Scope and definition of user experience in Brazil: a survey to explore community's perspectives

Abstract

For over a decade, the term User Experience (UX) has been widely used in both industry and academia. Still, there is no consensus on several central aspects of UX, such as the exact definition of the term, what it encompasses, how to evaluate it, among other elements. The different understandings bring practical and theoretical implications that impact the development of interactive systems in industry and the research of related areas in academia. This fact has motivated the conduction of several international studies with the purpose to establish the scope and definition of UX, as well as to understand the nuances of the area, mapping how it is understood in different contexts. Thus, to investigate how the Brazilian research and practice community understands UX, this paper replicates the research initially conducted in 2009 and later replicated in 2015. Both studies used a survey to identify how researchers and practitioners from different nationalities and backgrounds understand and define UX. In the present work, we obtained 216 responses from Brazilian students, researchers and professionals working in the area. The results of the analysis indicate similarities between the national and international communities and highlight significant differences regarding the understanding of this concept in Brazil.