Designing and evaluating mobile multimedia user experiences in public urban places: Making sense of the field

The majority of the world’s population now lives in cities (United Nations, 2008) resulting in an urban densification requiring people to live in closer proximity and share urban infrastructure such as streets, public transport, and parks within cities. However, “physical closeness does not mean social closeness” (Wellman, 2001, p. 234). Whereas it is a common practice to greet and chat with people you cross paths with in smaller villages, urban life is mainly anonymous and does not automatically come with a sense of community per se. Wellman (2001, p. 228) defines community “as networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging and social identity.” While on the move or during leisure time, urban dwellers use their interactive information communication technology (ICT) devices to connect to their spatially distributed community while in an anonymous space. Putnam (1995) argues that available technology privatises and individualises the leisure time of urban dwellers. Furthermore, ICT is sometimes used to build a “cocoon” while in public to avoid direct contact with collocated people (Mainwaring et al., 2005; Bassoli et al., 2007; Crawford, 2008). Instead of using ICT devices to seclude oneself from the surrounding urban environment and the collocated people within, such devices could also be utilised to engage urban dwellers more with the urban environment and the urban dwellers within. Urban sociologists found that “what attracts people most, it would appear, is other people” (Whyte, 1980, p. 19) and “people and human activity are the greatest object of attention and interest” (Gehl, 1987, p. 31). On the other hand, sociologist Erving Goffman describes the concept of civil inattention, acknowledging strangers’ presence while in public but not interacting with them (Goffman, 1966). With this in mind, it appears that there is a contradiction between how people are using ICT in urban public places and for what reasons and how people use public urban places and how they behave and react to other collocated people. On the other hand there is an opportunity to employ ICT to create and influence experiences of people collocated in public urban places. The widespread use of location aware mobile devices equipped with Internet access is creating networked localities, a digital layer of geo-coded information on top of the physical world (Gordon & de Souza e Silva, 2011). Foursquare.com is an example of a location based 118 Mobile Multimedia – User and Technology Perspectives social network (LBSN) that enables urban dwellers to virtually check-in into places at which they are physically present in an urban space. Users compete over ‘mayorships’ of places with Foursquare friends as well as strangers and can share recommendations about the space. The research field of Urban Informatics is interested in these kinds of digital urban multimedia augmentations and how such augmentations, mediated through technology, can create or influence the UX of public urban places. “Urban informatics is the study, design, and practice of urban experiences across different urban contexts that are created by new opportunities of real-time, ubiquitous technology and the augmentation that mediates the physical and digital layers of people networks and urban infrastructures” (Foth et al., 2011, p. 4). One possibility to augment the urban space is to enable citizens to digitally interact with spaces and urban dwellers collocated in the past, present, and future. “Adding digital layer to the existing physical and social layers could facilitate new forms of interaction that reshape urban life” (Kjeldskov & Paay, 2006, p. 60). This methodological chapter investigates how the design of UX through such digital placebased mobile multimedia augmentations can be guided and evaluated. First, we describe three different applications that aim to create and influence the urban UX through mobile mediated interactions. Based on a review of literature, we describe how our integrated framework for designing and evaluating urban informatics experiences has been constructed. We conclude the chapter with a reflective discussion on the proposed framework

Mapping a multi-sensory identity territory at the early design stage

This article presents a kansei design methodology. It is placed at the very beginning of the design process and aims to influence the following steps in order to improve the user's understanding and experiencing of the designed product. The experimentation combines in a subtle way the design thinking approach of learning by doing and the kansei engineering quantitative approach. The research presented is based on the results of a previous study that defined the semantic and emotional scope of future hybrid cars for European using visual stimuli. This kansei design methodology creates and assesses multi-sensory atmospheres is order to provide tangible direction composed of vision, touch, hearing and smell stimuli. From the cognitive and affective responses of the 42 participants we were able to detail 3 directions for future cars interiors that aim to enrich the styling design briefs and to influence the design strategies such as the management of the different grades. The research presented here was supported by the Kansei Design department from Toyota Motor Europe (TME-KD). This collaboration also brought an industrial context to it.SUPPORTED BY TOYOTA EUROP

We Don’t Connect – Negotiations between Usability, User and Art Experience in Online Art Interaction

Art and its conceptualization enable a richer understanding of human computer interaction (HCI). User experience (UX), usability and art experience (AE) have extensive traditions of scholarship. UX and AE especially, have rarely been combined. While systematic approaches to identifying contrasts between the types of experience are lacking, there is also a lag in academic knowledge on how UX and AE relate to one another in the action context of HCI. This paper presents a study in which UX and perceived usability, were investigated in the context of online art experience. The study’s participants (N=128) responded to a questionnaire based on an adapted model of interactive art systems while experiencing an online art exhibition. Results revealed three significant correlations: 1) the impact of usability on the sense of immersion; 2) how immersion influenced the art experience; and 3) how the viewer’s background (skills and knowledge) affects art experience in digital spaces

Understanding the Visual Aesthetics of Mobile Apps in Everyday Life: The Influence Cute Aesthetics

This paper investigates visual aesthetics (VA) of mobile apps’ in everyday life by examining the effects of affect and cute aesthetics. We analyzed two theoretical dimensions of affect, positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA), and provided an analysis of the relevance of PA and NA by relating them to VA of three interface designs (ID) with varying levels of cute aesthetics (i.e. low, mid and high). Data was collected using a survey. Regression results from 166 participants suggest that cute aesthetics invoke PA (i.e., interested, excited, enthusiastic) and that it is a strong positive predictor for VA across all three IDs. This study contributes to a better understanding of the relevance of positive affect and cute aesthetics on visual aesthetics of mobile apps in everyday life

We Don’t Connect – Negotiations between Usability, User and Art Experience in Online Art Interaction

Art and its conceptualization enable a richer understanding of human computer interaction (HCI). User experience (UX), usability and art experience (AE) have extensive traditions of scholarship. UX and AE especially, have rarely been combined. While systematic approaches to identifying contrasts between the types of experience are lacking, there is also a lag in academic knowledge on how UX and AE relate to one another in the action context of HCI. This paper presents a study in which UX and perceived usability, were investigated in the context of online art experience. The study’s participants (N=128) responded to a questionnaire based on an adapted model of interactive art systems while experiencing an online art exhibition. Results revealed three significant correlations: 1) the impact of usability on the sense of immersion; 2) how immersion influenced the art experience; and 3) how the viewer’s background (skills and knowledge) affects art experience in digital spaces.©2022 International Conference on Information Systems Development.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Emotions in human-computer interaction: the role of nonverbal behaviour in interactive systems

Until recently, the area of human-computer interaction was based on a traditional, cognitive approach, which separated the study of usability from that of emotions. The recent research has shown that emotions play an important role in our life, which led to focusing on the need of studying the emotions in the domain of interactive design. This paper underlines the role of emotions as part of the interactive human-computer process, reinstating the importance of nonverbal communication in this domain. The main issues of this paper are concerned with aspects such as: emotional design approach, the importance of nonverbal as an instrument of usability evaluation and the role of emotions in human-computer interaction.Emotional design approach, nonverbal communication, emotions, usability, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

The Aesthetic Dimensions of U.S. and South Korean Responses to Web Home Pages: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Culturally influenced preferences in website aesthetics is a topic often neglected by scholars in human-computer interaction. Kim, Lee, and Choi (2003) identified aesthetic design factors of web home pages that elicited particular responses in South Korean web users based on 13 secondary emotional dimensions. This study extends Kim et al.'s work to U.S. participants, comparing the original South Korean findings with U.S. findings. Results show that U.S. participants reliably applied translations of the emotional adjectives used in the South Korean study to the home pages. However, factor analysis revealed that the aesthetic perceptions of U.S. and South Korean participants formed different aesthetic dimensions composed of different sets of emotional adjectives, suggesting that U.S. and South Korean people perceive the aesthetics of home pages differently. These results indicate that website aesthetics can vary significantly between cultures

Theorizing the Relationship between Affect and Aesthetics in the ICT Design and Use Context

With an increasing interest in both affect and aesthetics in the context of information and communication technology (ICT) design and use, there is a timely need to provide a theory based understanding of these concepts and their relationships. In this paper, we point out some confusion as shown in the literature and provide a theory based understanding of the concepts and their relationships. Such an understanding can eventually provide practical suggestions on researching affect and aesthetics in the ICT context and suggest researchers to expand the coverage of aesthetics concept from focusing primarily on pleasantness or positivity to a broader coverage indicated by affect’s structure

The behavioural impact of a visually represented virtual assistant in a selfservice checkout context

Our research investigated whether the presence of an interface agent - or virtual assistant (VA) - in a self-service checkout context has behavioural effects on the transaction process during particular tasks. While many participants claimed to have not noticed a VA within the self-service interface, behaviour was still affected, i.e. fewer people made errors with the VA present than in the voice-only and control conditions. The results are explained as reflective of an unconscious observation of non-verbal cues exhibited by the VA. The results are discussed in relation to possible behavioural outcomes of VA presence.</p

How does an imaginary persona's attractiveness affect designers' perceptions and IT solutions? An experimental study on users' remote working needs

Purpose The “what is beautiful is good” (WIBIG) effect implies that observers tend to perceive physically attractive people in a positive light. The authors investigate how the WIBIG effect applies to user personas, measuring designers' perceptions and task performance when employing user personas for the design of information technology (IT) solutions. Design/methodology/approach In a user experiment, the authors tested six different personas with 235 participants that were asked to develop remote work solutions based on their interaction with a fictitious user persona. Findings The findings showed that a user persona's perceived attractiveness was positively correlated with other perceptions of the persona. The personas' completeness, credibility, empathy, likability and usefulness increased with attractiveness. More attractive personas were also perceived as more agreeable, emotionally stable, extraverted and open, and the participants spent more time engaging with personas they perceived attractive. A linguistic analysis indicated that the IT solutions created for more attractive user personas demonstrated a higher degree of affect, but for the most part, task outputs did not vary by the personas' perceived attractiveness. Research limitations/implications The WIBIG effect applies when designing IT solutions with user personas, but its effect on task outputs appears limited. The perceived attractiveness of a user persona can impact how designers interact with and engage with the persona, which can influence the quality or the type of the IT solutions created based on the persona. Also, the findings point to the need to incorporate hedonic qualities into the persona creation process. For example, there may be contexts where it is helpful that the personas be attractive; there may be contexts where the attractiveness of the personas is unimportant or even a distraction. Practical implications The findings point to the need to incorporate hedonic qualities into the persona creation process. For example, there may be contexts where it is helpful that the personas be attractive; there may be contexts where the attractiveness of the personas is unimportant or even a distraction. Originality/value Because personas are created to closely resemble real people, the authors might expect the WIBIG effect to apply. The WIBIG effect might lead decision makers to favor more attractive personas when designing IT solutions. However, despite its potential relevance for decision making with personas, as far as the authors know, no prior study has investigated whether the WIBIG effect extends to the context of personas. Overall, it is important to understand how human factors apply to IT system design with personas, so that the personas can be created to minimize potentially detrimental effects as much as possible.© Joni Salminen, Jo~ao M. Santos, Soon-gyo Jung and Bernard J. Jansen. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcodefi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed