IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013 - 75

Outlining User Experience

Examining the
Emotional Component
In order to examine emotions,
following Desmet's & Hekkert's
recommendation [2], we turned
to core affect theory. Core affect
develops as a circumplex model of
two separate dimensions, pleasuredispleasure and activation-deactivation, which, when combined,
form a single feeling state [4]. Even
though this state differs from emotions, since people are constantly
experiencing core affect, they are

SpatioTemporal

Emotional

Sensual

Emotions and Meaning
Ever since IT artifacts started being
used by individuals, the research
community was fascinated with
what technology and its expressions could possibly mean for the
individual. Turkle, for example,
has found that users may develop
intense relationships with their portable computers and feel at one with
them, while IT artifacts in general
can be seen as companions, inviting users to project life on them,
even though they are inanimate [5].
Furthermore, it is said that,
"meanings and outcomes bring
emotions with them" [6]. Experience of meaning, depending
on one's personal characteristics
and goals, and the situatedness
of the experience, will affect the
appraisal of the interaction [2].
This "appraisal" is a direct reference to appraisal theory; when one
evaluates her/his interaction with
an IT artifact, (s)he consequently
develops an emotional response [7].
For example, within the context of
a primarily utilitarian-driven interaction, the IT artifact is interpreted
relatively to utilitarian-focused
goals and the individual evaluates

Fig. 1. The four threads of
experience, adapted from [20].
Meaning
Emotional
Experience

Emotions

Experience
of Meaning

Fig. 2. Framework of product
experience, adapted from [2].

SuMMEr 2013

Aesthetic
Experience

n
itio
os

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

Compositional

able to perceive its changes while
interacting with products, such as
IT artifacts (e.g., interacting with
the tablet can cause disappointment
if it doesn't satisfy one's expectations) and thus attribute these
changes to the particular interaction [2].

According to Wright et al., experience is composed of four intertwined building blocks; the
spatiotemporal, the sensual, the
emotional and the compositional
[1]. By spatiotemporal, the authors
refer to the situatedness of one's
experience. The sensual thread
accounts for the experience's
impact on one's sensory modalities, thus one's initial reactions
toward the IT artifact, while the
emotional thread concerns the
evaluation of the experience by
ascribing an emotional value to it.
Lastly, the compositional thread
refers to the narrative structure of
the experience (Fig. 1). Following
a similar approach, Desmet and
Hekkert [2] posit that experience
with a product builds upon the aesthetic experience, the emotional
experience and the experience of
meaning (Fig. 2).
These two approaches have a
common denominator; they both
recognize that the emotional
component is the means through
which one is able to remember and evaluate the experience,

i.e., emotions can be the vehicle
through which one can grasp
another's experience. As such,
Vermeeren et al. [3] attempted
to combine the aforementioned
frameworks, aiming to develop
quantifiable measurements of user
experience's elements, capturing
both quantitative and qualitative
data (Fig. 3). Building on their
work, the present study investigates meaning and its relationship
to users' emotions.

Ae
s
Se thet
ns ic/
ua
l

echnology
continuously revolutionizes
the way people interact
with information technology (IT). In this
article we argue that, while extant
literature has certainly provided
rich insights into meaning making
with IT artifacts, the tablet's proliferation calls for reassigning the significance these may hold for users.
Approaching user experience as
subjective, we seek to explore the
relationship individuals develop
with the tablet in their daily lives.
We follow the case study research
method, and build upon a paradigmatic case, that of the iPad, because
it is considered as the exemplar in
its class; even though tablets have
existed for years, it is only with
the launching of the iPad, that they
became popular among the mass
consumer market.

Fig. 3. Combined UX framework,
adapted from [3].

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013