Useful - A product that helps users complete a specific task or goal.
Usable - A product that is easy and pleasant to use.
Used - A product that people actually use because they find it desirable.
When making a product, it is important to ensure that it is useful, usable and used. These three things are crucial when designing for products not only being able to function well but also providing good user experience. Understanding and implementing these concepts can make a product achieve more success than the other way round. Let’s now examine why designers should aim at useful, usable and used products.
What is Useful?
A useful product helps users complete their tasks with ease. Product usefulness goes to its functionality as opposed to aesthetic concerns. Does this product perform its role? For instance, an app in a smartphone aimed at helping people manage their financial resources effectively becomes useful when it succeeds in enabling them track expenses, allocate budgets and control savings efficiently. Giving clear instructions on how these tasks may be done makes this software worthwhile.
Again look at the example of calender app. A calender app which can be described as being useful will perform functions such as scheduling appointments, setting up notifications and managing plans. This shows that it is helpful for adding events on your phone, getting alerts from your calendar app or syncing it with other devices among other features. This implies that the absence of these attributes render the application useless.
What is Usable?
Usability is more than just usefulness. It focuses on how easy and pleasant the product is to use. A usable product is functional and simple to use. It minimizes user effort and confusion, making interactions smooth and intuitive.
Think about an online shopping website. It might be useful by letting users buy items, but its usability depends on how easily users can navigate the site, search for products, add items to their cart, and complete the checkout process. If the site is cluttered, slow, or has too many steps to make a purchase, its usability is poor, even if it’s still useful.
A common usability problem is a remote control with too many buttons, most of which are rarely used. If the remote is complicated and hard to use for simple tasks like changing the channel or adjusting the volume, it’s frustrating for users. The remote might control the TV (useful), but its poor design makes it hard to use.
What is Used?
The aim of any product is to be used. A product can be useful and even usable, yet if people do not use it, then it serves no purpose. Desirability holds the central place in order to have a product used. This means being clear about what users need and like and seeing that the product appeals to them.
For example, the activity tracker might support instrumental use through accurate activity tracking and is usable if the interface is kept simple, but to sustain use, it should engage users. Goal-setting features, progress tracking, and sharing on social media make the tracker more appealing. If they feel it's something that could fit with their times of being fit and active, and general lifestyle, they're more likely to use it daily.
Another example of this might be a note-taking app. It could be useful in terms of taking and organizing the user's notes, while it would be usable only by having an easy-to-use interface. For the sake of ensuring usage, the application might offer functions related to cloud syncing, access from everywhere, and several sorts of customization options. All these can attract the app user and make sure that the app will be under regular visit.
Good design makes a product useful, usable, and used. Designers should create products that are useful and well-working but also make them easy to use with an appeal that would get users to adopt. By addressing these three aspects, designers can improve user satisfaction, increase engagement, and guarantee the success of their products.