The aim of the present position paper is to raise issues concerning aesthetic experience in relation to an

ongoing work of designing an artefact encouraging video reporting of personal experiences. The work

serves as an example of a design experiment where aesthetic qualities are emphasized, but where the

resulting interactions have not yet been analyzed in relation to these qualities. Our position is that the

aesthetics of an interactive artefact evolves in the interactive zone between people who use it and the

artefact itself. The aesthetic qualities are, thus, crystallized in the use of the artefact – whether it ranks high on a usability scale or not. Just as usability qualities, the aesthetic qualities contain contextual factors of its users, such as their pre-comprehension of the artefact, their cultural background and their emotional states. Furthermore, they include the context of the artefact, such as its physical design and the environment of its use. Our standpoint is consistent with Shusterman’s pragmatist approach to aesthetics, as related by

Petersen et al. [2]. This approach promotes aesthetics of use rather than aesthetics of appearance. The experience of aesthetics lies in the interaction with the artefact rather than merely in the visual perception

of it

Katzeff, Cecilia

Ware, Vanessa

English

The aim of the present position paper is to raise issues concerning aesthetic experience in relation to an ongoing work of designing an artefact encouraging video reporting of personal experiences. The work serves as an example of a design experiment where aesthetic qualities are emphasized, but where the resulting interactions have not yet been analyzed in relation to these qualities. Our position is that the aesthetics of an interactive artefact evolves in the interactive zone between people who use it and the artefact itself. The aesthetic qualities are, thus, crystallized in the use of the artefact – whether it ranks high on a usability scale or not. Just as usability qualities, the aesthetic qualities contain contextual factors of its users, such as their pre-comprehension of the artefact, their cultural background and their emotional states. Furthermore, they include the context of the artefact, such as its physical design and the environment of its use. Our standpoint is consistent with Shusterman’s pragmatist approach to aesthetics, as related by Petersen et al. [2]. This approach promotes aesthetics of use rather than aesthetics of appearance. The experience of aesthetics lies in the interaction with the artefact rather than merely in the visual perception of it.LIF

RISE – Research Institutes of Sweden

The aesthetic zone of interaction. How are aesthetic design qualities experienced?

Swedish Institute of Computer Science Publications Database

1The aesthetic zone of interaction - How are
aesthetic design qualities experienced?
Cecilia Katzeff and Vanessa Ware
Interactive Institute
P.O. Box 24081
SE-104 50 Stockholm
+46-8-783 24 57
cecilia.katzeff@tii.se
INTRODUCTION
The aim of the present position paper is to raise issues concerning aesthetic experience in relation to an
ongoing work of designing an artefact encouraging video reporting of personal experiences. The work
serves as an example of a design experiment where aesthetic qualities are emphasized, but where the
resulting interactions have not yet been analyzed in relation to these qualities. Our position is that the
aesthetics of an interactive artefact evolves in the interactive zone between people who use it and the
artefact itself. The aesthetic qualities are, thus, crystallized in the use of the artefact – whether it ranks high
on a usability scale or not. Just as usability qualities, the aesthetic qualities contain contextual factors of its
users, such as their pre-comprehension of the artefact, their cultural background and their emotional states.
Furthermore, they include the context of the artefact, such as its physical design and the environment of its
use.   Our standpoint is consistent with Shusterman’s pragmatist approach to aesthetics, as related by
Petersen et al. [2]. This approach promotes aesthetics of use rather than aesthetics of appearance. The
experience of aesthetics lies in the interaction with the artefact rather than merely in the visual perception
of it.
In relation to the workshop “Aesthetics as critical computing” we would like to discuss three major issues
of general interest, with the experiment with The Well serving as a concrete example to relate them to.
They all relate to the general question of the nature of users’ emotional processes involved in interacting
with digital artifacts. The issues are:
1 Is it possible to identify particular design features significant for supporting behaviour involving
exposure of personal experiences? In the particular experiment reported, we are especially
interested in identifying design qualities relating to:
o the physical environment inspiring users with integrity, serenity and respect in order to
make them feel comfortable in personal exposure.
o a non-intelligent agent eliciting emotions of being cared for and listened to.
2  What methods and techniques may be used to address questions involving the relationship
between aesthetic design features and behavioral responses? Think-aloud-methods usually work
well for capturing people’s reasoning on a cognitive level, but they might be inadequate for
capturing emotional responses to aesthetic design.
3 How may qualitative data, such as video recordings tell us something about how the aesthetical
aspects of the design were experienced?
In order to relate the above questions to a concrete example, the background and procedures of The Well
are briefly described in the following sections.
An illustrating example – The Well
The Well is a recording booth designed to allow volunteer workers to make personal video-recordings of
their experiences of their work at the festival. We refer to the Well as an expression booth. Briefly, the goal
of designing an expression booth was to create a tool and an environment for expressing thoughts and
emotions related to the work and the role in the festival organization. This type of artefact would relieve its
users of frustrations, facilitate for them to reflect upon their own role, report on things they were
dissatisfied with and on things they were pleased with. The user expressions could, thus, include factual
reports as well as emotional statements. Major concepts inspiring the design were “cleansing”, “testimony”,
2“reflection” and “analysis”. The artefact was designed with the intention of placing its users in an
emotional state which would facilitate for opening up and freely express their minds through a video-
recording visible and audible to themselves. We assumed that the aesthetic design of the Well was to play
an important role in users’ willingness and ease of exposing their views and feelings. This act was referred
to as giving “a personal testimony”.
Figure 1: Exterior view of The Well Figure 2: Interior view of The Well
A stage designer made the physical design of The Well, basing her ideas around the concept of a
confessional booth and her associations went to the Maya culture, to which she turned for inspiration. In
this context, the stage designer saw the user behavior as similar to a rite. The name The Well was chosen,
since a well in the Maya-culture represents a health giving and a social place, where people go not only to
collect water but also to meet with and speak with other people. Water is considered sacred in most cultures
and is a carrier of symbolism, representing life, flow and cleansing. In the artefact flow would stand for the
flow of words and free association and cleansing would characterize the process of expressing one’s
opinions of the work with the festival.
The stage designer’s ideas of what the user was to experience had to do with the type of emotional state
elicited and the power of attraction the design had on users.  The intention was that the design would affect
the emotional state of the user through, for instance, the choice of material, colours, shape and decorations.
These features would place the user in a state of feeling safe to open up and expose herself. Integrity and
seclusion of the user were seen as central. Also the feeling of reverence for The Well was considered
important.  Moreover, the design would serve a role in attracting users through inviting and encouraging
them to use The Well. Of course, the ideas of the stage designer also rested upon artistic and aesthetic
considerations, such as concordance in style and metaphor. Thus, she communicated traits of the Maya-
culture to the animation designer, in order to avoid a clash of styles between the design of the booth and the
design of the screen animation. Important characteristics were, for instance, the use of animals in stories in
the Maya-culture and the use of earth colors and turquoise.
3Figure 3: The animation shown on the screen while the video is recorded
Figure 3 shows the animation visible to the user while she/he is interacting with The Well. The user
watches herself communicating with the monkey on the screen. While the user talks and moves she is
filmed by a video camera attached above the screen. The dialogue between users and the animated monkey
was not real in the sense that the monkey’s response was based on the utterances of users. Rather, the
monkey’s non-sense humming was pre-programmed and uttered at regular intervals. The monkey was
designed to model a non-verbal behaviour of a "caring person" displaying an open posture, head nodding
and affirmative humming [1]. However, it was not possible to time the monkey's humming in response to
the users' utterances, since the hummings were pre-recorded. There was, thus, a risk that the monkey would
interrupt the user. Nevertheless, the purpose of the animation was to provide the user with a caring and
concerned character - neutral regarding sex and age - to communicate their personal views and feelings to.
The Well was situated inside a building hosting the canteen for the volunteers and was strategically placed
to attract the attention and curiosity of the functionaries. It was possible to use The Well, whenever the
canteen was open, that is from early in the morning until late in the evening. A member of the project team,
who also served as a volunteer festival worker, sent information to all the 200 key functionaries about The
Well, the purpose of it, and its location.
The video clips
A total of 70 volunteer workers used The Well. Out of these, about 45 users belonged to the initial target
group of key functionaries. However, in the subsequent analysis video clips from all users are included. In
total, 128 video clips were produced. In 37 of these, there were two or three users. 25 users made more than
one recording – between 2 and 9. Nine users made 2 recordings, five users made 3 recordings and one user
made 9 recordings.
A total of 128 volunteer workers’ video clips were watched, transcribed and analyzed according to
procedures for Grounded Theory [3]. Three major categories of interactions emerged: Tests of the actual
prototype (38 clips), playful interactions (14 clips), and testimonies of the work of a volunteer (76 clips).
The first category includes both single and multiple tests from the same persons. Characteristic of these
interactions is behavior directed towards figuring out the monkey’s response. The category of playful
interactions includes video clips with volunteers using The Well for making faces or performing songs.
These video clips mostly show more than one user interacting with The Well. The final category –
testimonies - includes video clips where users are focusing on the task mentioned to them in the
instructions to The Well – to express thoughts and feelings concerning their experiences as a volunteer
worker in the festival.
The testimonies are stories told by individual key functionaries. All but one testimony is given by single
individuals and they indicate that the task given in the instruction is taken seriously. All testimonies focus
on the role of the festival worker. In the cases where testimonies are given by one user in more than one
video clip, these relate a sense of continuity and a more complete picture of the role. The single clip
testimonies are more of the nature of short suggestions and pieces of advice or just an expression of well-
being. A further analysis of the testimonial video clips was made in relation to which type of information
they provided. Three major types were identified:
1. Information dealing with the preservation of knowledge in the festival organization.
2. Information relating fragments of the physical and psychological context..
43. Information concerning problems. Since this is the largest type of testimonial expressions, we
have divided it into the further categories of problems of communication, problems of a social-
relational nature, practical problems and problems having to do with following rules.
The third major type of testimonies, conveying some kind of problems experienced by the volunteer
workers could be further divided into problems of communication, social problems, practical problems and
problems of following rules of festival work. In general, the testimonies conveying problems contained a
higher degree of emotional expressions than the other types of testimonies. For instance, there were video
clips showing festival workers expressing their frustration and irritation over certain experiences. These
include the experience of being unjustly treated and the experience of not being taken seriously. Video clips
also displayed a lot positive emotions indicated by smiling faces and cheerful attitudes concerning the work
in the festival. It is interesting to note, however, that while frustrations and irritations are mostly expressed
by single users of The Well, statements expressed by two or more users mostly contain positive emotions.
DISCUSSION
The video clips provide us with material for constructing an image of the organization of work of the
festival where The Well was placed. Testimonies of volunteer workers who used The Well provide us with
fragments contributing to the whole. In general, the information provided by The Well reflects the
individual volunteer worker’s role in the organizational processes of the festival: It is a problem-solving
role and a role requiring the handling of social relations, a heavy workload, and unanticipated incidents.
The video-clips may also be viewed in the perspective of aesthetic interaction with The Well. In addition to
reflecting the volunteer worker’s role they reflect the experience of interacting with The Well. This is
consistent with our position that the aesthetics of an interactive artefact evolves in the relationship with its
users. As there were clear ambitions in the design of The Well to elicit certain types of experiences – both
in relation to the physical design of the booth and in relation to the animation – obvious questions to pose
to the video material are:
1. How did the physical design of The Well affect the expressions recorded by the volunteers? Did
they attract the target group? Did they make the user feel safe to open up and to expose her
emotions?
2. How did the animation and the behaviour of the monkey affect them? Did they feel cared for and
listened to?
The present video clips are not sufficient to answer the above questions. However, they may provide us
with hints on where to look for indications of behaviour approaching the questions. Information concerning
personal experiences is probably indirect rather than direct, since it might be difficult for a user to verbalise
aesthetic experiences. The fact that testimonies obtained from users contained a considerable amount of
personal thoughts and views indicates that these users felt at ease exposing themselves. Still, we lack
information regarding whether this was due to the design of The Well. In a subsequent experiment we will
test instruments for retrieving information on the nature of the aesthetic zone of interaction. We plan to test
methods from the area of psychology to gather information about people’s aesthetic experiences of the
design. Thus, we end this position paper with questions rather than with answers. Hopefully, though, the
discussion of these questions may contribute to clarifying issues involved in the evolving research area of
aesthetic experience in the design of interactive artifacts.
REFERENCES
1. Bickmore, T. and Picard, R., "Towards caring machines". CHI 2004, April 24-29, 2004. Vienna,
Austria.
2. Petersen, M., Iversen, O., Krogh, P. and Ludvigsen, M.: “Aesthetic interaction – a pragmatist’s
aesthetics of interactive systems”. DIS2004, August 1-4, 2004. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
3. Starrin, B., Larsson, G., Dahlgren, L. and Styrborn, S. Från upptäckt till presentation. Om kvalitativ
metod och teorigenerering på empirisk grund. Studentlitteratur, 1991.


Aesthetic interaction – a pragmatist’s aesthetics of interactive systems”.

Från upptäckt till presentation. Om kvalitativ metod och teorigenerering på empirisk grund.

Towards caring machines&quot;.

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The aesthetic zone of interaction. How are aesthetic design qualities experienced?

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