This post is a summary of the work I’ll be presenting in today’s CHI workshop, Theories Behind UX Research and How They are Used in Practice. As you would imagine from the title, this workshop is all about the relationship between theories in UX and their application — what theoretical foundations underpin ongoing UX research. There are 14 participants (position papers here), with stances ranging from how we conceptualise experience to examining UX in the concept of psychology, and (in a separate paper) performance.

My paper — Using Models of Experience: Frameworks in the Field (pdf) — talks about my use of seven frameworks in the course of my doctoral research. In my EngD, I developed and evaluated TAPT, a method for understanding and redesigning experiences for new contexts: I used four models of UX (and one piece of work gauging factors of work practice to affect usability) to gauge TAPT, in addition to two frameworks to drive my approach to evaluating the method. What my position paper says, basically, is that using multiple models of UX and evaluation (with varying, complementary foci) was a really low-cost, high-yield way to drive the work.

If you’re interested in more detail, this (pdf) is a 5-page extract from my thesis about the work (pages 1 – 3 reflecting on the models of experience, pages 4 – 5 concerning the approach taken to evaluation). The full thesis is here, but a little bit more hefty ;)