What is the difference between UX and Usability? While UX focuses on the entire experience of a user’s interaction with the company and its product, usability is defined as the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use. In other words, usability is part of the user experience but concerns itself with the actual product and looks at how easy to use and pleasant to use the product is.
Example:
John wants to download an app for planning his weekly meals. He searches online for a suitable app and reads about it on their website. Liking the features, John installs the app on his phone and starts to plan out his meals. He stumbles upon a problem and promptly contacts the support hotline. They manage to answer all his questions to his satisfaction.
User experience: Reading about the app on their website, installing it, planning out his meals in the app, and contacting the support.
Usability: Using the features in the app to plan and add meals.
Typically, good usability goes unnoticed because the product acts exactly the way the user expected it to. However bad usability immediately causes frustration and if not fixed, more often than not leads to the user avoiding the product.
In the vast choices of the web, usability is not only important but a crucial factor that will determine your survival if you want to be able to compete with competitors. If your users can’t find what they are looking for, they will leave. If they don’t understand your product, they will leave. If they become frustrated because your product doesn’t perform as they expected, they will leave and never come back.
“Usability rules the web. Simply stated, if the customer can’t find a product, then he or she will not buy it.“
Jakob Nielsen