The Systemic User Experience Assessment

This chapter discusses the relationship between the accessibility and usability constructs and how they relate to the user experience (UX) theoretical approach. We present an integrated model of interaction evaluation, a new evaluation perspective based on UX that is intended to be used as a framework for evaluating users’ interactions with assistive technology (AT) and to organize and evaluate the AT assessment process. The evaluator’s mental model is used to evaluate the relationship between the designers’ and the users’ mental models from objective and the subjective points of view. The new perspective endorsed by the chapter is that the UX concept can be used not only to set up an evaluation of users’ interactions with AT, but also to organize and evaluate the AT assessment process and to design (or redesign) technologies to overcome the barriers to use that disabled users typically experience. The redesign of a sonificated web search engine is presented as an example of the growing need to use a UX-based approach to AT design.