The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) is an independent organization devoted to the development of standards.

American Society for Testing and Materials

Emotion and Adaptation

Over the last decade, ‘user experience’ (UX) became a buzzword in the field of human – computer interaction (HCI) and interaction design. As technology matured, interactive products became not only more useful and usable, but also fashionable, fascinating things to desire. Driven by the impression that a narrow focus on interactive products as tools does not capture the variety and emerging aspects of technology use, practitioners and researchers alike, seem to readily embrace the notion of UX as a viable alternative to traditional HCI. And, indeed, the term promises change and a fresh look, without being too specific about its definite meaning. The present introduction to the special issue on ‘Empirical studies of the user experience’ attempts to give a provisional answer to the question of what is meant by ‘the user experience’. It provides a cursory sketch of UX and how we think UX research will look like in the future. It is not so much meant as a forecast of the future, but as a proposal – a stimulus for further UX research.

/pdf/user-experience-a-research-agenda-hedarvm89l.pdf

User experience - a research agenda

How the mind works

Despite the growing interest in user experience (UX), it has been hard to gain a common agreement on the nature and scope of UX. In this paper, we report a survey that gathered the views on UX of 275 researchers and practitioners from academia and industry. Most respondents agree that UX is dynamic, context-dependent, and subjective. With respect to the more controversial issues, the authors propose to delineate UX as something individual (instead of social) that emerges from interacting with a product, system, service or an object. The draft ISO definition on UX seems to be in line with the survey findings, although the issues of experiencing anticipated use and the object of UX will require further explication. The outcome of this survey lays ground for understanding, scoping, and defining the concept of user experience.

Understanding, scoping and defining user experience: a survey approach

In this paper, we introduce a general framework for product experience that applies to all affective responses that can be experienced in human-product interaction. Three distinct components or levels of product experiences are discussed: aesthetic experience, experience of meaning, and emotional experience. All three components are distinguished in having their own lawful underlying process. The aesthetic level involves a product’s capacity to delight one or more of our sensory modalities. The meaning level involves our ability to assign personality or other expressive characteristics and to assess the personal or symbolic significance of products. The emotional level involves those experiences that are typically considered in emotion psychology and in everyday language about emotions, such as love and anger, which are elicited by the appraised relational meaning of products. The framework indicates patterns for the processes that underlie the different types of affective product experiences, which are used to explain the personal and layered nature of product experience

/pdf/framework-of-product-experience-24yqfvej8k.pdf

Framework of product experience

Sources of positive and negative emotions in food experience.

This chapter described the initial version of PrEmo (PrEmo1) that was introduced in 2002. Since its introduction, PrEmo1 was used to measure emotions evoked by a wide variety of products and other designed stimuli, such as wheelchairs (Desmet and Dijkhuis in Proceedings of the international conference on designing pleasurable products and interfaces. ACM publishing, New York, 2003), automotive design (Desmet and Hekkert in Automotive mechatronics design and engineering. ISATA, Dusseldorf, Germany, 1998), mobile phones (Desmet et al. in J Knowl Technol Policy, 20(3):141–155, 2007), airplane meals, and functional fragrances (Desmet and Schifferstein in Product innovation toolbox: a field guide to consumer understanding and research, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, 2012), serving both as a means for generating insights for new product conceptualization and as a means for evaluating the emotional impact of new design concepts.

Measuring emotion: development and application of an instrument to measure emotional responses to products

In this paper, a design approach is introduced for designing products with added emotional value. First, the approach was established, based on a theoretical framework and a non-verbal instrument to measure emotional responses. Second, the value of the design approach was assessed by applying it to the design of mobile telephones. Mobile telephones were found to be useful vehicles as people appear to have strong feelings about this product. A user study was conducted which resulted in the identification of two user groups (‘trend followers' and ‘security seekers') and for each group an emotional profile. Four telephones were designed which, for each group, either were intended to or were not intended to match the group's profile. Finally, these designs were evaluated with the non-verbal instrument. The results indicate that the approach is appropriate for designing products with added emotional value. The advantages and disadvantages of the approach are discussed and further research directions indicated.

Designing products with added emotional value : development and application of an approach for research through design

This paper introduces a theoretical basis for the process that underlies emotional responses to consumer products Five distinct classes of product-evoked emotions are discussed, each of which are the outcome of a unique pattern of eliciting conditions The framework for these patterns was drawn from a model that reveals the cognitive basis of product emotions The main proposition of this model is that emotional reactions result from an appraisal process in which the individual appraises a product as (potentially) harming, or favouring one or several of their concerns In this perspective the concern and the appraisal are considered key parameters that determine if a product evokes an emotion and if so what emotion is evoked Because each of the five classes of product emotions (ie instrumental, aesthetic, social, surprise, and interest emotions) is discussed in terms of these key parameters, it can be used to explain the complex and often personal nature of product emotions, and support designers in t

Pieter M. A. Desmet

Papers

Framework of product experience

Sources of positive and negative emotions in food experience.

Measuring emotion: development and application of an instrument to measure emotional responses to products

Designing products with added emotional value : development and application of an approach for research through design

A Multilayered Model of Product Emotions