takes into account the knowledge and understanding of visitors to the site, their motivations and attitudes, and the quality of engagement which the marketer would want the user to experience and remember once he has been on the site.
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