Solution – A product or a service that is used because it is wanted, needed, or otherwise required.
Solution provider – An individual or collective entity with a solution to offer.
User – The consumer of a solution; for example a customer, an employee, a member of an organization, an operator.
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Usefulness – A useful solution satisfies a user’s known and/or unknown functional needs. Usefulness is a solution’s functional value.
Usability – A usable solution removes functional obstacles that discourage a user’s acceptance of the solution. Usability is a solution’s ease-of-use value, or more accurately the absence of pain-in-the-ass anti-value. Ideally, usability is imperceptible, being essentially the absence of negatives.
Desirability – A desirable solution fosters a user’s goodwill toward the solution, emotional inclination to accept the solution. Desirability is a solution’s subjective value.
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User experience – A solution viewed from the perspective of the user. It signifies a user-empathic perspective on design: that the proper locus of design is not in the artifact itself but between the artifact and the one who uses it, in the experience the user has interacting with the artifact to satisfy a need or want. (In this sense user experience is form of practical idealism; see definition below.) The experience is not confined to the duration of the interaction, but also in how it is remembered and anticipated; nor is it confined to the artifact itself but into the user’s life, particularly to the effects of the interaction and to the entities perceived to be responsible for the effects, both good and bad.
On-brand user experience – On-brand user experience thinks not only about the design of the experience of a solution but also about how the experience with the solution will affect the experience of the provider of the solution and ultimately the enduring relationship between the user and the provider.
Experience is the conducting medium through which the brand flows. Brand is made visible through the graphic identity, articulated through messaging, expressed through voice and tone, demonstrated through prioritization and structuring of content and function, embodied through the feature set and given conduct and character through interaction design (a kind of body language).
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On-brand usefulness – An on-brand useful solution satisfies a user’s known and/or unknown functional needs in a way that enhances the usefulness of the solution provider, and naturally reinforces the user’s perception of the provider’s indispensability.
On-brand usability – A on-brand usable solution removes functional obstacles that discourage acceptance of both the solution and the provider’s other solutions, (ideally together as a single integrated system), and naturally reinforces the user’s perception that the provider is easy to deal with.
On-brand desirability – An on-brand desirable solution creates goodwill toward the solution that naturally extends to the solution provider.
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Empathy – The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. ORIGIN: Early 20th cent.: from Greek empatheia (from em– ‘in’ + pathos ‘feeling’)
Context – The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. ORIGIN: late Middle English (denoting the construction of a text): from Latin contextus, from con– ‘together’ + texere ‘to weave.’
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Idealism – Any of various systems of thought in which the objects of knowledge are held to be in some way dependent on the activity of mind. ORIGIN: late Middle English: via Latin from Greek idea ‘form, pattern,’ from the base of idein ‘to see.
Pragmatism – An approach that assesses the truth of meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application. ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from Greek pragma, pragmat– ‘deed.’
Perspectivism – The theory that knowledge of a subject is inevitably partial and limited by the individual perspective from which it is viewed. ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense ‘optics’ ): from medieval Latin perspectiva (ars) ‘science of optics,’ from perspect– ‘looked at closely,’ from the verb perspicere, from per– ‘through’ + specere ‘to look.’
Empiricism – The theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience. ORIGIN late Middle English : via Latin from Greek empeirikos, from empeiria ‘experience,’ from empeiros ‘skilled’ (based on peira ‘trial, experiment’ ).