Blog – Aditya Khurana

Who are usability’s cousins

Ever wondered what is the difference between these similar terms: Usability, User Experience (UX), User-Centric Design (UCD), Human Factors, Human Computer Interaction, Accessibility and Information Architecture. The video by Dr. Pete on usereffect.com explains these terms.

Usability is the science of making technology work for people. Usability helps make interface between people and technology seamless.

Usability’s Cousins

1. User Experience (UX) – same as usability

2. User-Centric Design (UCD) – focuses on building usability into the early stages of development process (even before the website is created)

3. Human Factors / Ergonomics – comes from engineering and is concerned with usability of machines

4. Human-Computer Interaction – comes from computer science and is human factors applied to computer hardware and software

5. Accessibility – related to usability but focuses on making things usable for people with special needs

6. Information Architecture (IA) – focuses on organizing information in building software and websites that are constructed in logical way

Watch Video here>>