Failure Modes Analysis Related to User Experience in Interactive System Design Through a Fuzzy Failure Mode and Effect Analysis-Based Hybrid Approach

User experience (UX) is crucial for interactive system design. To improve UX, one method is to identify failure modes related to UX and then take action on the high-priority failure modes to decrease their negative impacts. For the UX of interactive system design, the failure modes under consideration are human errors or difficulties, and thus the risk factors concerning failure modes are subjective and even subconscious. Existing methods are not sufficient to deal with these issues. In this paper, a fuzzy failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA)-based hybrid approach is proposed to improve the UX of interactive system design. First, hierarchical task analysis (HTA) and systematic human error reduction and prediction approach (SHERPA) are combined to identify potential failure modes concerning UX. Subsequently, fuzzy linguistic variables are employed to assess the risk parameters of the failure modes, and the similarity aggregation method (SAM) is adopted to aggregate the fuzzy opinions. Then, on the basis of the aggregation results, fuzzy logic is adopted to compute the fuzzy risk priority numbers that can prioritize the failure modes. Finally, the failure modes with high priorities are considered for corrective actions. An in-vehicle information system was employed as a case study to illustrate the proposed approach. The findings indicate that, compared with other methods, our approach can provide more accurate results for prioritizing failure modes related to UX, and can successfully deal with the subjective and even subconscious nature of the risk factors associated with failure modes. This approach can be universally utilized to enhance the UX of interactive system design.