---
title: "What Is User Experience?"
url: "https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/blog/what-is-user-experience"
language: "en"
description: "Utility, usability, desirability: what makes up user experience – and why even the best usability can't save a bad overall experience."
published: "2023-12-23T09:00:00+01:00"
updated: "2026-10-14T09:50:32+02:00"
---

# What Is User Experience?

Utility, usability, desirability: what makes up user experience – and why even the best usability can't save a bad overall experience.

After taking a detailed look at the question "What is usability?", today we're asking: what is user experience?

## What actually is a user experience?

The term user experience describes every aspect of a user's experience when interacting with a system, a product, or a service.

User experience is the broader approach. Usability is just one part of user experience. While usability mainly looks at the visual part of an application – the user interface – user experience takes into account all the services, processes, and connections between the company, product, communication, and branding. Developing an outstanding user experience means considering far more aspects.

**User experience brings together the following areas:**

- Utility: Is the product/system useful?
- Usability: Is the product/system easy and intuitive to use?
- Desirability: Does the product/system look good? Does it feel good?
- Brand experience: Is the overall impression of the product's/system's brand good and coherent?

Just like usability, the term user experience is defined in a DIN/ISO standard.

DIN EN ISO 9241-210 defines user experience as a person's perceptions and responses resulting from the use or anticipated use of a product. This includes the user's emotions, psychological and physiological responses, as well as their expectations and behavior. User experience is understood as a consequence influenced by a product's design, functionality, and performance characteristics. The characteristics and prior knowledge of the individual user also play a role. So do brand perception and the context of use.

The 3 criteria mentioned above (utility, usability, and desirability can be measured. There's a range of different testing methods for that. We'll take a closer look at them in separate articles.

### The difference between usability and user experience, illustrated with an example:

Lisa gave her boyfriend Manuel a voucher for a weekend at the Nürburgring racetrack. Manuel was thrilled when he unwrapped it. That same evening, he went to the voucher provider's website and signed up. It went quickly and without a hitch. He just typed in the voucher code and could pick a date for his weekend. Submitted, confirmation email arrived, done. Manuel went to bed happy. The next morning, he woke up to an email in his inbox. Subject: Booking canceled – Weekend at the Nürburgring.

Manuel's booking had been canceled due to overbooking. The email included a link where Manuel could pick a new date. He visited the website again. It had remembered his details and immediately suggested new dates. Unfortunately, none of them worked for Manuel, because he was away on a work assignment on the free weekends. So now Manuel wanted to exchange the voucher. A clearly visible button said: "Exchange voucher". Clicking the button opened a contact form. Manuel entered his details and his message and clicked "Send". After two weeks without hearing back from the provider, Manuel decided to call the hotline. After the first 20 minutes on hold, the call dropped. On his second call, after 40 minutes on hold, he actually reached a support agent. The agent confirmed they'd received his request and resolved the problem on the spot. Instead of a weekend at the Nürburgring, Manuel is now spending a weekend at the Hockenheimring. But by now, all his excitement has evaporated.

Even though the website and support did an excellent job, the overall user experience of the process was unsatisfying. Usability: top. User experience: flop.

## Conclusion:

User experience determines whether a product succeeds or not. Even the best usability can't make up for a bad user experience. User experience is the combination of utility, usability, and desirability. Only when all three are achieved is the user experience good.