Designing the Experience through Technology

The experience represented by the Experience Story is the starting point in designing an experience through technology, before proceeding to develop a prototype. In order to reduce the usual gap between the Experience Story and the prototyping, the methods of storyboards and mock-ups are implemented to keep focus on the story. With the help of storyboards and mock-ups a meaningful product interaction can be created through a prototype.

Storyboard

Storyboards are originally used in the creation of cartoons, video reports, and movies (e.g., [TJ81], [BBF+_{93], and [Gel09]). Their function is to highlight the most important aspects of a narrative}

[WMD+_{11]. Beyond that, storyboards are used in design to present an interactive flow of user}

and product [Red10]. The utility of storyboards lies in their ability to "...communicate a broader view of the interaction to show contexts and events" (p. 256 in [Red10]). A storyboard can be employed to translate the story into its interaction steps. Thereby, the storyboard takes a step into

the direction of a technical representation of the experience.

Before creating a storyboard, the single actions of an experience, that is, the interaction steps of the design, are to be taken into consideration by asking step by step, "What is going to happen next in the story?" (p.112 in [Gel09]). Through this, a storyboard becomes a sequence of visual frames in itself, used in the design for representing an interaction sequence and for envisioning interaction design solutions. The single frames consist of a hand-sketched picture annotated with few describing words [HP12]. In these frames, it is important to include the whole storyline of the Experience Story to show the experience over time, and not only the mere interaction with the system [HP12]. Besides the actual interaction with the system, the storyboard includes physical user actions, cognitive user actions, and activities of the system [HP12]. The designed technical system can thereby be seen as a black box to illustrate the potential of the system in its context [HP12]. The emotional perspective must also be displayed with phenomena like fun and joy [HP12]. When doing so the psychological needs and the levels of goals (see Section 2.2.2) in Hassenzahl [Has10] can provide a focus.

Compared to the Experience Story, storyboards are more explicit because of the added visual information. Their visuality at the same time provides simplicity to complex facts [BBF+_93].

More than that, storyboards serve as a fast method, which omit insights about details of the user interface and therefore on technical solutions, but instead provide elements like context, sequence, location, and emotion [Red10], which are important for the experience. Thereby, also the suspense curve can be displayed [BBF+_{93]. The focus is therefore on states of the experience, that is, on the}

one side, the emotional states of the users, and on the other side, the states of interaction with tech- nology over time. Storyboarding is hence a helpful method in the designing of experiences, linking Experience Story and the developing of the technology, which creates and mediates the experience.

Mock-up

Through the creation of a mock-up the insights of the Experience Story as well as of the storyboard are transferred into technology. At this point of the design, techniques are needed that provide solutions for the technical representation of the experience, which defines the technology. To give technology a first form mock-ups are used. The mock-up is a not fully functional prototype, but should be able to concretise the experience by means of technology. Similar to the Experience Story and the storyboard mock-ups are a representation of the experience, in this case an "experi- ence prototype." Buchenau and Suri describe, "By the term ’Experience Prototype’ we mean to emphasise the experiential aspect of whatever representations are needed to successfully (re)live or convey an experience with a product, space or system. [...] we can say an Experience Prototype is any kind of representation, in any medium, that is designed to understand, explore or communicate what it might be like to engage with the product, space or system we are designing" (p. 424 - 425 in [BS00]). Mock-ups enable a clear understanding of the fully functional technology, which is created later on. Thereby, the mock-up is more concrete than prototypes, such as low-fidelity paper prototypes (see [Bux07], [HP12]). The term "wireframe" is sometimes used for a kind of mock-up (e.g., in [McD07]) that focuses rather on the pure representation of the user interface, that is, on the look, the content, and the connections of the interface [WMD+_{11] (see in [HP12],}

[RM12], or [MHR+_11]).

artifacts (cf. [TE11]). In this work, mock-ups make parts of the designed experience exist for the first time through technology.. In the course of the implementation of the mock-up, a representation of the fully functional prototype, that is the aim of the design, is created. Through exploring and validating with the help of participants, the technology can be formed or re-thought (e.g., in [BS00]), before creating the fully functional prototype.

Prototyping for Experiencing: Experimental and In Situ

So far, the creation of prototypes in research is divided into horizontal prototypes (which are very broad in features but offer less functionality) and vertical prototypes (which offer deep function- ality but only for limited features) (e.g., in [HP12]). Beyond these, there are also hybrid forms of prototyping, an example of which is the T-prototype (which offers a broad functionality in specific features) [HP12].

Since the aim here is to act out a story through a technical prototype, the prototype has to offer all the functionality and the features needed to operate throughout the experience. Therefore, the fully functional prototype becomes an experience prototype.

Buchenau and Suri argue, "Experience is a very dynamic, complex, and subjective phenomenon. It depends upon the perception of multiple sensory qualities of a design, interpreted through filters relating to contextual factors" (p. 424 in [BS00]). Thus, in order to capture the context of the experience in the intended setting (cf. [RCT+_{07]), the prototype should be able to be tested in a}

real setting, hence in an in-situ environment. In that way, the complexity and richness of the real world [RCT+_{07], where the actual experience takes place, are integrated in the design.}

In contrast to the Experience Story, the storyboard, and the mock-up, the prototype is intended for a more active audience. It should thus support active participation with the aim to provide a relevant subjective experience through the technology [BS00]. The creation of prototypes that enable the participants to relive an experience is "...less a set of techniques, than it is an attitude" (p. 425 in [BS00]), as Buchenau and Suri argue. They elaborate that creating such a prototype "...requires hybrid and overlapping skill-sets such that it is not exclusive to any single design discipline" (p. 431 in [BS00]). Moreover, the functionality of the prototype, the degree of context, and the expla- nation provided to the participants to frame the experience depend on the experience and on the participants [BS00]. To give an example, the designing of a relatedness experience demands an intimate atmosphere, as this is essential to live through the relatedness experience.