Abstract In human–computer interaction, self-determination theory (SDT) is best known for its concepts of intrinsic motivation and need fulfillment. In the field of behavior change technologies (BCTs), the need for autonomy, i.e. to act according to one’s own goals and values, has become increasingly important due to its strong positive impact on maintaining behavior change. Still, designers struggle with taking autonomy into account. We believe that organismic integration theory (OIT), an underutilized sub-theory of SDT, is a valuable addition as it allows for a process-oriented view on autonomy. OIT introduces different types of extrinsic motivation (external, introjected, identified and integrated) along a continuum of autonomy. It offers new ways to talk about people's experiences of using BCTs and calls for individualized design strategies. We propose a design approach based on OIT, which understands BCTs as active facilitators to progressively move people along the continuum from external to integrated motivation.

Abstract Interactions with technology are part of social life, for example in cafés, trains, or parks. This social situatedness not only changes how users experience these interactions. It also influences the situated experiences for other co-located people (“witnesses”). However, despite a large body of research on user experiences, the relation between an interaction and witness experiences, and ways to design for them, remain underexplored. To address this gap, this paper introduces the “Witness Experience Inventory”, a research tool grounded in social-interpretivist theories, that offers a pragmatic approach to study how interactions with technology affect witness experiences. Based on an analysis of eight interactive technologies, we illustrate how the Witness Experience Inventory can inform the design of socially situated interactions with technology to avoid negative and create more positive witness experiences. We provide guidelines for applications of the Witness Experience Inventory in future research and its adaptable coding template. Both build on experiences from our own research, but give future researchers and practitioners the flexibility to adapt the tool to the social settings they study.

Digital diabetes management (DDM) traditionally emphasizes the monitoring of physical conditions (e.g., blood glucose, HbA1c) of people with diabetes (PwD) and often neglects the promotion of positive feelings towards diabetes to improve wellbeing. A first interview study (N=10) showed that PwD feel well in their daily diabetes management when their DDM systems are unobtrusive and flexible (autonomy), support them to attain skills to control their condition (competence), and provide a “safety net” to prevent harmful conditions (security). Based on this, we designed 10 DDM concepts to foster autonomy, competence and security and discussed them with PwD (N=10) in a second study. Participants perceived the concepts as patient-centered and reflective of their everyday experience with diabetes. PwD appreciate DDMs that help them regain control over their lives, balancing the prevention of harmful situations with avoiding overly prescriptive medical advice.

Robots can play a role in mediating human group interactions.This study examines how robot gestures affect the perception of a human group member's personality, role in the group, and contribution.In a vignette study (n=96), participants imagined being in a group discussion and watched a short video of another group member presenting an argument.In one condition (affirmative gesture), a robot nodded while the member spoke; in the other, it shook its head (negating gesture).A control condition featured no robot.The affirmative gesture enhanced perceptions of the speaker's personality and role in the group, though their contribution was not affected.The negating gesture showed no adverse effects.Additionally, participants perceived the robot as a group member when it nodded but as an onlooker when it shook its head.This suggests that positive robot gestures can improve group dynamics by fostering favorable interpersonal perceptions.

To adapt to specific places and people, robots must recognize objects, which are typically taught by users-a tedious process.Inspired by anecdotes of positive teaching experiences shared by educators, sports coaches, and animal trainers, we developed seven experience-driven ways to make teaching a robot more engaging.For example, one interaction involved the robot prompting users to tell personal stories about the objects.A video vignette study (N=184) showed that experience-driven teaching was perceived as more positive than the current technology-driven teaching.Participants reported feeling more competent, connected to the robot, and valued.Additionally, the robot was perceived as more extroverted, open, agreeable, and conscientious.Overall, the experience-driven design of teaching interactions enhanced engagement and persistence by fostering reciprocal exchange and mutual understanding.In addition, the study lends support to an anecdotal approach to designing positive experiences through technology.

In Human-Computer Interaction, speculative design is widely used to explore the opportunities and challenges of future technologies. However, the criteria that define a “good” speculation are scattered throughout the literature. This challenges the application and evaluation of speculative design especially in an academic context. Through a review of 63 publications on speculative design, design fiction, and critical design, we identified nine key qualities of speculations that can be grouped in three categories: speculative, discursive, and process. Speculative qualities (i.e., fictional, critical, socio-political) reflect the fundamental characteristics of speculative design. Discursive qualities (i.e., experienceable, thought-provoking) facilitate envisioning and debate. Process qualities (i.e., grounded, participative, reflected, playful) encourage an inclusive, responsible, scientifically based and creative approach to speculative design. We propose this as a descriptive taxonomy of qualities, which can serve as a starting point for the creation and evaluation of high-quality speculative designs in diverse contexts, including academic peer review.

Over the past decades, numerous concepts and prototypes for fostering emotional connections across distance (relatedness technologies) have been proposed. This has made it challenging for researchers and designers in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) to maintain a comprehensive overview and effectively build on previous work. To address this, we conducted a systematic literature search (PRISMA) and collected 241 concepts and prototypes (2010-2024). We organized this corpus according to key aspects: (1) target population, (2) theoretical grounding, (3) design, (4) evaluation, and (5) ethics. Based on this, we developed the “COmpendium of RElatedness Technologies” (CORE), an open-access, searchable online database that provides researchers and practitioners with a reliable repository to inform future work. In addition, we present a systematic review of the corpus, revealing that despite its long tradition work on relatedness technologies remains characterized by limited theoretical grounding, lack of robust empirical evidence of effects, and insufficient attention to ethical considerations.

The proliferation of (semi-)autonomous and learning interactive systems (i.e., artificial intelligence-driven, AI) will significantly change work practices. While AI promises an immense increase in performance, it also has novel experiential, social, cultural, and ethical implications. Unlike conventional systems, AI's potential agency and decision-making capabilities will turn AI-driven systems into counterparts and, at best, collaborators. We used a speculative, participatory approach to collect narratives about current and future work practices with AI, their conditions, and consequences. This informed ''WorkAI'', a card deck and a canvas to support the design of AI-driven work. The twenty cards encourage participants to apply important aspects such as reliability/trust or meaning to collaboration with AI. The toolkit was developed in two iterations. It provided structure to the discussion and stimulated questions that facilitated the development of future narratives about working with AI.

The threatening environmental problems of our time challenge the notion that humans are separate from and dominant over nature. As a result, many studies in Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) address alternatives to human-centered design and explore post-anthropocentric approaches that decenter humans and consider nature in technology design. The question, however, is how to design post-anthropocentric technology that engages humans and nature. Based on the PRISMA-ScR guidelines, we conducted a scoping review and analyzed 53 papers, from which we extracted 114 post-anthropocentric artifacts that enable human–nature engagement. We identified seven design strategies, such as recognizing, exploring, and empowering that can guide the future design of post-anthropocentric artifacts. Most of the artifacts included support human agency, fewer support nature’s agency, or advocate for nature to achieve an equitable human–nature relation. We identified opportunities for the field, such as empowering nature and further exploring the implications of post-anthropocentric design for addressing environmental problems.

This paper explores how a gesture-based robot influences human-human interaction in group ideation. The robot was mounted on a whiteboard and responded with six different gestures (e.g., nodding, following speakers with gaze) to specific situations. We coded the participants’ interactions from videos and gathered their experience through post-session interviews. The most frequently invoked robot behavior was following the speaker with gaze. As a result, participants felt socio-emotionally supported and responded by moving the ideation ahead (individual level) and consensus-building (group level). In fact, the groups with the robot showed more consensus-building than the two reference groups without the robot. Participants had different views on the role of the robot in the group, such as active outsider, supportive group member, or assistant. The latter tried to use the robot as decision-support. All in all, to include a robot to mediate human groups seems a promising future application domain.

Many people prefer not to think about their own death, let alone talk about it. This contributes to fear of death and reduces the acceptance of its inevitability. We hypothesized that talking about one’s own death with a specially designed chatbot reduces fear of death and strengthens the confidence to discuss the topic further with loved ones. Participants (N=100) talked with the chatbot for an average of 25 minutes. It offered conversations about planning for one’s own death, end-of-life preferences, and hopes for the afterlife. We measured participants’ fear and acceptance of death (DAP-R questionnaire) and readiness for end-of-life conversation (REOLC questionnaire) before and after the chat. Overall, attitudes toward death improved and fear decreased, while readiness for end-of-life conversations increased. Bigger changes in attitude corresponded with longer, more reflective responses in the conversations, commitment to plans, finding meaning in death, and some notion of legacy or afterlife.

While realism is a common design goal for virtual reality (VR), VR also offers opportunities that are impossible in the real world (e.g., telekinesis). So far, there is no design support to exploit the potential of such “impossible” augmentations, especially for serious applications. We developed a card set and a workshop format, which features 15 opportunities to facilitate the ideation of augmentation-oriented VR. We piloted the method in five workshops with people in the early stages of developing a VR application (N=35). Participants found the cards easy to use and to inspire viable new concepts that differed from earlier ideas. Analysis of the concepts with interaction criticism identified two strategies: (1) augmentations that are only loosely related to the purpose of the application, simply to increase “fun”, and (2) augmentations that are closely related to the core purpose and thereby subtly facilitate its fulfillment. The latter has the greater potential.

Work is an important part of our lives - not only as a way to earn a living but as a crucial source for experiencing meaningfulness. The introduction of autonomous systems (or in the widest sense "artificial intelligence", AI) will fundamentally impact work practices. However, while most existing models of human-AI collaboration focus on performance goals, less is known about their potential influence on job satisfaction. In this paper, we present an online experiment in which we compared the perception of job meaningfulness and accountability in a human-AI collaboration across three interaction paradigms: Supervisory, Advisory, and Interactive. Our results showed that, unlike the common notion of supervisory control, people find their job more satisfying when they directly interact with the AI and are involved and remain accountable for action and decision-making. Introducing AI as a teammate in the interactive paradigm was associated with the highest job meaningfulness.

People with osteoarthritis or other chronic conditions need to adopt and maintain healthy behaviors, such as physical exercises. Current behavior change technologies primarily seek to motivate this through goal setting, self-monitoring, and rewards. Based on Organismic Integration Theory (OIT), we designed Equi as a tangible alternative. Its aim is to “integrate” behavior rather than to externally control it. When behavior becomes integrated, its maintenance is based on self-congruence. Equi facilitates integration by situated reflection, symbolism, and appreciation of values. We conducted a two-week field exploration to gather osteoarthritis patients’ experiences with Equi. We identified specific features and general principles that are conducive to the pursuit of self-congruence, such as ambient visibility, reflection, insight and matching, as well as detrimental ones, such as performance orientation or controlling forces (e.g., reminders, rewards). From a theoretical perspective, OIT offers strategies for designing behavior change technologies that focus on the maintenance of newly acquired behavior.

While speculative methods (e.g., design fiction) could help industry to reflect critically about future products and services, little is known about their potentials and limits when applied in a corporate setting. In this case, we worked with an automobile manufacturer to explore the near future of self-driving cars. For more than a year, we speculated using diverse methods, developed stories about a future with self-driving cars, and told them through 24 artifacts (e.g., city map, quick start guides). In this paper, we scrutinize the process, discuss what has worked and what not, which challenges we faced, and how corporate requirements shaped the emerging design fiction. We saw a trend toward affirmative rather than speculative design, driven by product-centricity and the need to justify process and outcome through concrete innovation. While speculation raised interesting questions about technological futures, it remained a challenge to transform them into concrete design implications.

Dying is a universal experience that entails uncertainty, loss, and termination. Often, people face death unprepared and miss out on opportunities to shape their final stage of life as well as their afterlife. To better understand how thanato-technology can support the dying and the bereaved, we performed a scoping review on the current state-of-art in Human Computer Interaction. Following the PRISMA-ScR procedure, we gathered and analyzed 107 relevant papers. We categorized theoretical and conceptual contributions into three overarching themes: digital remains, remembrance, and coping. We further highlight 18 practices, such as curation, honoring and letting go. We show that technology can help to capture the identity of the deceased, to validate the life lived, and to come to terms with death. However, available approaches focus more on the bereaved than on the dying. In addition, potentially important aspects of dying (e.g., balancing involvement and autonomy, spiritual meaning-making) remain largely unexplored.

In the design of social robots, the focus is often on the robot itself rather than on the intricacies of possible application scenarios. In this paper, we examine eight fictional documentaries about social robots, such as SEYNO, a robot that promotes respect between passengers in trains, or PATO, a robot to watch movies with. Overall, robots were conceptualized either (1) to substitute humans in relationships or (2) to mediate relationships (human-human-robot-interaction). While the former is basis of many current approaches to social robotics, the latter is less common, but particularly interesting. For instance, the mediation perspective fundamentally impacts the role a robot takes (e.g., role model, black sheep, ally, opponent, moralizer) and thus its potential function and form. From the substitution perspective, robots are expected to mimic human emotions; from the mediation perspective, robots can be positive precisely because they remain objective and are neither emotional nor empathic.

One way to counteract anthropogenic climate change, is to reduce individual energy consumption. An especially energy-intensive everyday practice is doing the laundry. In Germany, laundry accounts for about 5% of domestic electricity consumption. In part, this is because users do not make use of the energy-saving programs offered by modern washing machines. Based on different principles of behavior change, we created four concepts for washing machine interfaces to encourage users to choose energy-saving programs and settings. These concepts were implemented as functional prototypes. An online experiment (N=400) showed that all concepts increased the choice of energy-saving programs compared to a standard machine. Especially effective was to interrupt impulsive actions and suggest alternative choices (concept B) and to restructure the entry of settings (concept E). This demonstrates how small changes in a standard interfaces can significantly increase the probability of energy conservation in a private setting.

Our interactions with technology do not just shape our individual experiences. They also affect people around us. Although previous research has addressed such "witness" experiences, the actual effect of interaction design on the witness experience remains largely unknown. In an online study (n = 407), we explored how witnesses perceive mid-air gesture-based interactions with a hearing aid, using four video vignettes. We studied witnesses' subjective visibility of manipulations and effects (following Reeves and colleagues' taxonomy), perceived form of interaction, subjective experience, and relationships between these measures. Although visibility patterns matched the intended form, they did not lead to the supposed experience (i.e., "suspenseful" gestures did not lead to suspenseful experiences). The paper illustrates gaps in current research about witness experiences, demonstrates the need to overcome basic hiding/revealing profiles, and indicates a path forward by focusing on aesthetic forms and experiences.

The advance of “artificial intelligence”-(AI)-based technologies has the potential to transform work tremendously. Work is a major part of life and, thus, its meaningfulness or lack thereof will impact overall well-being. Previous research investigated human-AI collaboration at work mostly with a focus on performance. However, little attention is given to how collaboration with AI influences the meaningfulness of work and job satisfaction. In this paper, we present an online experiment to compare the perception of meaningfulness and relationship to the collaborator across different task distributions and collaborators (human/AI). Our results show that working with a human is more motivating and meaningful compared to working with an AI independent of the task. Moreover, the AI is more often viewed as a subordinate, while the human is perceived as a teammate. These results provide preliminary implications for the design of collaboration with AI that consider job satisfaction.

Nowadays, interactive technologies are used almost everywhere. As a result, designers need to increasingly make them “socially acceptable”. Previous work recommends “subtle” forms of interaction to increase social acceptability and avoid negative experiences. Although often appropriate, such uniform recommendations neglect the variety of social situations. We demonstrate this limitation in an experiment (N=35), by comparing the observer experience of different forms of interaction in “face-to-face conversations”, a social situation rarely studied. Here, the typically recommended form of interaction (“subtle”) led to a more negative observer experience than the usually deprecated form (“suspenseful”), in terms of affective experience and product perception. It also made the user appear less extraverted. We conclude by positioning interactions with technology not as separate from the social situation in which they are performed, but as a constitutive part of it that meaningfully relates to other situated activities.

Compared to work environments, the digitization of homes is progressing only slowly. While existing Smart Home applications focus on automatization of, for example, light or heat, there is little discussion about strengthening interpersonal relationships as a potential benefit of smart systems. Since the central dining- or kitchen table is the traditional “social interface” of a home, it seems worthwhile to research domestic interactive tables’ potentials of digital support. This paper presents a review of domestic interactive table concepts as well as a survey about pleasurable moments at (non-digital) domestic tables. Based on this, we develop four design principles, Sociality, Flexibility, Distinctiveness, and Homeyness, to offer orientation for the design of future domestic interactive tables.

Our life from today’s point of view can be understood as an elaborate story we tell ourselves. It is based on an abundance of past experiences and heavily influenced by the way we look back at them...

Soon, voice assistants might be able to engage in fully-fledged social conversations with people, rather than merely providing a voice-operated interface to functionality and data. So far, not much is known about designing such "social" voice assistants and the potential social experiences, which could and should emerge in everyday situations. In the present paper, we created a design fiction to explore a sophisticated social voice assistant in the context of the car. Based on models from psychology and psychotherapy, we designed the fictional "virtual passenger" Kiro. We created a website for Kiro (http://www.heykiro.com/), distributed it, and collected responses in various ways (e.g., comments). We further ran a market research-type focus group. In general, we found people to accept Kiro as a conversation partner but not as a replacement for human-human conversations. We suggest designing social voice assistants in a way to enable novel types of socially fulfilling, yet distinct human-machine conversations.

Serious applications in virtual reality (VR) often imitate real environments, tasks, and interaction techniques. VR however, allows to transcend reality and augment the physical, cognitive, and perceptual capabilities of users through, for example, telekinesis. In this sense, VR offers “superpowers”, which are not always considered as central and unique elements of interaction design. In a workshop with interaction designers, we emphasized the notion of “superpowers” to think less about VR limitations to imitate reality, but more about its possibilities to augment human capabilities. Consequently, we developed a design method that explicitly introduced the concept of superpowers (e.g., X-Ray-Vision, super-memory, telekinesis) and a VR application to support exploring each superpower. We evaluated this approach with designers. They responded positively. The notion of superpowers combined with the possibility to easily experience them changed and widened their perspective: away from limitations and reality, towards possibilities and the unique experience of being in VR.

Shift scheduling impacts healthcare workers' well-being because it sets the frame for their social life and recreational activities. Since it is complex and time-consuming, it has become a target for automation. However, existing systems mostly focus on improving efficiency. The workers' needs and their active participation do not play a pronounced role. Contrasting this trend, we designed a social practice-based, worker-centered, and well-being-oriented self-scheduling system which gives healthcare workers more control during shift planning. In a following nine month appropriation study, we found that workers who were cautious about their social standing in the group or who had a more spontaneous personal lifestyle used our system less often than others. Moreover, we revealed several conflict prevention practices and suggest to shift the focus away from a competitive shift distribution paradigm towards supporting these pro-social practices. We conclude with guidelines to support individual planning practices, self-leadership, and for dealing with conflicts.

Road traffic is a social situation where participants heavily interact with each other. Consequently, communication plays an important role. Typically, the communication between pedestrians and drivers is nonverbal and consists of a combination of gestures, eye contact, and body movement. However, when vehicles become automated, this will change. Previous work has investigated the design and effectiveness of additional communication cues between pedestrians and automated vehicles. It remains unclear, though, how this impacts the perceptions of the quality of communication and impressions of mindfulness and prosociality. In this paper, we report an online experiment, where we evaluated the perception of communication cues in the form of on-road light projections, across different traffic scenarios and roles. Our results indicate that, while the cues can improve communication, their effect is dependent on traffic scenarios. These results provide preliminary implications for the design of communication cues that consider their prosocial aspects.

Ageing societies and the associated pressure on the care systems are major drivers for new developments in socially assistive robotics. To understand better the real-world potential of robot-based assistance, we undertook a 10-week case study in a care home involving groups of residents, caregivers and managers as stakeholders. We identified both, enablers and barriers to the potential implementation of robot systems. The study employed the robot platform Pepper, which was deployed with a view to understanding better multi-domain interventions with a robot supporting physical activation, cognitive training and social facilitation. We employed the robot in a group setting in a care facility over the course of 10 weeks and 20 sessions, observing how stakeholders, including residents and caregivers, appropriated, adapted to, and perceived the robot. We also conducted interviews with 11 residents and caregivers. Our results indicate that the residents were positively engaged in the training sessions that were moderated by the robot. The study revealed that such humanoid robots can work in a care home but that there is a moderating person needed, that is in control of the robot.

Employing anthropomorphism in physical appearance and behavior is the most widespread strategy for designing social robots. In the present paper, we argue that imitating humans impedes the full exploration of robots' social abilities. In fact, their very 'thingness' (e.g., sensors, rationality) is able to create 'superpowers' that go beyond human abilities, such as endless patience. To better identify these special abilities, we develop a performative method called 'Techno-Mimesis' and explore it in a series of workshops with robot designers. Specifically, we create 'prostheses' to allow designers to transform themselves into their future robot to experience use cases from the robot's perspective, e.g., 'seeing' with a distance sensor rather than with eyes. This imperfect imitation helps designers to experience being human and being robot at the same time, making differences apparent and facilitating the discovery of a number of potential physical, cognitive, and communicational robotic superpowers.

In radiology, medical technology providers (MTP) focus mainly on technology-related issues, such as image quality or efficiency of reporting. Broader notions of radiology as "meaningful work" are largely seen as out of scope for an MTP. The present paper challenges this. In a real-world case with a large MTP, we showed that medical technology could be designed more holistically to explicitly improve radiologists' wellbeing. We first gathered work practices experienced as especially conducive to wellbeing. From there, we distilled ideal practices to increase wellbeing and turned them into two software applications. The MTP's initial skepticism dissolved, while radiologists unanimously emphasized wellbeing and demonstrated how they work towards improving it. Based on our insights, the applications resonated well among the radiologists involved, the healthcare provider, and other customers of the MTP. We close with a critical reflection of the challenges and opportunities of designing wellbeing-driven technology in the work domain.

The strains associated with shift work decrease healthcare workers' well-being. However, shift schedules adapted to their individual needs can partially mitigate these problems. From a computing perspective, shift scheduling was so far mainly treated as an optimization problem with little attention given to the preferences, thoughts, and feelings of the healthcare workers involved. In the present study, we explore fairness as a central, human-oriented attribute of shift schedules as well as the scheduling process. Three in-depth qualitative interviews and a validating vignette study revealed that while on an abstract level healthcare workers agree on equality as the guiding norm for a fair schedule, specific scheduling conflicts should foremost be resolved by negotiating the importance of individual needs. We discuss elements of organizational fairness, including transparency and team spirit. Finally, we present a sketch for fair scheduling systems, summarizing key findings for designers in a readily usable way.

The uncanny valley effect denotes a dip in the positive relation between a robot's human likeness and likeability. This paper provides first evidence that this design-guiding effect is not limited to humanoids, but extends to zoomorphic robots. In a first online survey, a diverse group of 235 participants rated the animal likeness of 140 robots. Three predictors for high or low animal likeness emerged: surface properties, such as joint visibility; facial properties, such as presence of a pupil; animal-specific properties, such as presence of snout. In a second online survey, 187 participants rated the likeability of 53 robots of varying degrees of animal likeness drawn from the first study. The relation between animal likeness and likeability followed a U-shaped function and showed an uncanny valley effect: robots high and low in animal likeness were preferred over those mixing realistic and unrealistic features. Besides theoretical implications tentative guidelines for the design of zoomorphic robots are discussed.

Rituals are ubiquitous but not commonplace, help people to make sense of their life, and cultivate personal or social meaning. Although secularization and digitalization impact the occurrence of formal rituals, the need for marking life's transitions remains unchanged. New rituals emerge, such as marking relationship status by hanging love locks on bridges. Tangible technologies hold great potential for augmenting, changing, or enhancing ritual practices which often involve enactments and symbolic props. In this paper, we analyze individual stories of hanging love locks and derive six pointers for designing technology-mediated relationship transition rituals. We applied the pointers in the design of El Corazón, a tangible artifact for relationship transition rituals. The results of an evaluation with 20 sweethearts show that relationship rituals can be designed deliberately, that tangibles can shape ritual experiences and that technology-mediated rituals can provide people with new means of coping with relationship uncertainty.

Many routine relationship maintenance activities, such as supporting each other in the household, rely on responsive interaction. Unfortunately, the physical separation typical for long-distance relationships severely limits the opportunities to support each other in everyday life. This paper reports an autoethnographical research through design of this, in human–computer interaction (HCI) still quite uncharted, territory. In over two years of design research, the first author developed four concepts, materialized them as functional artifacts, and used them extensively with Claire, his partner. His designerly journey into alternative practices for Claire and him revealed the complexities and intricacies of designing “couple technologies” for the real world. For instance, it highlighted the importance of going beyond mere abstracted presence toward enabling meaningful everyday responsive interaction. We found that such meaningful interaction can be created by focusing on possible practices of mutual caring. Besides providing valuable insights for designers of technology-mediated relatedness, we discuss autoethnographical research through design as a mode of knowledge production in the context of HCI.

Abstract Nowadays, automation not only permeates industry but also becomes a substantial part of our private, everyday lives. Driven by the idea of increased convenience and more time for the “important things in life,” automation relieves us from many daily chores—robots vacuum floors and automated coffee makers produce supposedly barista-quality coffee on the press of a button. In many cases, these offers are embraced by people without further questioning. However, while we save time by delegating more and more everyday activities to automation, we also may lose chances for enjoyable and meaningful experiences. In two field studies, we demonstrate that a manual process has experiential benefits over more automated processes by using the example of coffee-making. We present a way to account for potential experiential costs of everyday automation and strategies of how to design interaction with automation to reconcile experience with the advantages of a more and more powerful automation.

While the general debate about the potential of automated vehicles is pervasive, less is known about how people experience those vehicles in everyday life. To this end, we studied the experiential consequences of a speculative automated "valet parking" service. We designed three variants and confronted participants "in the wild." The automation replaced practical worries about how to navigate a parking garage with unease about the safety of the car, which clearly limited potential gains in positive experiences. The unease could be counteracted by providing feedback about the car itself and the process. This created the impression that the car is properly cared for. In addition, while parking in garages in itself was not especially enjoyable, it played an important role in a number of related positive practices (e.g., shopping routines). To ensure acceptance, automated systems need to carefully address the question of how those systems become embedded in everyday life.

Conventional hearing aids frame hearing impairment almost exclusively as a problem. In the present paper, we took an alternative approach by focusing on positive future possibilities of 'divergent hearing'. To this end, we developed a method to speculate simultaneously about not-yet-experienced positive meanings and not-yet-existing technology. First, we gathered already existing activities in which divergent hearing was experienced as an advantage rather than as a burden. These activities were then condensed into 'Prompts of Positive Possibilities' (PPP), such as 'Creating a shelter to feel safe in". In performative sessions, participants were given these PPPs and 'Open Probes' to enact novel everyday activities. This led to 26 possible meanings and according devices, such as "Being able to listen back into the past with a rewinder". The paper provides valuable insights into the interests and expectations of people with divergent hearing as well as a methodological contribution to a possibility-driven design.

While recent research has emphasized the importance of understanding the lived experience of personal tracking, very little is known about the everyday coordination between tracker use and the surrounding environment. We combine behavioral data from trackers with video recordings from wearable cameras, in an attempt to understand how usage unfolds in daily life and how it is shaped by the context of use. We recorded twelve participants' daily use of activity trackers, collecting and analyzing 244 incidents where activity trackers were used. Among our findings, tracker use was strongly driven by reflection and learning-in action, contrasting the traditional view that learning is one of deep exploration, following the collection of data on behaviors. We leverage on these insights and propose three directions for the design of activity trackers: facilitating learning through glances, providing normative feedback and facilitating micro-plans.

Of the many concepts of user experience (UX), only a few address UX in the work domain. In addition, while most underline the dynamic nature of UX, not many studies take an explicit longitudinal approach. This article presents data about how the UX of work-related interactive systems changed over the course of 13 weeks. Specifically, we studied the change in four groups of behaviors—execute, evolve, expand and engage—which we deem important for goal achievement. We examined the impact of user attributes (playfulness, computer expertise) as well as product attributes (pragmatic quality, hedonic quality). Multilevel analysis (MLA) provided the methodological frame for the statistical analysis. Since MLA is rather uncommon in human–computer interaction, we thoroughly discuss it and clarify its advantages over repeated-measures analysis of variance. Our study verified that time is an important predictor, confirming that UX (i.e. particular goal achievement-related behaviors and the perception of product attributes) changes over time. The pattern of change differed among participants in terms of rate and direction of change, and those differences even increased over the course of our study. Product attributes influenced change considerably, while playfulness had an impact on engaging behavior in the sense that more playful participants lost interest even faster.

Recent research reveals over 70% of the usage of physical activity trackers to be driven by glances -- brief, 5-second sessions where individuals check ongoing activity levels with no further interaction. This raises a question as to how to best design glanceable behavioral feedback. We first set out to explore the design space of glanceable feedback in physical activity trackers, which resulted in 21 unique concepts and 6 design qualities: being abstract, integrating with existing activities, supporting comparisons to targets and norms, being actionable, having the capacity to lead to checking habits and to act as a proxy to further engagement. Second, we prototyped four of the concepts and deployed them in the wild to better understand how different types of glanceable behavioral feedback affect user engagement and physical activity. We found significant differences among the prototypes, all in all, highlighting the surprisingly strong effect glanceable feedback has on individuals' behaviors.

Designing for technology-mediated relatedness (i.e., closeness, togetherness over a distance) is challenging. It requires a wellbeing-driven approach, which focuses on the subtle modulation of everyday practices and the creation of positive and meaningful experiences throughout the day. Based on an ongoing project, we tell four stories. Each is about a family, their particular relationships as well as current practices of feeling close, and our suggestion of how to inject new or improved ways of feeling close into their everyday life through technology. Each suggestion (i.e., concept) is used by the families at the moment.

We report on a 10-month in-the-wild study of the adoption, engagement and discontinuation of an activity tracker called Habito, by a sample of 256 users who installed the tracker on their own volition. We found 'readiness' to behavior change to be a strong predictor of adoption (which ranged from 56% to 20%). Among adopters, only a third updated their daily goal, which in turn impacted their physical activity levels. The use of the tracker was dominated by glances -- brief, 5-sec sessions where users called the app to check their current activity levels with no further interaction, while users displayed true lack of interest in historical data. Textual feedback proved highly effective in fueling further engagement with the tracker as well as inducing physical activity. We propose three directions for design: designing for different levels of 'readiness', designing for multilayered and playful goal setting, and designing for sustained engagement.

We collected over a thousand technology-mediated positive experiences with media and obtained measures describing aspects of the experience itself (affect, psychological need fulfillment) and of the product (i.e., content and technology) integral to the experience (pragmatic quality, hedonic quality). We found a strong relation between intensity of need fulfillment and positive affect. Furthermore, different activities had different need profiles. Watching was foremost a relatedness experience, listening a stimulation and meaning experience, and playing a competence experience. Need fulfillment and positive affect was related to perceptions of hedonic quality, however moderated through attribution, that is, the belief that the product played a role in creating the experience. Pragmatic quality was not linked to experiential measures. The present study (a) demonstrates the merits of distinguishing between an experience-oriented and a product-oriented evaluation, (b) suggests a set of possible measurement instruments for experience-oriented and a product-oriented evaluation, and (c) details the process of how positive experience is transformed into positive product perceptions and judgments of appeal.

Over the recent years, the notion of a non-instrumental, hedonic quality of interactive products received growing interest. Based on a review of 151 publications, we summarize more than ten years research on the hedonic to provide an overview of definitions, assessment tools, antecedents, consequences, and correlates. We highlight a number of contributions, such as introducing experiential value to the practice of technology design and a better prediction of overall quality judgments and product acceptance. In addition, we suggest a number of areas for future research, such as providing richer, more nuanced models and tools for quantitative and qualitative analysis, more research on the consequences of using hedonic products and a better understanding of when the hedonic plays a role and when not.

In this paper we present The Remediation of Nosferatu, a location based augmented reality horror adventure. Using the theory of fictional universe elements, we work with diverse material from Nosferatu's horror genre and vampire themes as a case study. In this interdisciplinary research we intertwine traditional storytelling and scriptwriting skills with interaction design methods. For the game setting, we create hybrid spaces merging the fictional universe and the physical environment into one pervasive experience, centering around a variety of augmented reality activities played out at sunset. Focusing on the phenomenological world of 21 participants, we analyse triangulated data by distinguishing between a range of more "open" and "closed" styles of interactions. Our study illustrates how Speculative Play may enable non-linear storytelling elements within a transmedia fictional universe. We believe our approach can be more generally useful for designing future rich, enjoyable and meaningful transmedia experiences.

Contemporary car design must not only focus on technology supporting the driver and the driving task: it needs to create positive experiences for drivers and passengers alike. This case study, the Clique Trip, is an example of designing a positive social (i.e. relatedness) experience in the automotive context, addressing the analysis, the design, and the evaluation of the experience. The Clique Trip experience creates a feeling of closeness and relatedness among friends when being in a "motorcade". It is derived from experience reports, implemented in the car and evaluated on the road. Qualitative and quantitative results revealed its capability to create the targeted social experience.

Lack of self-control is at the heart of many undesirable behaviors, such as overeating, overspending, and even overworking. While the field of Persuasive Technologies searches for ways to change attitudes and behaviors, it often neglects the science of self-control. We present the Chocolate Machine, an exploratory interactive product to train self-control strength based upon Ego Depletion theory. A field study showed the machine to increase perceived self-control over time, while providing a sustained positive experience. This makes the machine transformational, aiming at facilitating behaviors people find worthwhile, but hard to implement.

A wealth of evidence suggests that love, closeness, and intimacy---in short relatedness---are important for people’s psychological well-being. Nowadays, however, couples are often forced to live apart. Accordingly, there has been a growing and flourishing interest in designing technologies that mediate (and create) a feeling of relatedness when being separated, beyond the explicit verbal communication and simple emoticons available technologies offer. This article provides a review of 143 published artifacts (i.e., design concepts, technologies). Based on this, we present six strategies used by designers/researchers to create a relatedness experience: Awareness, expressivity, physicalness, gift giving, joint action, and memories. We understand those strategies as starting points for the experience-oriented design of technology.

In many situations, people make judgments on the basis of incomplete information, inferring unavailable attributes from available ones. These inference processes may also well operate when judgments about a product’s user-experience are made. To examine this, an inference model of user-experience, based on Hassenzahl and Monk’s [2010], was explored in three studies using Web sites. All studies supported the model’s predictions and its stability, with hands-on experience, different products, and different usage modes (action mode versus goal mode). Within a unified framework of judgment as inference [Kruglanski et al. 2007], our approach allows for the integration of the effects of a wide range of information sources on judgments of user-experience.

The increasing ability of industrial robots to perform complex tasks in collaboration with humans requires more capable ways of communication and interaction. Traditional systems use separate interfaces such as touchscreens or control panels in order to operate the robot, or to communicate its state and prospective actions to the user. Transferring human communication, such as gestures to technical non-humanoid robots, creates various opportunities for more intuitive human-robot-interaction. Interaction shall no longer require a separate interface such as a control panel. Instead, it should take place directly between human and robot. To explore intuitive interaction, we identified gestures that are relevant for co-working tasks from human observations. Based on a decomposition approach we transferred them to robotic systems of increasing abstraction and experimentally evaluated how well these gestures are recognized by humans. We created a human-robot interaction use-case in order to perform the task of handling dangerous liquid. Results indicate that several gestures are well perceived when displayed with context information regarding the task.

Journal Article The dilemma of the hedonic – Appreciated, but hard to justify Get access Sarah Diefenbach, Sarah Diefenbach * a User Experience and Ergonomics in Design, Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, Germany * Corresponding author. Address: User Experience and Ergonomics in Design, Folkwang University of the Arts, Campus University of Duisburg – Essen, Universitätsstrasse 12, 45141 Essen, Germany. Tel.: +49 179 284 36 53. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Diefenbach). Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Marc Hassenzahl Marc Hassenzahl b Media City, Åbo Akademi University, Finland Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Interacting with Computers, Volume 23, Issue 5, September 2011, Pages 461–472, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intcom.2011.07.002 Published: 23 July 2011 Article history Received: 17 March 2011 Revision received: 10 July 2011 Accepted: 12 July 2011 Published: 23 July 2011

A review of 15 papers reporting 25 independent correlations of perceived beauty with perceived usability showed a remarkably high variability in the reported coefficients. This may be due to methodological inconsistencies. For example, products are often not selected systematically, and statistical tests are rarely performed to test the generality of findings across products. In addition, studies often restrict themselves to simply reporting correlations without further specification of underlying judgmental processes. The present study's main objective is to re-examine the relation between beauty and usability, that is, the implication that “what is beautiful is usable.” To rectify previous methodological shortcomings, both products and participants were sampled in the same way and the data aggregated both by averaging over participants to assess the covariance across ratings of products and by averaging over products to assess the covariance across participants. In addition, we adopted an inference perspective to qualify underlying processes to examine the possibility that, under the circumstances pertaining in most studies of this kind where participants have limited experience of using a website or product, the relationship between beauty and usability is mediated by goodness. A mediator analysis of the relationship between beauty, the overall evaluation (i.e., “goodness”) and pragmatic quality (as operationalization of usability) suggests that the relationship between beauty and usability has been overplayed as the correlation between pragmatic quality and beauty is wholly mediated by goodness. This pattern of relationships was consistent across four different data sets and different ways of data aggregation. Finally, suggestions are made regarding methodologies that could be used in future studies that build on these results.

Subsumed under the umbrella of User Experience (UX), practitioners and academics of Human–Computer Interaction look for ways to broaden their understanding of what constitutes “pleasurable experiences” with technology. The present study considered the fulfilment of universal psychological needs, such as competence, relatedness, popularity, stimulation, meaning, security, or autonomy, to be the major source of positive experience with interactive technologies. To explore this, we collected over 500 positive experiences with interactive products (e.g., mobile phones, computers). As expected, we found a clear relationship between need fulfilment and positive affect, with stimulation, relatedness, competence and popularity being especially salient needs. Experiences could be further categorized by the primary need they fulfil, with apparent qualitative differences among some of the categories in terms of the emotions involved. Need fulfilment was clearly linked to hedonic quality perceptions, but not as strongly to pragmatic quality (i.e., perceived usability), which supports the notion of hedonic quality as “motivator” and pragmatic quality as “hygiene factor.” Whether hedonic quality ratings reflected need fulfilment depended on the belief that the product was responsible for the experience (i.e., attribution).

The empirical study of aesthetics in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is concerned with - among other topics - the relationship between beauty and usability and the general impact of beauty on product choice and use. Specifically, the present paper explores the notion of a "beauty dilemma" - the idea that people discount beauty in a choice situation, although they value it in general (i.e., they are not choosing what makes them happy). We explored this idea in three studies with a total of over 600 participants. Study 1 revealed a reluctance to pay for beauty due to its hedonic nature (i.e., associated with luxury etc.). Study 2 showed that people prefer a more beautiful product, but justify their choice by referring to spurious advantages in usability. Finally, Study 3 revealed that a choice situation which requires a trade-off between beauty and usability, and which offers no further way to justify choosing beauty, leads to a sharp increase in the preference of usability. The underlying reasons for this "beauty dilemma" and further implications are discussed.

In this paper we argue against averaging as a common practice in the analysis of subjective attribute judgments, both across and within subjects. Previous work has raised awareness of the diversity between individuals' perceptions. In this paper it will furthermore become apparent that such diversity can also exist within a single individual, in the sense that different attribute judgments from a subject may reveal different, complementary, views. A Multi-Dimensional Scaling approach that accounts for the diverse views on a set of stimuli is proposed and its added value is illustrated using published data. We will illustrate that the averaging analysis provides insight to only 1/6th of the total number of attributes in the example dataset. The proposed approach accounts for more than double the information obtained from the average model, and provides richer and semantically diverse views on the set of stimuli.

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.

The perceived quality of interactive products can be roughly divided into instrumental, task-related, pragmatic attributes (e.g., usefulness, usability) and non-instrumental, self-referential, hedonic attributes (e.g., novelty, beauty). Recent studies suggest that the weighting of both aspects in forming an overall evaluation of an interactive product heavily depends on features of the actual situation, such as whether an individual has to perform a specific task or not. The present paper extends these findings by assuming that a match between an individual’s motivational orientation and particular product attributes (i.e., pragmatic, hedonic) moderates the perceived value of interactive products. Specifically, it shows how differences in regulatory foci (promotion or prevention focus), that is, differences in the way goal-directed behavior is regulated, influence product evaluation and choice. Participants were either set in a prevention focus (concern for safety and the avoidance of negative outcomes) or promotion focus (concern for personal growth and the attainment of positive outcomes). Subsequently, they were asked to evaluate and choose between a primarily pragmatic and a primarily hedonic mp3-player. The results revealed the expected effect of the activated regulatory focus on evaluation and choice. Individuals in a promotion focus rated the hedonic player as more appealing and chose it more frequently compared to individuals in a prevention focus. Reverse results, albeit not as strong, were found for the evaluation and choice of the pragmatic player. Our findings support the idea that product appeal and choice is strongly context-dependent. It further extends previous findings by showing that not only major differences in the situation, such as providing a specific task or not, impact product appreciation but that more subtle, motivational orientations can have similar effects.

Recently, Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) started to focus on experiential aspects of product use, such as affect or hedonic qualities. One interesting question concerns the way a particular experience is summarized into a retrospective value judgment about the product. In the present study, we specifically explored the relationship between affect, mental effort and spontaneity experienced while interacting with a storytelling system and retrospective judgments of appeal. In addition, we studied differential effects of the presence or absence of instrumental goals. In general, active instrumental goals did not only impact experience per se by, for example, inducing mental effort, but also the way subsequent retrospective judgments were formed. We discuss the implications of our findings for the practice of product evaluation in HCI specifically, and more general aspects, such as the role of affect in product evaluations and the importance of usage mode compatibility (i.e., a compatibility of the way one ought to and actually does approach a product).

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.

Two studies considered the interplay between user-perceived usability (i.e., pragmatic attributes), hedonic attributes (e.g., stimulation, identification), goodness (i.e., satisfaction), and beauty of 4 different MP3-player skins. As long as beauty and goodness stress the subjective valuation of a product, both were related to each other. However, the nature of goodness and beauty was found to differ. Goodness depended on both perceived usability and hedonic attributes. Especially after using the skins, perceived usability became a strong determinant of goodness. In contrast, beauty largely depended on identification; a hedonic attribute group, which captures the product's ability to communicate important personal values to relevant others. Perceived usability as well as goodness was affected by experience (i.e., actual usability, usability problems), whereas hedonic attributes and beauty remained stable over time. All in all, the nature of beauty is rather self-oriented than goal-oriented, whereas goodness relates to both.

In their comments, Frohlich (this issue), Monk (this issue), Tractinsky (thisissue), Overbeeke and Wensveen (this issue) addressed a wide variety of in-teresting issues relevant to the study of beauty. The methodological aspectsare especially valuable. Besides the regular debate of what constitutes goodresearch,theyrevealmanyunresolvedhigher-levelconceptualdiscrepancies.To resolve those and to find a shared understanding of what beauty is andhow to study it is the key to guaranteeing the impact of our research in thefield of human–computer interaction (HCI). Only if studies can be comparedand integrated into a common model ,or even theory, others will begin tobenefit.The present reply is selective. I address the following six loosely con-nected, conceptual aspects, which I consider important.• Beauty as an experience versus beauty as a judgment.• Beauty in objects as a desired extension of the self.• Does visceral beauty exist?• Beauty as a neither less nor more elusive judgment than usability,utility, or satisfaction.• Shall we focus on objects or on individuals?• Any lessons for design?I am aware of the many other issues, large and small, raised but not ad-dressed by the reply. They are not lost. There will be many future opportuni-ties to further research and discuss them.

Usability can be broadly defined as quality of use. However, even this broad definition neglects the contribution of perceived fun and enjoyment to user satisfaction and preferences. Therefore, we recently suggested a model taking "hedonic quality" (HQ; i.e., non-task-oriented quality aspects such as innovativeness, originality, etc.) and the subjective nature of "appealingness" into account (Hassenzahl, Platz, Burmester, & Lehner, 2000). In this study, I aimed to further elaborate and test this model. I assessed the user perceptions and evaluations of 3 different visual display units (screen types). The results replicate and qualify the key findings of Hassenzahl, Platz, et al. (2000) and lend further support to the model's notion of hedonic quality and its importance for subjective judgments of product appealingness.

The present study examines the role of subjectively perceived ergonomic quality (e.g. simplicity, controllability) and hedonic quality (e.g. novelty, originality) of a software system in forming a judgement of appeal. A hypothesised research model is presented. The two main research question are: (1) Are ergonomic and hedonic quality subjectively different quality aspects that can be independently perceived by the users? and (2) Is the judgement of appeal formed by combining and weighting ergonomic and hedonic quality and which weights are assigned?

Software-ergonomic system analysis often reveals numerous usability problems. Given that system design suffers from limited resources, the prioritization of usability problems seems inevitable. Surprisingly enough, prioritization is not in the focus of scientific interest. Within this paper, approaches to prioritization relying on severity estimates will be presented. Two of the approaches, namely priorities based on data about the impact of a problem (data-driven) and priorities based on judgements of interest group members (judgement-driven) will be further explored. In the data-driven approach total problem-handling time caused by a usability problem is presented as a measure of severity. The major disadvantage of the data-driven approach is its costs. A possible alternative are severity estimates based on judgements by members of involved interest groups. The first of two studies shows how to obtain judgement driven severity estimates and reveals a fundamental lack of correspondence between data-driven and judgement-driven severity estimates. The second study supports the notion that the lack of correspondence may stem from a difference between assumptions of the data-driven approach and the naive judgement model of interest group members in the judgement-driven approach. A hypothetical model for severity estimates by interest group members is presented.

The design of an artifact (e.g., software system, household appliance) requires a multitude of decisions. In the course of narrowing down the design process, "good ideas" have to be divided from "bad ideas." To accomplish this, user perceptions and evaluations are of great value. The individual way people perceive and evaluate a set of prototypes designed in parallel may shed light on their general needs and concerns. The Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) is a method of elucidating the so-called personal constructs (e.g., friendly-hostile, bad-good, playful-expert-like) people employ when confronted with other individuals, events, or artifacts. We assume that the personal constructs (and the underlying topics) generated as a reaction to a set of artifacts mark the artifacts' design space from a user's perspective and that this information may be helpful in separating valuable ideas from the not so valuable. This article explores the practical value of the RGT in gathering design-relevant information about the design space of early artifact prototypes designed in parallel. Ways of treating the information gathered, its quality and general advantages, and limitations of the RGT are presented and discussed. In general, the RGT proved to be a valuable tool in exploring a set of artifact's design space from a user's perspective.

User-interface design lacks expertise in designing nonvisual user interfaces. This is surprising as there are various domains where auditory interfaces have already been proved to be helpful, such as railway information services and reading support for blind persons. We present a case study concerning the design of a telephone-based interface (TBI). It was realized within the development process of an interaction concept for a modular home automation system. The design was based on requirements gathered in user focus groups and on general guidelines for the design of TBIs. The TBI's evaluation revealed some minor (i.e., easily solved) usability problems. Questionnaires showed a positive ergonomic quality as well as a positive overall appeal. Interestingly, the evaluation indicates a potential to improve hedonic quality (i.e., non-task-related quality aspects). It may be induced by the addition of nonspeech sounds, thereby enriching user experience.