So-called relatedness technologies aim to create relatedness experiences between people over distance. Typically, such technologies focus on implicit or expressive interaction, as opposed to the explicit, information-focused interaction of conventional communication technologies. Based on psychological theory, previous research has identified different design strategies for relatedness technologies such as awareness, expressivity, or gift giving. However, despite this profound theoretical understanding, designing for a fulfilling relatedness experience remains a challenging task and often conflicts with other psychological needs, such as autonomy or security. This research explores the specific potentials and barriers to the use and acceptance of relatedness technologies. Based on a comparative evaluation of five different relatedness concepts in an online study (N = 221) combining quantitative and qualitative data, we identified overarching patterns of promising design strategies for particular user groups and revealed overall need fulfillment as a central predictor of the intention to use the technology.

In the face of increasingly complex technologies, research and industry acknowledge users’ growing need for transparency. Advancing the currently fragmented research landscape, this research aims for a more comprehensive perspective on technology transparency, offering starting points for both transparency research and design. We conducted three focus groups (n = 6, N = 18) with users and experts. Integrating qualitative interview data and theoretical concepts from psychology and human-computer interaction, we developed An initial framework of cross-technology factors and consequences of users’ transparency need and perception. Specifically, factors influencing the perception of and need for transparency include design-related factors, use case-related factors, the seriousness of the technology’s application area, and interindividual differences. Factors concerning the consequences and relevance of transparency comprise usage-related consequences (e.g., level of goal achievement, trust) and meta-aspects of the relevance of transparency (e.g., future viability). We discuss the contributions of our research, limitations, and steps for future research.

Technology interactions found their way into public space and present others attend what users are doing. However, in HCI research, the attendant perspective has often been neglected or considered only vaguely in the sense of “social context”. Aiming at a better understanding of different types of attendants and their experiences, we developed a typology of four types based on two differentiating criteria (conspicuousness and voluntariness of attending the user interaction). An experimental vignette study (N = 181) tested the typology and revealed typical experiential patterns (e.g., need fulfillment, emotions, desire to join the technology interaction) related to the four types based on quantitative and qualitative data. Our research provides various contributions to HCI theory and design. For example, the typology can be used analytically in UX research. Moreover, it can be used generatively to design positive technology experiences in public for all stakeholders, namely, users and attendants.

Digital companions shall augment complex human processes like extensive decision-making. However, their acceptance may depend upon their ability to adapt to individuals’ psychological states and preferred decision strategies. Regulatory Mode Theory divides human self-regulation into assessment (i.e., making comparisons) and locomotion (i.e., movement from state to state). These regulatory modes are more or less compatible with different decision strategies. In an experimental study (N=81, 2x2-between-subjects design) we explored whether digital companions can gain higher acceptance by considering these compatibilities. Participants were confronted with a decision task. The assisting digital companion first induced a regulatory mode (assessment vs. locomotion) and subsequently presented information according to one of two decision strategies (full evaluation vs. progressive elimination). We show that a fit between regulatory mode and decision strategy (assessment/full evaluation or locomotion/progressive elimination) leads to a favorable evaluation of decisions and the digital companion. No differences regarding decision accuracy and speed were observed.

Fitness trackers have the potential for fostering sustained change and increasing well-being. However, the research community is yet to understand what design features and values need to be embodied in a fitness tracker for long-term engagement. While past work mainly focused on WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic) fitness trackers usersin North America and Western Europe, this paper investigates another perspective on fitness tracking. We conducted interviews with N = 37 fitness tracker users in the US, Europe and Egypt to identify the similarities and differences in attitudes and practices in fitness tracking. We found that fitness tracking involved a deeper social context in Egyptian communities and our findings suggest that Arabic users focused on physiological measurement, while non-Arab Western users appear to bewere more interested in goal achievement. We contribute design dimensions that can help build more inclusive tracker experiences. Our work highlights how future fitness trackers should support a customisable spectrum of design values to offer engaging experiences to a diverse and global audience.

The smartphone plays a dominant role in everyday life. Among young adults, the average daily usage time is almost four hours. The present study [N=399] examines the specific psychological role of smartphone usage during alone time (e.g. in the subway, waiting, in bed). Particularly, we explore its role in coping with negative emotions in the sense of an "attachment object", providing comfort like a pacifier for infants. Results underlined the pacifying role of smartphone usage to cope with negative emotions in moments of alone time. Moreover, particular personality dispositions (e.g., high need to belong, high proneness to boredom) were associated with more extensive self-reported smartphone usage and mediated by the perception of the smartphone as an attachment object. Finally, smartphone usage was negatively correlated to self-insight, possibly substituting intense inner debates or self-realizations during alone time. Implications for HCI research and practice are discussed.

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.

Journal Article An Experience Perspective on Intuitive Interaction: Central Components and the Special Effect of Domain Transfer Distance Get access Sarah Diefenbach, Sarah Diefenbach * 1User Experience and Ergonomics in Design, Folkwang University of the Arts, Universitätsstrasse 12, 45141 Essen, Germany *Corresponding author: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Daniel Ullrich Daniel Ullrich 2Department of Psychology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Alexanderstraße 10, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Interacting with Computers, Volume 27, Issue 3, May 2015, Pages 210–234, https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwv001 Published: 30 January 2015 Article history Received: 17 March 2014 Revision received: 12 December 2014 Accepted: 02 January 2015 Published: 30 January 2015

S.235-255

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.

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.

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

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.