3.1 Goals of product development

“We want prolongation of life, restitution of youth, retardation of age, and mitigation of

pain.” / Francis Bacon

“Life, Liberty, Pursuit of happiness“ / Thomas Jefferson

“A sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present without

compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

United Nations, Our common future, 1987

We all have lots of concurrent goals, both personal that a product should not violate,

and product related that the new product should fulfil, increasing our quality of life

(QoL). Examples of personal goals are; to have a good night sleep, have fun, to be

relaxed and satisfied. They can be related to our self-respect such as attracting the

attention of people who have status, and that we do not like to feel stupid or make

mistakes. The American psychologist Abraham Maslov introduced a famous model

for estimating quality of life. It consists of a hierarchy of needs starting bottom up

from physical health, security, self-esteem, love-belongingness, and with self-

actualisation at the top. A similar hierarchy of the perceived value of design is

functionality, reliability, usability, proficiency, and support for creativity (Lidwell,

2003).

Taking the question about why to the extreme we propose the following. As human

beings we populate a world with finite physical and social resources, e.g. attention,

and we depend on them to survive and prosper. Design is a way to rearrange

resources and make the best use possible out of them. Fair distribution and

participation by all, are other fundamental requirements. Design is political and

stories are essential both as tools in the process and as the result of the design.

A guideline throughout the design process is to iteratively design

for the best possible experience and fine tune the result as much as

possible. “Anything less is simply unacceptable.” (Fling, 2009). Less

than perfect technologies waste our time and make our lives worse.

In particular this is important for people who do not easily master

a new technologies, e.g. because of lack of education or disabilities,

physical, cognitive, sensory, social or any combination of them. Human centred

computing is important (Jaimes, 2007).

Designing for something often, bringeing somehing into being, also destroys (Fry,

2009, p. 4). Figuring out how to maximize the balance sheet is the trick of good

design.

Some goals that designers have should be altogether ignored (Cooper, 2004). False

goals are not aimed at fulfilling the all-important user goals, but at satisfying other,

more or less valid, constraints. One such is to save memory. Why should you save

memory if this is in conflict with a user’s goal, such as a need to play 24 hours of MP3

music rather than forty-five minutes? Okay, you save $5 on the retail price but you

might lose 50% of the customers. Other disputable goals are increased graphic beauty

for its own sake, data entry speed up, use of a bigger screen, and voice input where a

simple interaction technology, such as a button, works quite satisfactory. To the false

goals we can add functionality that neither matches the user expectations of the

product, nor provides useful added value.

Most technology share the overall goal of user QoL, because this is something a user,

or a society, is willing to pay for. But, the experience provided by the product has to

match its price. Basically the money paid serves as the reward for providing the

product, but fame, respect, and evidence of identity also motivate design work. The

price paid is a measure of the QoL provided by a service and so is to what extent a

product is used and how much it affects the life of the user.

A problem for marketing is that the experiences from a product or service as well as

its value changes. When new designs are introduced they change the basis for the

evaluation. Even disregarding this defining the experience with a product is not easy

to do. Estimating the experience of a teenager confronted with a gut-wrenchingly

compelling, immersive, 3D action game might not be difficult, but in general

experience is the weighted sum of every relation between the product and the user;

starting with initial awareness of the product, ordering, use, support, upgrades, and

all the way to end-of-life activities. It also includes marketing, appearance, status,

user expectations and preferences. Not a trivial calculation.

3.1.1 Experiences as goals

“Cool is one step from creepy.” / Christian Lindholm

The researcher Daniel Fällman points out that usability built on cognitive science

concepts was the main focus when HCI was introduced (Fällman, 2011). A second

wave in HCI explored participatory design, work context and groupware. Now, in

the third wave, keywords are “expressive”, “affective” and “culture”. We need to

contemplate questions such as what an experience is, what constitutes a good user

experience, what values are important and what the meaning of what we design is,

see also Section 2.8xxxHG2.x.

xxxHGTo have or to be? The psychoanalyst, sociologist, and philosopher Erich

Fromm asked this question and his answer was that being should win every day in

the week (Fromm, 1976). For one thing we are mortal and cannot take anything with

us. Hassenzahl (2013) asks the same question in the context of design, and comes to

the same answer. We are the sum of our experiences and positive experiences are

crucial to our well-being and happiness. This should be reflected in the work and

attitude of designers. Focus in the design community should be on what to design, its

content and effect, rather than on the design process.

An experience designer must be ready to take responsibility and must remain critical.

Experience design as discipline in turn must create a culture of reflecting about content, and

not only about methods and processes. (Hassenzahl, 2013)

The usability goal of satisfying the user can be extended for example into the

following user experience goals; enjoyable, rewarding, fun, entertaining, helpful,

motivating, aesthetically pleasing, supporting creativity, emotionally fulfilling,

surprising, seductive, and tempting (Preece, 2011). To promote these goals and if you

for instance aim for a touching drama, a shocking sensation, support for imagination

and fantasy, or is involved in a quest for ‘WOW!’, then you should also make use of

unexpected needs, e.g. hunger, maintain a greater control over context, provide apt

feedback, invite to play and novel interaction (Hudson, 2009).

According to Donald Norman (Norman, 2005) design should be dealt with at three

different levels, visceral, behavioural, and reflective, each with its own

characteristics. The visceral, or physical level is the immediate level. Humans have

many hardwired behaviours and perceptual inconsistencies installed over the last

million years. Next, we have the behavioural, or functional, level. At this level we

have to make sure that the product is useful, with the right functionality, and with

high usability. Third, we have the reflective, or cultural level that reflect deep human

traits, social and narrative intelligence, humour, surprise, learned aesthetics. All

complex and rich behaviours.

The three levels interact and bias each other. If we begin at the biologically defined

visceral level it reacts quickly, modulated by everyday behaviour learnt over a longer

time. This behaviour is in turn supported by information from the visceral level. We

for instance does not run away if we see a car approaching. At the reflective level we

contemplate and tweak everyday behaviour. On our way home we speed up as we

look forward to a cup of coffee and a short nap on the sofa. We bring a raincoat along

if we suspect that it will rain.

Subconscious affect works at the visceral level, where for instance a

bad mood indicates that something is wrong. Emotions are

transient conscious affective states that guide reflective thought and

speeds up decisions, which means that they are crucial factors when

someone decides to spend money. The product design will modify

the affective state of the user, but to what effect both on the context

of the product and the user. If a product fails to be useful, or if its usability is low,

negative affect will result. Furthermore, reflective behaviour and affect also interacts.

We think better when we are in a good mood, for instance when we are filled up, and

reach for the coffee cup. Elation makes a person impulsive, speeds up decisions, and

allows us to become better problem solvers, for instance to manage a complicated

user interface. We have all of us at some time even used a bad mode as an excuse for

failure. So to conclude, the product should be pleasurable. But what does this mean

to a teenager in New York, a grandmother in Stockholm, or a business man in

Tokyo?

The framework sketched above does not give the whole truth and can rephrase it

and rearranging the factors involved, e.g. basing the model on Aesthetics (Locher,

2010). In 2.8xxxHG we introduced aesthetics, and also a framework for evaluating

experiences from products and services with the following layers: sensory layer, emotional, intellectual/ reflective/ idea layer, social, contextual, and the practice

layer. The following subsections will add some details on user experience more

related to design and concluding with some notes on immersion, engagement and

flow.

There are many models proposed for user experience related to design, some that

also include stories or storytelling. A particularly interesting one suggests four

interrelated levels; sub-conscious (behavioural), cognitive (Intellectual), narrative and

storytelling (Forlizzi, 2000). The sub-conscious experience results from a well

learned behaviour, e.g. smiling. If the user starts to reflect on the smile, then a

cognitive experience surfaces. Next, a story emerges from the reflection, a narrative

experience that we can formulate around the design. Finally, if this is a personal and

unique story it grounds the narrative in the user’s real world context. The user can

understand and rephrase the narrative into a personal story that could work as an

argument in persuasion.

A related set of goals can be listed for forms of technology that

help us to express ourselves rather than expressing itself, i.e.

support “the action of making known one’s thoughts or

feelings” (Hook, 2011). Clothes, glasses, megaphones and

equipment for artists such as a Video Jockey (VJ) are some

examples of products.

To appreciate the breadth of the concept of user experience we can contrast the

current approaches in HCI to a performance oriented one, see table below (Jacucci,

2004).

T

General human-computer

interaction

Performance applied to physical

interfaces

Task, timeless, general Event, contingent, unique

Recognition, affordance Perception, sense experience

Usability, accountability Expression

Behaviour Inividual’s expressivity

Users Performers

Personalising, artefact’s view Configuring, actor’s view

Sensing system Sensing humans

Tracking movements, objects Amplifying movements,

augmenting objects

Recognising, sensing situations Staging, configuring situations

Table 3.1.1 HCI contrasted to a performance perspective (Jacucci, 2004).

Performance here means doing close to anything with the understanding that

someone is watching, e.g. playing a game in a group or using a mobile in public. The

performance view stresses the particularity, the uniqueness of a user’s interface,

instead of its generality. A user acts and dances a private dance with the interface.

3.1.1.1 Immersion, engagement and flow

Immersion and engagement are keys to user experiences. Immersion implies that we

accept the schemas offered as familiar, useable and “supportive of our ability to take

guided action and see the outcomes from our choice of one or more scripts within a

single schema.” (Douglas, 2001). To maintain immersion interaction, narrative and

possible actions need to be aligned with the schema and the script, see also

discussion on immersion in Section 1.4.5xxxHG.

Engagement is another desirable state. It is the result of challenge, of our ability to

merge schemas presented to us: “our attempts to discover congruencies between the

hypertext and an array of often mutually exclusive schemas, and, ultimately, our

ability to make sense of the work as a whole.” (Thomas, 2007). As a natural

consequence engagement is easier for the experienced with many schemas to choose

from. Someone with a disposition for learning and an open mind for creating new

schemas and scripts, rather than following the conventions. One way to acquire them

is to read a lot of books; another is to look at films. Engagement is a result of

confronting a story, but even before this meeting we anticipate it, hope to learn from

it or prepare to be challenged by it. We do not know if our expectations will be

fulfilled or if something completely unknown to us will be the outcome. Curiosity

results as an important consequence of this uncertainty.

A really engaging activity could result in flow. Flow is the optimal

presence, and the optimal experience, i.e. the ultimate mindfulness

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). It might also be more common than you think.

Where you lost in the previous sentence half a second ago?

Prerequisites for flow are:

• A task with clear goals to complete

• Immediate feedback

• Ability to concentrate on the experience, activity or task

• Sense of control over actions.

Note how easy it is to match the prerequisite for flow to how a successful game

affects a player. In the state of flow the duration of time seems to change, concern for

self, and awareness of worries disappears, and after the experience a stronger sense

of self emerges. To achieve all this it is however important that skills needed and

challenges match the person, see figure below.

Figure 3.1.1 Model of flow.

An adaption of the original description of flow to games gave the following list of

important elements (adapted from Sweetser, 2005):

• The activity involved should be a task that can be completed.

• Concentration on the task possible (able and enabled).

• Challenge, perceived skills should match challenges and both must exceed a

certain level.

• Control, sense of control over actions (at least possible to put on the breaks,

or pause).

• Clear goals

• Feedback, immediate

Level of

challenge Anxiety

Apathy Boredom

Flow

Level of skill

• Immersion, deep but effortless involvement, reduced concern for self and

sense of time

• Participator skills

• Social interaction.

Flow can be applied to any product, not only games. Consider an experiential

product with some ambiguity built in. If it is difficult to use, and without ambiguity

it will be a boring product to use. It is also boring if it is quite easy to use but

responds randomly. Between these extremes there is a sweet spot (Gaver, 2009).

3.1.2 Valued products that motivate

“Value emerges from interaction” / (McCullough, 2005)

When we assign preference to an experience we value it. In this book we are

interested in values that will affect design of products, services, and associated

behaviours. Positive values imbue meanings a user cares about and the designer

should consider. They are also something that is socially constructed by us all,

continuously, and they take place.

3.1.2.1 Values and worth in design

Designers build values into the systems they design, unconsciously or consciously,

whether they want to or not. Both values that are based on ethics and those related to

worth, see Section 2.9xxxHG. When designing a system a designer wants to create

something that a user or the society will value. In the process of doing this the

designer have to explicitly analyse the values a system, its users and its use supports.

With this information the designer and the design process could:

• Support values by design

• Design by the support of values

• Design the design process by the support of values

• Design new values by design

One theory that explicitly discusses the worth of a product is the Theory of

consumption values. It suggests that a particular choice is influenced by functional

value (money’s worth, utilitarian need), social value, emotional value, epistemic

value (experiencing something new), and conditional value (contextual preferences,

e.g. winter coat).

Thinking along the same lines some values to consider when designing a new

product or service are: symbolic, emotional, economic, historical, cultural,

aesthetic, social, political, environmental, brand value, and utilitarian values, see

figure below where values of a wedding ring have been estimated (Boradkar, 2011).

A symbolic value refers to how an object or process serves as sign and symbol of

something else. One example is the status gained from a big house. The house also

could have a cultural and social value. A social value implies a positive or negative

social impact. Perhaps the house has a big lawn where all the kids in the

neighbourhood play soccer in the afternoons. A haunted house has a cultural value.

When technology changes values also can change. Printed photographs will for

instance be more valued as the number of digital images increases. A TV program

broadcasted in real time to the family sitting in the TV room will gain value the more

we stream TV from databases to out surfpads.

Figure 3.1.2 Estimation of the value of a wedding ring

The life of a product from cradle to grave could be summarised as; planning for use,

use, design process, manufacturing, reuse and disposal. If we combine the life of a

product with the value scheme in Figure 3.1.2xxxHG we can illustrate the total value

of a product as in the table below. From the table we can see that for a wedding ring

use is obviously more important than planning for the two values shown.

Planning Use …

Historical 2 3

Cultural 1 5

…

Table 3.1.2 Value proposition for a product’s life.

If we restrict ourselves to a particular situation and a given product we can add

attitude to our design attributes. We define an attitude as “an orientation towards

Symbolic

Emotional

Economic

Historical

Cultural

Aesthetic

Social

Political

Environmental

Brand value

Utilitarian

certain objects (including persons – others and oneself) or situations. … An attitude

results from the application of a general value to concrete object or situations

“(Rokeach, 1979, p. 72). Behaviour results in part from values and attitudes, but even

though individuals will try to behave according to their self-conception as moral and

competent they are often irrational and untrue to their values. Still, even if people do

not always live up to them, their values are stable and not easy to change (Rokeach,

1979, p. 255).

3.1.2.2 Values and motivation

Values are important as bases for motivation that energizes human behaviour and

could persuade us, for instance to buy a product or start playing a game. Three broad

categories of motivation are physiological, cognitive and social motivation. If we

take playing games as an example then physiological motivators have been explored

by the Wii console. Exercising is fun but so far virtual games do not quench thirst.

Solving a problem and satisfying curiosities are major cognitive motivators for

playing games and social rewards are also found in most games. We earn respect by

having the best high score and play single player games together as a social event.

A set of 16 motivations suggested are; power, independence, curiosity, acceptance,

order, saving, honor, idealism, social contact, family, status, vengeance, romance,

eating, physical exercise, and tranquility (Reiss, 2004). In another attempt to

structure motivations they were organized in a 3 by 3 matrix where the rows are

labeled being, doing and having. The columns are self, material world and social

world. In total there are 9 cells where motivations from research literature can be

positioned (Forbes, 2011).

Self

(intrapsychic)

Material world

(instrumental)

Social world

(interpersonal)

Being Security, hope, order Empowerment,

curiosity, egoism /

power

Belonging, social

contact, sympathy,

imitation

Doing Identity,

independence,

individuation

Engagement, play,

purpose

Nurturance, family,

romance, love/ intimacy,

parental love

Having Mastery, acceptance,

understanding

Achievement,

creation, greed

Esteem, rivalry,

vengeance

Table 3.1.3 Framework of motivation (Forbes, 2011).

Just to take two random examples a gamer deeply immersed in a game can easily

enjoy the love and power sensed in the virtual game world. A second example is that

arguably our material society and its consumism is built on a quest for security

(Bauman, 2000). Perhaps the fear underlying this guess also supports the rapid

evolution of pervasive computing?

As yet another example of characterizing motivation the table below identifies

different forms of fun according to three different motives.

Curiosity Achievement Sociality

Beauty, surprise Applying an ability Competition

(Re-)Discovery Creation Power

Immersion Advancement and

completion

Social interaction

Physical activity (learning

controls, reacting fast enough,

skilful timing)

Problem solving

(identify objectives,

and the puzzle type)

Love

Thrill of danger

Comedy

Table 3.1.4 Different kinds of fun for three categories of motivation (Gärdenfors, 2000).

Think about how new mobile technology is marketed. It is not so difficult to identify

all of the cells in the advertisements.

3.1.2.3 Using negative values

Negative experiences could add contrast and thus emphasize the positive values of

the system. Let us take comfort as an example. Comfort, or lack of hardship, is

important in our daily life and often we do not acknowledge it until we lose it, e.g.

hot water in the shower (Shove, 2003). Being forced to shower in cold water for a

couple of days will certainly bring forth the value of hot water.

What can be accomplished by uncomfortable interactions? Some suggestions of

interesting areas of applications by Benford et al. (2012) are:

• Entertainment, e.g. feeling (some of) the pain of a gunshot wound when the

hero is shot.

• Enlightment, fasting or giving up some comfort is one way to reach for

spiritual moods.

• Sociability, a common enemy, e.g. everyone in the neighborhood loses their

hot water, can strengthen the bonds of a community.

Discomfort can be visceral, e.g. a bad smell, pain or enforced hard work. It could also

be culturally based alluding to themes of behaviors that are commonly considered

unpleasant in a particular culture. Being forced to wear clothes that are not

acceptable or feeling uncomfortable when taking a shower and thinking about

climate and sustainability. A third type of discomfort comes from loss of control, e.g.

intimacy with strangers or surveillance (Benford, 2012). For all of these examples

experiences and values are closely related and they can be both positive and

negative.

3.1.2.4 Vales in a device ecology

xxxHGThe previous section introduced some models for valuing single products or

devices. What happens if we value devices taking their ecology into consideration?

Some results on this was reported by Stolterman et al. (2013). From their research

they proposed two models.

The first one identified the practical value (its purpose), emotional value and

rationale value (the effectiveness of reaching its practical or emotional goal). Using

these three values they investigated how the compination of different devices

affected their values. What they found was that values changed not only depending

on who the user was and the context of use, but also depending on other devices

were introduced; “a complete understanding of a personal device landscape is

almost impossible to establish” (Stolterman, 2013, p. 22). Not very uplifting to a

designer looking for support.

A second model was based on four types of design features:

• Physical manifestation – look and feel

• Interaction style – type of interaction, e.g. touch screen, and its characteristics

• Functional properties – functionality of the device

• Informational capacities – data processing and storage properties

Once again the complexity of the device ecology rises sharply as we add devices to it

(Stolterman, 2013). Some devices look alike, some are interacted with in similar ways,

and they have complementary or redundant functionality or data. A web of

relationships is established for every particular use situation, but exchanging one of

the devices could change the value of all of the others and of the whole. Why do you

for instance need an iPod if you buy an iPhone?

3.1.3 Meaningful products

In 2.9xxxHG we defined meaning as “a distinct level of cognitive significance that

represents how people understand the world around them” (Shedroff, 2002). This

section adds some more details to the concept. Meaning supposedly integrates the

emotional and cognitive, as well as cultural experiences, and is very important to all

of us. Even deeper abstract meanings can be experiences in themselves, e.g. feeling

free. In this book we will use the word meaningful as an attribute when something

has meaning and is highly appreciated.

The level of the subjective experience when using the product, as perceived by the

particular user, is what counts and we need to design for beyond satisfaction and

understand enjoyable, meaningful and valuable experiences. The table below

illustrates the some of the attitudes that a customer can hold.

Usable Appreciated, enjoyable Meaningful/Valuable

I could use one I want one of these I need one!

Cost? Can I get the money? It is critical and urgent

In stock? Where can I find it? If I can’t get it

Comparative? What to sell to buy? -then I die

Rational Art and media Existential

Table 3.1.5 Levels of appreciation.

What characterizes a product or service that is truly, deeply meaningful to its users?

How do we design beyond appreciated and enjoyable? What we are looking for are

methods and methodology that can help us to identify, design and present deeply

meaningful products and services. The resulting designs should be useful,

aesthetically pleasing, inducing flow and increase quality of life. Furthermore, we

will bravely assume that meaning to a large extent is created directly or indirectly

from social life, see e.g. Schutz (1932) and Searle (1995). Finally we boldly state that

what people do, i.e. their actions, creating relations, groups, society, norms, art and

more are best described as interactions framed by stories, e.g. obligations,

intercourses, mutual influences and modification.

That last statements might need some elaboration.

We live through experiences, and from this it seems that experiences should be the

natural choice of building blocks for guiding and evaluating our designs. Also,

since they are important to humans there is an extensive vocabulary and a plethora

of models. One characteristic particularly important for the following discussion is

that experiences are personal in nature, but social in their construction. When we

talk about a particular experience we establish a frame of reference for it through a

story adapted to the audience and the situation. This is difficult, but we are good at

it.

What we want to do is to relate the interfaces and concepts of our services and

products to human values and meaning. One idea is to identify meanings and

values starting from product based experiences. This is a notoriously difficult thing

to do. If we think about the innumerable experiences a human is exposed to over a

lifetime, which in turn establish values, it is obvious that the resulting structure will

be enormously complex. We could use only a selection of experiences, i.e. the

“meaningful” ones, for analysis. But, what encounters in reality are the meaningful?

The particularity of an individual’s personal experience adds to complexity while

media as well as social interaction tend to smooth out some of the differences.

To explore some of the differences between meaning and value let us take an

example. Imagine that you attend to a dance performance. The evening has been

planned for a long time to celebrate the birthday of a dear friend, and you really have

looked forward to it. The expressive movements of the dance and the rhythmic music

make you feel good, and you would certainly say that the performance has an

aesthetic value to you. The dance is called “Me and Thailand” and your guess is that

the meaning of the dance is an artistic interpretation of a particularly joyful vacation.

The tempo of the dance increases and you can feel that the whole audience is

intensely focused on the dance, immersed in the valuable experience. The dancer

notices this and increases his efforts. The audience’s sense of community or oneness

heightens the experience even more, to something valuable at a social level. After a

short intermission the dance commences again, but now in a different, lower, tempo.

You glance at the theatre programme and see the title “Fly CO2”. The dance is still

enjoyable, but its meaning has now changed. Even the first dance has changed its

meaning and can now be seen as an ironic political statement. The social value and

meaning of the whole night is however still the same. An experience with many

different meanings and values has emerged, some of them consciously perceived,

some not. The show was appraised and valued; both by you, your friend, the rest of

the audience, and even by all of you in concert.

Alternatively we could look at using emotions as our basic element. Emotions are

basic, universal, and all humans have them. They however suffer from the same

problem as experiences. They are individualised and evolved over a lifetime. Also,

an emotion can be difficult to clearly describe and express even for the individual

having it especially since we have a rather small vocabulary for them. Furthermore,

emotions are extremely context dependent and can be short lived. They are

observable to some extent, but given the above it is not too surprising that it is

difficult to parse an emotional expression (Battarbee, 2007). Finally, emotions are

possible, and natural, to fake. Although there is an experience level reserved for

emotions only in Section 3.1.1.2, an emotion can simultaneously affect all or most of

the other levels of experience. This implies that emotions alone will not give much

information to a designer. They can be used for comparison of alternatives, but will

be useless for pinpointing the exact reasons why a design does not deliver

meaningful value, which is a crucial knowledge for the next design iteration.

If emotions are no good to get at meaning then we might think about using

meanings, values and universals directly to understand designs and designing. A

reasonable idea since people looks for meaning rather than for emotions. However,

once again we face the problem of how to relate meaning to experiences in the design

process. We want to, need to, identify the experiences since they are much easier to

express than meanings. A meaningful concept such as beauty can be the abstraction

of a number of hay-stacks of interrelated fragments of experiences. No wonder

philosophers have had problems with the concept of meaning the last couple of

thousand years. An illustration of the situation at hand is shown in Figure 3.1.3. Note

that both emotions and values can be perceived as experiences, although they can be

difficult to verbalize.

Figure 3.1.3 An experience at three levels of experience having several meanings and

resulting in a number of emotions.

How then, given the above, do we proceed, how do we understand the world at the

level of meanings? Our answer is that meanings should be (re-)presented as stories.

Even though this will not always be explicitly stated in the following, many methods

that we will discuss depend on stories, e.g. scenarios and sketching just to name two.

We will also add an explicit discussion on how to use stories to get at experiences in

the design stages in the sections below.

3.1.4 Product as a story and social relation

To recapitulate, we want to correlate products and personal meanings. What we

wear and read are two examples how we perceive and actively construct meaning for

and of ourselves. This meaning could be constructed through a H-T interaction with

everyday household objects. A process of directed attention to, and perception of

everyday objects while acknowledging intentions and personal history

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). Meaningful experiences are particular personal

experiences, which means that it is difficult, if not impossible, for a designer to

foresee the reactions of others and the implications of these reactions. Users might

not always answer as experts on themselves, but they will act as such. Thus, over

time design process will be less and less about designer and increasingly about users,

which are the adapters of technology, and even co-creators.

Two particularly meaningful types of experience are discussed below. First we will

discuss the product as a story, and secondly living with the product as in a social

relation. The discussion is useful as it gives a framework for evaluation and lists

keywords.

Every product will automatically be assigned a self, and a story, by the user. Its

story is interpreted by the user and shows up as memories, and arousal. A story can

be learned from many different sources, the life of the user or the current situation,

popular culture, film, literature, or simply from advertisements. From culture we

Levels of

experiences

Meanings

Emotions

inherit useful schemas that can be instantiated as stories, such as the villain and hero

duelling for a fair lady, the underdog rising up to defeat oppressor, and the unloved

that finds true love. When owning or interacting with the product the story affects

self-image and personal satisfaction. You are yourself a story to others and you want

others to see your (carefully staged) version of it. One obvious example where a story

is built into an object is a photograph, which is much more valuable for everyone

who knows the story. The product could itself participate, or be a character, in a

story. Nokia for instance advertise mobile phones through exposure in films.

The story fulfils basic needs by identifying us as wealthy, wise, brave, heroic,

renewed, redeemed, strong, vital, or young again. Alternatively it gives us a chance

of joining the winning team, beating the bad guys, and sharing fame, fortune, fertile

future, and happiness. Who the bad guys are depends on cultural context. If the story

is about Sweden and Denmark playing a game of football then Swedes have their

own opinion.

A story should have a message, or give a promise to tell something interesting, and

be complex enough. This is once again a subjective evaluation. The plot should be

evident but not obvious. It should be filled with action, and with built in obstacles

and conflicts that suspends the happy end for a while, and heightens the dramatic

effect of the story. Characters should be understandable, but not trivial, ripe with

possibilities to help us reach our dreams.

If a product is worthy of contemplation it will in effect establish a

relationship with the user, and this is our second view of a design

at the reflective level. Building such relationships is something

that people do automatically. We attribute human behaviour,

intelligence and even emotions to things as well as social roles,

such as friend, child, guide, or pet. In this book we will often focus

on the direct relationship between user and a product, however, there are often

indirect stakeholders, e.g. fellow customers, to consider and broader social issues

that can be important when evaluating the user experience. It matters if all my

friends acknowledge my choice of service.

Examples of positive characteristics of social relationships are pride, trust, respect,

desire, recognition, falling in love, joking, partying, playing, chatting, gossiping and

walking hand in hand. A good relationship could be a deep, almost religious,

experience. Fulfilling the demands of the interactions, or even participating in it,

should give the user a sense of accomplishment and self-respect.

Measuring the quality of a relationship involves estimating social rewards received

by others, number of friends, and respect. For an excellent design some positively

charged characteristics are, prestige, exclusiveness, uniqueness, beauty, humour,

seductiveness, love, sensitivity, anticipation, trust, personality, expressivity, and

friendship. If you can portray and enact a reasonable number of the values listed

above in your design you might have a winner.

3.1.5 Usability

Now, let us return to the problem of goal based design, i.e. designing for usability.

We start the discussion from the model in the figure below:

Figure 3.1.4 Usability.

The concept of usability has many different aspects and is intuitively clear, but when

we try to specify the details on how to accomplish it, usability is not that simple

anymore. The Figure 3.1.4xxxHG above, adapted from (Welie, 2001), shows different

ways to accomplish usability. Some techniques (means) are shown along with

examples of their impact on measures of performance (usage metrics) and efficiency.

The concepts on the highest level are standardized by ISO. Effectiveness is the

accuracy and completeness by which the user achieves her objectives. This

effectiveness is achieved by using resources and the efficiency describes how well

these resources are used. Satisfaction is the user’s subjective measure of the extent to

which expectations are fulfilled. If the batteries only last for an hour, but the user still

gets the task done, the effectiveness is good, but the efficiency is low. Probably the

user is not too satisfied with changing batteries all of the time.

Definition:

“… the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users can achieve

Satisfaction Satisfaction

Usage metrics

Means

Knowledge

Usability

User model Design knowledge Task model

Satisfaction Learnability Error/Safety

Task completion Performance speed Memorability

Undo Shortcuts Feedback

Warnings Consistency Task conformance

Adaptability Grouping

Efficiency Effectiveness Satisfaction

specified goals in a specified context of use”

Definition of usability: ISO DIS 9241-11

The usage metrics indicators should be measurable quantities, and are often used as

goals of the design process. Note that there are trade-offs when using the means

(layer three in the figure above). Insisting on consistency, for instance, could make

the user interface clumsy. If you are familiar with one type of interface you probably

would like to use the same action sequences and metaphors in as many applications

as possible and also in your new, next generation, system. Time to learn and speed of

performance are two other, sometimes contradictory, aspects. A very efficient user

interface can be difficult to learn and remember and this might result in a high error

rate for a beginner. Any adaptation necessary should be worth the user’s effort,

which means that the designer sometimes has to exclude some users to produce a

system with exquisite interaction.

Other aspects of usability are guessability of functionality, findability, flexibility,

length of life, and robustness. An interactive system should also be flexible to

customise and work a little bit longer than the expiration date of the written

guarantee, just to give some examples. A smart, clever, even playful system is

preferred, it should be sharable, i.e. engaging the social environment, motivating,

rewarding, and aesthetically pleasing. If we cannot have our way in any other

aspect of usability we could at least have it in appearance.

The product or service must be reliable, i.e. the probability of an

error should be acceptable. There is a strange camera, the Lomo,

which is quite difficult to use (some say impossible). This is the

camera’s biggest merit and there are plenty of web sites

discussing the camera and its photographs. Apart from some

exceptions of this kind, a service should provide what we ask

for, i.e. the right functionality and answers, and not crash. Further, its interface

should adhere to established standards and be portable.

Working with a laptop computer for many hours a day was not a normal behaviour

when our physiological characteristics were determined. This is one example of

ergonomic aspects, such as display placement, lighting conditions, clearance for legs,

adjustability of chairs, and palm rests are important and could be very expensive if

neglected. They can also cost you a lot of money. Safety aspects can be even more

expensive. Whenever a human is interacting with technology we must remember

that humans are fragile, and that their parts are not easily replaced.

If the above goals are met, and motivation is high, the user may consider buying and

using the product. Usability is however not the only issue for a buyer. The users

prefer some brands for purely subjective reasons that are boosted, and sometimes

induced by marketing. Economic concerns are of course also very important, the

cost, for example, of the parts of a toy should not exceed 6 percent of the sale price

(Brooks, 2003). Other important issues could be time to market, and maintainability.

In the end it is a balanced subjective satisfaction of all the above that counts. If this

balance is favourable, it is a deal. Just to not forget the dark side, here is a top list of

frustrations; crash, wrong response, too many operations/result, error message, too

much information, slow response, missing feature, time out, freeze, noisy, gimmicky,

cheap looking and patronizing.

How do we learn a program a software application such as Word

®? Recall how you learnt to draw. This situation was very

simple, just a white paper and a pencil and even if the paper later

only showed a mishmash of lines you had no problem to grasp

the idea that ink flowed from the pencil to the paper, at your

command. If you only wanted to use the lower right part of the

paper this was easily achieved. Compare this to starting up Word with the intent to

use only the lower left part of the page, in two columns, adding a drawing to the

right of the text. Not that simple! There are in principle two possible approaches to

simplify the interaction. Either we equip Word with enough intelligence to guess our

intentions (hmmm), or we simplify it to the point that we can easily and immediately

do simple operations, such as placing text at the right position, and learn how to

perform the more advanced operations over a longer period of time. Ease of use and

utility are not the same thing. A system might certainly be easy to use but not truly

useful and even if it is both, it might not be desirable.

Experts and novices often have different needs. Efficiency for instance trumps

learnability for the expert. Each does not have the same mental model of an interface.

While the novice is attentive to low level details, loosing himself in minor bugs,

ambiguous choices and unspecified parameters, the expert focuses on the problem

rather than on the means to solve it.

There is also a broader perspective to consider, especially with products for public

rather than private or domestic use. As computer systems increasingly infiltrate our

lives we have to consider aspects such as privacy, moral properties, ethical and

political criteria’s, all social aspects of a product that could require culturally

specific expertise. Are all users treated fairly or does a specific tool discriminate

against some potential users, e.g. because of computer skills, age or sex? What is the

reasonable limit for realism in a war game? Just because it is possible to collects

statistics on who buys what, should that be allowed? How do you know that your

search engine is not screening some pages from you for political, economic, or other

reasons? These and many other questions need global answers, but also attention

from the designers and developers in the IT-industry, where possibilities are far

ahead of legislation and norms.

W O

3.1.5.1 Credibility

Related to usability is credibility or believability. Someone or something that is

credible is trustworthy and an expert. Trustworthiness involves characteristics such

as truthful and unbiased and a trustworthy expert is valued less by intention and

more for knowledge, experience, and competence (Tseng, 1999). Credibility can be

experienced, with emotional, intellectual and social components and trustworthiness

is a positive value.

Credibility is very important for a service or a product, for instance when it instructs

or advises users, reports measurements or runs simulations. It can take a long time to

build up, but it can be lost in a moment. Computers are generally considered

trustworthy, and if a computer outputs something this is often mistaken for the truth

(which it of course always is, from the computers point of view). Once a computer

product loses its credibility users are likely to quickly stop using it, leaving it no

opportunity to regain its credibility (Tseng, 1999).

There are three different types of credibility for a product; reputed, surface and

experienced credibility. Reputed credibility is credibility learned from others, from

rumours, or coffee table discussions. Surface credibility is judged from the exterior,

covers, clothing, or appearance, and experienced credibility is gained by using

something yourself (Fogg, 2003). The credibility will be perceived differently for

users with diverse backgrounds. An expert in a domain, e.g. a surgeon, is for

instance less likely to perceive a product as credible, e.g. a surgery simulation (Tseng,

1999).

The designer’s goal should be to support the right level of credibility. For a web page

visual design is the most important factor. In a study reported in Fogg (2003b) the

design (look) of the site was by far the most mentioned factor for credibility, five

times more so than functionality and three times more than accuracy of information.

Promising too much will disappoint the user and starting by stating everything that

the product does not do well, is maybe not the best marketing strategy. An

interesting observation from research is that people in need of the service are more

likely to perceive it as credible. Maybe this is a typical human behaviour? When in

need take any expert.

Product related goals are most often targeted at some problem that the user is

struggling with, usually different variations of saving time, saving money or earning

money. A completely different view on product value is involved when design is

geared towards design for obsolescence. This could be happen when new

technology is introduced. The automobile starter for instance quickly made older

cars obsolete. Using psychological means we can create a similar situation, e.g. by

presenting a new model each year with sufficiently changed appearance. Or,

obsolescence could be planned in advance. Who has not had something that broke as

soon as the warranty was up? The success of washed jeans is a special case.

3.1.5.2 Usability of a mobile device

“The great advantage [the telephone] possesses over every other form of electrical apparatus

consists in the fact that it requires no skill to operate the instrument.”

Alexander Graham Bell (little did he know)

The development of mobile technology makes life quite complicated for the designer.

To begin with the designer has to take network services into account. Things to

consider here are operator peculiarities, availability, utility, interoperability, and

characteristics of different networks. Next there are the specifics of the mobile user

interface, which we will discuss later in this book. Input tools differ between devices,

and there are sometime special keys, sensors, ergonomics, branding and style to

think carefully about. On top of this there is user support, such as manuals and

service, extra batteries, hands-free sets, and extra pens for devices with touch

sensitive screens. The external interface also includes support for third party

software, for instance games and other downloadable applications.

Typical metrics for usability for a mobile application are performance (error rate,

timing), walking speed while using the application, perceived workload, number

and types of interruptions, and user satisfaction (Avouris, 2008).

3.1.5.3 Usability of pervasive/ubicomp applications

In the coming frenzy of pervasive applications we need to remember that there are

cognitive challenges and questions to think about with this new technology. We

aim for multi user system designs where users provide smartness and technology is

supportive.

How are people supposed to understand what is going on? The interactions are

distributed both over time and space, rather than localized. Services are activities

rather than tasks, with no clear beginning or end, a mix of concurrent, continuous,

and intermittent processing as well as viewing data from different perspectives.

To begin with, and perhaps most importantly, users must experience service

continuity across interactions within the system. This consistency should apply to

information architecture and interaction structures as well as to visual and

conceptual aspects of the system and its parts. At the same time designers must

acknowledge that there always will be boundaries (seams) to consider. A wireless

local area network works within a certain area and this could be used by the

designer, e.g. for ensuring some level of security. But, it is also an inherent limitation

of the medium.

Everything we do also has a cultural context that will be affected by the interaction.

Consequently, along with the cognitive issues above there are also a large number of

social issues. It is for instance not socially acceptable to tap into the wireless network

of your neighbor. How will people adapt to the quickly expanding social networks

and to the tools necessary for managing and enjoying them?

The peculiarities of pervasive systems result in a set of user interface challenges.

Where will the locus of interaction be in a system that exists in no one place, but

rather represents the sum of many interoperable (and changing) parts? What are my

devices inter-acting with, and how do they choose? How does the system recover

from errors? Also, there should be no need for an expert system administrator;

every new device should reliably interoperate with all existing ones. Anyone, not

only an expert should be able to configure, manage, extend and run it.

Pervasive technology in other words has to be extremely simple to use. Entangling

our lives with pervasive systems will create mind-boggling complexity and the

results will be used by a major part of the population. Trust will be necessary for

user acceptance, which means that everyone understands what is happening, with a

minimum of information theft, erroneous behaviour, and lack of standards

compliance.

A recapitulation of some important lessons is:

• Take people’s abilities into account

• Support them in how they do things now

• Innovate carefully, make sure that quality of experience is high, i.e. the

experience matches or surpasses user expectations. Apple faces this

challenge with every product launch.

• Involve users in the design work

• Remember and apply the basics, guidelines, psychology, physiology …

We now have quite a handful of different goals to consider when designing. The next

sections will discuss how to achieve them.

3.1.6 Sustainability as the goal for HCI

World, we have a problem!

Actually, we have a score of problems. Sustainability implies that we design a society

where we can go on, go on and go on, for ever, or at least for a long, long, long time.

Living like that will change us, our behaviours and our thinking from inside out and

from outside in.

Sustainability is nothing new. For hundreds of years warning flags have been raised

against styles of living jeopardizing the future of mankind. A short time-stamped

readers list includes “An essay on the principle of population” by Malthus 1798 and

writings by Rosseau (1712-1778) and Thoreau (1817-1862), as well as more modern

items such as a “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley 1932, the mandatory read

“1984”, George Orwell written 1949, “The affluent society”, Galbraith 1958, “The

population bomb”, Ehrlich 1968, and “The closing circle” by Commoner 1971.

In 1973 the book “Limits to growth” was published. It is a report from a

groundbreaking system oriented computer simulation with a gloomy message,

predicting severe problems for the “business as usual” scenario (Meadows, 2013). At

the time the results were fiercely attacked by establishment and for many years the

message has been shadowed by the quest for economic growth. A 30-year update

was published in 2004 and still the main predictions hold (Meadows, 2004). We are

heading for an overshoot in resource use with dire consequences for humanity.

After the turn of the century the findings on peak oil fuelled the discussion with the

ironic twist of climate change. To this we can add the eternal problem of distribution

of economic wealth by power rather than by justice, now in an increasingly global

and informed setting. We top it all with some pollution and alarm bells signaling a

peak everything from increasingly global lifestyle choices in comfort, consumption,

and transportation.

There have been many attempts to describe the state of affairs of human society over

the last years, often as something looking rather bleak and troublesome (Rockström,

2009) (Jackson, 2011, p. 5) (Brown, 2009, p. xii-xiii).

“We estimate that humanity has already transgressed three planetary boundaries: for climate

change, rate of biodiversity loss, and changes to the global nitrogen cycle. Planetary

boundaries are interdependent, because transgressing one may both shift the position of other

boundaries or cause them to be transgressed. The social impacts of transgressing boundaries

will be a function of the social–ecological resilience of the affected societies.” (Rockström,

2009).

“Today we find ourselves faced with the imminent end of the era of cheap oil, the prospect

(beyond the recent bubble) of steadily rising commodity prices, the degradation of forests,

lakes and soils, conflicts over land use, water quality, fishing rights and the momentous

challenge of stabilising concentrations of carbon in the global atmosphere. And we face these

tasks with an economy that is fundamentally broken, in desperate need of renewal.” (Jackson,

2011, p. 5).

“We are in a race between political tipping points and natural tipping points. Can we cut

carbon emissions fast enough to save the Greenland ice sheet and avoid the resulting rise in

sea level? Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to save the glaciers in the

Himalayas and on the Tibetan Plateau, the ice melt of which sustains the major rivers and

irrigation systems of Asia during the dry season? Can we stabilize population by reducing

fertility before nature takes over and stabilizes our numbers by raising mortality?” (Brown,

2009, p. xii-xiii).

In summary we need to mitigate the climate change and manage the effects that still

hit us. At the same time we are running out of oil and other resources while the

population continues to grow. Sustainability is not something we solve, we have to

establish a sustainable process to keep up.

Sustain-ability first of all should be understood as ‘a means to secure and maintain a

qualitative condition of being over time’. It is a process (rather than and endpoint) wherein all

that supports and extends being exceeds everything that negates it (Fry, 2008, p. 43).

xxxHGSince we cannot solve the sustainabilioty problem, we can infer that

technology will not be the panacea for saving us. It might help us in some cliff

hanger situations but at the same time create new problems (Fry, 2009, p. 184). We

have to turn to ourselves for a long-term solution.

Sustainability has bearing on all aspects of society at many different scales, e.g. on

what we eat to dinner, public health, equity and justice, global economy, democracy,

as well as the biosphere and the directions of technological development. What we

can hope for are partial accommodations, and even then culturally specific and

adaptive ones. The pervasiveness of the issue means that we will all be involved, and

should consider ourselves as responsible designers of the future. It is the ultimate

design problem (Fry, 2009) (Nathan, 2008). Consequently sustainability should be of

major importance to us all, and especially for any individual trained to be a designer.

The Sustainment redefined and reanimates the importance of ‘the common good’ – it places

the conditions beyond the ownership of any particular political ideology, takes it out of the

realm of idealism and situates it in the domain of necessity” (Fry, 2009, p. 47).

Sustainability is the major challenge for humanity but has a surprisingly short history

in HCI (DiSalvo et al, 2010). The seminal paper often quoted as a starting point was

presented as late as in CHI 2007 by Blevis (Blevis, 2007). Some reasons for the lag

could be: the scientific tradition, i.e. every man to his own trade (Froehlich, 2010), a

focus on material, comfort, usability and aesthetics. Focus on the individual and

small scale behavior, incremental rather than systemic change (Brynjarsdottir, 2010),

focus on a quickly evolving interaction technology, focus on short term effects

(Goodman, 2009), focus on (narrow) first order effects of information technology

such as obesity, data security and privacy. Finally there were and still are no holistic

visions of a sustainable future and no discussions of what is to be sustained and not

(Bengtsson, 2011).

That was history, now sustainable HCI is an accepted, active and growing area. In

part this is a natural reaction to the increasing pervasiveness of technology (Dourish,

2011). Mobiles for everyone, sensors everywhere, and a ubiquitous internet shift

focus toward global issues. The question is if we are advancing fast enough and with

sufficient focus and stamina?

When it comes to the any substantial practical results of HCI design work on society

the jury is still out, but the verdict is more likely guilty of charge. Not many outside

the HCI conference rooms would testify in favour of major contributions to a

sustainable society. This is bad news since HCI obviously is important if we are to

cope with the challenges of a sustainable future. Systems of computerized,

networked products will be central, maybe the most promising path, perhaps the

only one, for an accommodation. At the same time technological evolution is part of

the problem. HCI as a design community for instance needs to motivate the more

than 2 percentage of the US electricity consumption 2010 used up in information

systems and the yearly thousands of tons of waste from electronic products

(Woodruff, 2009)(Hilty, 2011).