Co-experience: Understanding user experiences in social interaction

ing, and coveting products all elicit different kinds of emotions and emotional
responses, most of which are not well understood in design (Desmet 2002).
With “understood”, Desmet refers to academic research. Traditionally, product
designers have worked to develop sensitivity and skills that allow them to address
these aspects in their work, even if they have not been able to describe
exactly how and why they achieve this. Desmet’s research addresses emotions
that are elicited by the appearance. There are other emotions and experiences
that relate to product use, although for the purpose of user experience, both
should be included as appropriate.
Norman lists product related emotions in three categories: visceral, behavioural
and reflective. Visceral relates to instinctive attraction to form, colour
and the resulting bodily reactions. Behavioural responses deal with use and
functionality, and the interfaces and objects that people for example touch,
grip and drive. Reflective responses deal with matters of identity and culture
that are associated with products. (Norman 2004) While Norman can do much
to legitimise and bring forth research and discussion on emotions, these results
are not groundbreaking or new. Researchers strive to connect product
features and qualities to emotional responses and these further to attitudes,
actions and experiences (see e.g. Rhea 1992). However, this becomes increasingly
difficult: the more the qualitative richness of the product and context is
included, the less transferable the individual findings are.
There are needs for basic research, because design projects, as any activity,
need to be anchored on something. Such beliefs can be, for example, that usability
is important for the success of a product. But what constitutes usability
for the future customers may not be well understood. In fact, perceived usability
in smart products is very one-dimensional: a product with a few interface
elements is perceived as easy but simple; one with many elements is more
capable but more difficult. However, the emergence of usability problems does
not logically correspond to the number of interface elements (Keinonen 1999).
A study on the usability of interfaces (see the experiment of e.g. Tractinsky
1997) aimed to prove that an interface that is evaluated as more beautiful is
experienced as more usable as well. It must be assumed that a beautiful interface
evoked more positive emotions as well, however, exactly how beauty was
defined and applied in these studies can be debated. More recent studies suggest
that functional quality and hedonic quality are independent factors that
contribute equally to product satisfaction (Hassenzahl et al. 2000). However,
satisfaction and user experience are not synonyms – the term satisfaction is
a concept that nests inside the definition of usability, a measurable quality of
a product and its interface.
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