Framing the user experience

Understanding the complexities of users' judgements and user experience is a prerequisite for informing HCI design. Current user experience (UX) research emphasises that, beyond usability, non-instrumental aspects of system quality contribute to overall judgement and that the user experience is subjective and variable. Based on judgement and decision-making theory, we have previously demonstrated that judgement of websites can be influenced by contextual factors. This paper explores the strength of such contextual influence by investigating framing effects on user judgement of website quality. Two experimental studies investigate how the presentation of information about a website influences the user experience and the relative importance of individual quality attributes for overall judgement. Theoretical implications for the emerging field of UX research and practical implications for design are discussed.