A language to support UX design – Proposition of a lexicon, a chronicle model and a grammar

Jury

• Stéphanie BUISINE, Directrice de recherche, CESI, Rapporteure & Examinatrice
• Emilie POIRSON, Professeure des universités, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Rapporteure & Examinatrice
• Fabrice MANTELET, Maître de conférences HDR, Arts et Métiers ParisTech, Examinateur
• Pascal SALEMBIER, Professeur, Université de Technologie de Troyes, Examinateur

Abstract

The importance of user experience (UX) in design is increasingly recognized. This thesis aims to improve UX design practices carried out by multidisciplinary teams. These design activities involve actors with diverse specialties. The literature highlights that dialogues and languages play a central role in these design processes. The scientific literature on UX design resembles a Tower of Babel, with a multitude of definitions, models, and tools, but lacking a common language for design. We propose to improve UX design practices of design teams through a new UX design language. In multidisciplinary teams, this language should facilitate the establishment of a common framework among designers, both on the object of their design and on the areas for improvement in their practices. This language consists of three elements. The first is a UX lexicon, providing referential values to enable designers who conceptualize things differently or in a conflicting manner to discuss and understand each other. The second element is a model of UX chronicles, which allows for the graphical representation of UX design activities throughout a project. This model enables designers to adopt a reflective perspective on their practices through a shared graphical representation. The final element is a UX grammar, allowing designers to specify, imagine, and evaluate a UX through natural language statements organized and connected in diagram form. This tool enables designers to create shared objects for discussing design problems and their solutions, complementing other supports specific to their practices. These tools have been tested in an experiment, showing promising results in terms of usability and perceived interest. However, additional experiments on industrial cases are necessary to confirm the concrete benefits of these tools in practice.

Keywords

User Experience; Design activities; Design tools; Design language