ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses fundamental issues of User Experience (UX). Its aims to present the state of knowledge on the nature, characteristics, and process of UX. The chapter focuses on experiences involving system use, whether active or passive. The active experience is regarded as the core of UX, the actual interaction, while the passive experience usually folds into the UX as part of the expected UX. By the end of the 1990s, in reaction to the limits of usability and in search for positively motivating factors, a large field of research has developed to better understand the impact of non-instrumental qualities of systems and personal factors that affect the UX. The user engagement applies to all three types of systems: non-interactive, adjustable, and interactive. The chapter explains how each of the following terms relates to UX: user, system, activity, context, granularity, expected UX, in-progress UX, overall UX, extrinsic and intrinsic goals, instrumental and non-instrumental qualities.
