Designing user experience

The leading view on the field of user experience design sees today’s users as more driven by experiential, rather than materialistic motivations (Hassenzahl, 2014). It has been shown, that especially in developed societies, that are in a continuous environment of material wealth, people become more interested in values such as self-improvement (Inglehart, 1997).

Studies have shown that people value experiential purchases more than materialistic purchases of the same value (Boven & Gilovich, 2003). Even materialistic purchases gain more value if they come with a good story, such as a history of how the product has been made and by whom, and what is the philosophy behind the design of that particular product (Boven & Gilovich, 2003).

The phenomenon of valuing experience over matter is also related to the famous “hierarchy of needs” (Maslow, 1954), that explains the 5-step hierarchical ladder of human needs from the physiological level to self-actualization, and where one level cannot be reached if the lower level has not been reached (see Figure 1).

In order to develop a post-materialistic society, the environment must provide enough food, clothing and shelter (Maslow, 1954; Inglehart, 1997). Societies, that have these basic

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physiological needs fulfilled, become so-called experience societies where the population sees happiness as an equality to having positive life experiences (Schulze, 2005).

Figure 1. Maslow's (1954) hierarchy of needs.

These kinds of experience societies are also called post-materialistic (Hassenzahl, 2014). The earning of money is still valued, but people prefer having a personal engagement to their jobs and work for their passion rather than for money. These experience societies value declaration instead of acceleration, less instead of more, uniqueness instead of standardization, concentration instead of diversion, and making instead of consuming (Schulze, 2005).

The why, what and how of user experience

As explained before, the use of interactive products transfers into an experience in our memory. Already Krippendorff (1989) said, that “design is the creation of meaning”. These meanings are stored meaningful experiences in our brains, and these experiences, whether positive or negative, shape our actions in the future, affecting for an example our purchase decisions, attitudes and general mood (Hassenzahl, 2014). Similarly as usability is only subphenomenon of user experience, also user experience is just a subphenomenon of an experience. The word “user” only refers to an interaction with a system or a product, whereas the experience stands for the more psychological understanding of the concept that reaches far beyond HCI. As Hassenzahl (2014) said when talking about experience design in the HCI context, “experience design stands for technology, which suggests meaningful, engaging, valuable, and aesthetically

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pleasing experiences itself.” Thus the technology once again acts only as the medium of designing experiences.

When designing the user experience, designers should always bear in mind the holistic understanding of what an experience is, beyond the event of interaction with a system. Designers must think about the universal psychological need of why the user is interacting with the system, and what he/she is trying to accomplish, and how this can be done as effortlessly and pleasurably as possible (Hassenzahl, 2014). Thus, almost every seasoned technology expert is in a way or another an experience designer, no matter whether the end product is physical hardware or an interactive information system.

Rarely the most successful products have superior technology behind their success. They rather excel in grasping a universal psychological need, and responding to that need through the technology, that only mediates the response to that psychological need (Hassenzahl, 2014). Take for an example the classical case of Apple. Apple offered hardly any groundbreaking technological advancements, but still gained overwhelming success by understanding the psychological needs for simplicity, aesthetical design and intuitivism. The creation of the first tablet computer is a good example of a realization of a previously unnoticed human need that didn’t require any technical advancements, but drastically changed our understanding or when and how computers can be used. Apple clearly didn’t start with the technology, the how, but rather with why people would need a new kind of a device of interaction.

Hassenzahl (2014) introduced practical steps of why, what and how for designing experiences. Why relates to the motivation for the use of a product or a system, that usually fulfills our emotional or practical needs. What describes what people can do with a product (e.g. make a phone call or buy tickets to a festival), and the how goes more into detail on how the user will interact with the product or system, including the details of for example user interface aesthetics, textual content and provided functionalities. The idea is that the use of these three trains of thought “leads to products which are sensitive to the particularities of human experience. It leads to products able to tell enjoyable stories through their use or consumption” (Hassenzahl, 2014).

27 Aesthetics

Aesthetics will be final key concept examined in detail in the theory section. Now that we have covered the essence of usability and showed how it has become to be understood as a subcharacteristic of user experience, we will look deeper into aesthetics, which is seen as a subcharacteristic of usability, and thus also a subcharacteristic of user experience.

The theory section of aesthetics will begin by presenting different views, definitions and philosophical stands on aesthetics and beauty (section 2.3.1 “What is beauty and aesthetics?”). The second section will look into aesthetics more specifically in the context of HCI (section 2.3.2 “Aesthetics in human-computer interaction”).