Interaction Design
At the heart of every product there is a use for that desired product. That use typically involves having someone interacting with the product to carry out its desired use.
But how do you explain to a user the methods of interacting with this product without giving them a lengthy instructions manual?
Affective Interaction Design and Kinaesthetics
Affective Interaction Design is a field of design that focuses on eliciting emotions and understanding of the system, through the mechanics that you can interact with, and different forms of feedback given from those interactions.
A simple example of this can be:
“a button with the word ‘press’ on it, that makes a noise when it is held down.”
Even this has multiple layers of design ideas built in:
- Firstly the fact that it is a button which we understand thanks to affordance that it is something we can push. Thus our first instinct would be “I can push this”
- Secondly the fact that is has “Press” written on it enforces the concept that this button can be interacted with rather than being something that just looks like a button (think about any time you have looked at a web page and thought you could interact with an object when really it was just background)
- Thirdly by pushing down on the button you are able to produce tactile and visual feedback. This confirms that the mechanics of the button are working.
- And Finally with the button held down a noise sounds which is yet another different form of feedback that informs us that when we interact with this object it tells us that it has been used correctly and is working, but more importantly we have been able to convey the use and the outcome of the product directly to the user.
This example helps us to understand that the only way for someone to know whether they can interact with a product or not, is through various forms of feedback provided by the product. Now what if we could change parts of this design so that it could produce a specific emotion or feeling that we could use to our advantage.
This is where Affective Interaction comes in:
Taking the previous example lets change 2 aspects of the button.
- 1: Change the tone of the sound produced to one of a fire alarm, now when we press it the first thought going through our heads is danger. (It is similar as to why computers have distinct error message tones, so that it allows you to understand when something has gone wrong)
- 2: We Change text to “Do Not Press”. This way we use a purely visual form of interactive design. Where we are changing the context of the interaction to produce 2 kinds of responses where people will either challenge the norm or conform, which can be a way to guide different types of users through a system (Think of how you can navigate a user through a system in a certain way by simply telling them what they cannot use. It is much more off hands approach that allows the user to feel as though they are not following a completely linear design). Here you are able to give the user a sense of danger but in the form of ‘there might be danger if I press this button’.
Now that we can get users to understand how to use a product based on giving it different context and forms of feedback. How can we use this to provide users with a greater sense of immersion and enjoyment from a product?
Kinaesthetics:
Here I have included a short video on how the Video Games industry views Kinaesthetics: Kinaesthetics approaches Affective Interaction from a more design focused avenue, where we are able to tie all of the interactions we make with a system to singular philosophy or idea we are trying to convey.
An Example would be a way to make and interface and website feel more light-hearted and playful.
Take a basic search engine, but instead of giving people a search bar, you have various blocks with letters that they would you would connect together like a puzzle. And based on what word they spell it would lock the pieces so that a hyper-link was made and you could click the word and it would search it.
By making the application look and interact like a set of children’s building blocks. It instantly allows our minds to associate the application with a child’s playfulness and can cause users to empathetically approach the app as if they were a child.
This sort of software can also be used for teaching purposes, helping children understand the meaning of words by searching their meanings. It also allows them the opportunity to make words by accident, which can give them this sense of wonderment and exploration that they might not have achieved from traditional teaching methods.
Moving Forward:
Having done a short exploration into ways of eliciting emotions through interaction. We will continue to look into the new ways interaction with devices and software changes as we begin to use other platforms, such as touch, augmented reality and virtual reality have allowed us to produce more engaging applications and methods to appeal to users.
Written by Lee Rhodes
Sources:
Chris Franklin — Errant Signal: http://www.errantsignal.com/blog/
“The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman (1988)
“Emotional Design” by Don Norman (2004)
http://www.commercelab.ca/stephen-anderson-sandbox-environments-and-why-playfulness-is-the-future./ By The CommerceLab (2013)
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2007/07/what-puts-the-design-in-interaction-design.php By Kevin Silver (2010)
