There’s a range of vocabulary that can be used to refer to user experience: ‘usability’, ‘interface’, ‘human centered design’, etc. What term we use seems to depend on what sells—within an organization, you use the terms that connect with the values and the understanding of the people you’re working with.

Adaptive Path recently conducted a survey of over 800 user experience professionals to create a base of quantitative insight into how organizations value and practice user experience. One of the simpler questions was, “If you use other terms [than ‘user experience’] that are similar in meaning or intent, which terms do you use?” Here’s the terms we heard, ordered by the number of times mentioned:

93 Usability

63 Consumer experience

28 User centered design

21 Customer experience

20 User interface

14 Interaction design

13 Information architecture

11 Design

10 Brand experience

10 User interaction

8 Experience design

6 User satisfaction

5 Customer satisfaction

5 Ease of use

5 Experience

4 Customer journey

4   User interface design

3   Human factors

3   Interface design

3   Look and feel

3   User research

3   Visitor experience

2   Brand user experience

2   Client experience

2   Customer service

2   Experience strategy

2   Goal-directed design

2   Interface

2   Intuitiveness

2   Joy of use

2   Learner experience

2   Online experience

2   Product design

2   User advocate

2   User-friendliness

1   Aesthetic

1   Analytics

1   Audience experience

1   Audience-centred

1   Brand

1   Brand image

1   Brand value

1   Caller experience

1   Comprehension

1   Constituent experience

1   Consumer insights

1   Context

1   Customer centered design

1   Customer centered usability

1   Customer enjoyment

1   Customer focus

1   Customer-based product development

1   Defensive design

1   Delight

1   Donor experience

1   Ease-of-use leading to productivity

1   Educational experience

1   Emotional resonance

1   Emotional-centered design

1   Employee experience

1   End user

1   End-to-end experience

1   End-user centric

1   Enjoyment

1   Ethnographic study

1   Experience architecture

1   Experience planning

1   Experiential perspective

1   Field study

1   Flow

1   Form factor

1   Fun

1   Function

1   Functional design

1   Functionality

1   Good experience

1   Graphic design

1   Guest experience

1   Human centered design

1   Human computer interaction

1   Human experience

1   Human interface

1   Human systems integration

1   Human-machine interface

1   Humility

1   Information environment

1   Information Strategy

1   Interaction

1   Interaction model

1   Interactions

1   Journeys

1   Keeping them happy

1   Learning experience

1   Legibility

1   look-and-feel

1   Magic/Magical

1   Man machine interface

1   Marketing goals

1   Meaningful experiences

1   Member experience

1   Motivations

1   Multi-sensory experiences

1   On-brand

1 Overall customer satisfaction

1   Participant experience

1   Perception

1   Personalization

1   Product development

1   Product feature list

1   Product strategy

1   Product use

1   Programming experience

1   Rapid design

1   Readability

1   Reader

1   Research

1   Shopping experience

1   Site experience

1   Site optimization

1   Software design

1   Solution design

1   Stakeholder experience

1   Stakeholder value

1   Story

1   Total customer experience

1   Touchpoint

1 Usability evaluation

1   User

1 User adoption

1   User behavior

1   User centered

1   User centered design approach

1   User centred design

1   User design

1   User engagement

1   User environment

1 User experience

1   User experience design

1   User experience research

1   User flow

1   User friendly

1   User interaction design

1   User mental model

1   User needs

1   User perception

1   User study

1   User-based usability testing

1   User-focused design

1   User-friendly design

1   Value

1   Visitor

1   Visual experience

1   Visual interaction design

1 Visualization

1   Web experience design

1   Work practices

1   xDesign

Based on some interpretation, about 42% of these responses refer to the end person/human/being in the phrase. About 29% use the term experience, and a little more than 26% refer to the activity they perform (e.g., design, research, development).

Note that these were all “write-in” responses for alternative to ‘user experience’ used within organizations. When asked if respondents used the term ‘user experience’ within their organization, about 89% said yes.  We’ll be sharing and reporting on more of the results as we study the data—there’s much more to come.