Usability vs. Usefulness: What's the Difference?

Usability

To put it simply, usability is the Ease of Use. It measures the easiness a user can experience while he tries to complete a desired task with your product.

Usefulness 

Usefulness indicates the ‘value’ of solution ascribed to it by users. How much useful are the features, function and data of your product to a user determines the usefulness of that product.

A product's usefulness can be evaluated by measuring its advantages over alternative solutions based on specific criteria associated with fundamentals needs. 

Usability vs. Functionality: What's the Difference?

Usability

Usability means how easily users can move around and engage with a site, while functionality covers its features and abilities. The real magic happens when you strike the right balance between the two. Too much focus on one might sacrifice the other. 

Best Practice: Strike the perfect balance between usability and functionality.

Usability vs. User Experience (UX): What's the Difference?

Usability

Take roads: A Usable road is one that is wide and straight (less mental effort), with no oncoming traffic (less mistakes, less mental effort). One that enables you to get from A to B as fast as possible (more powerful) and one that has a consistent and clear use of signs (high learnability).    

In short the most usable road is a freeway. But, a freeway is also directly boring in terms of user-experience.

User Experience

A road with a high level of user-experience is completely different. It is a twisting mountain road (visual). Now you got great scenery (visual, emotional), the smell of nature (smell), the excitement from the climb (and the sheer cliff only feet away).    

You got little friendly signs put out by the local, who sells fruits along your way (show-off effect). Every city is slightly different (branding, emotional, environment). You feel happy when you see the locals wave when you pass by, and you stop let a sheep pass (emotional, trust, coexistence).

But a mountain road is far from a usable road. It is much harder to drive on, it is difficult to learn, you can't go as fast and the risk of making a mistake (taking a wrong turn or crashing into a sheep) is much greater. But, a mountain road will give you a much better user-experience than any freeway could ever do.

Striking the right balance

When designing digital products or services, it’s essential to consider all factors: Functionality, Usability, Usefulness and User Experience (UX). Though they may appear similar, they have different effects on how users interact with and view a product.

To create digital designs that are both successful and interesting, it is essential to comprehend the distinctions between key approaches: Usability and User Experience.

 Written by TIGO UI/UX Team