This paper describes an experiment investigating the
effectiveness and user satisfaction of using anthropomorphic
feedback at the user interface. The context chosen was online
bidding due to this kind of activity being very much used in
current times by general users. The main results of the
experiment were that there was a statistically significant effect
observed for the time taken to place a bid in the anthropomorphic
text condition. However there were no other significant effects
for effectiveness issues and user satisfaction indicators. The
results were also analysed in terms of the affordances and the
main findings were that each of the four conditions tested in the
experiment were probably equivalent in terms of their facilitating
the affordances. Overall it may be more important to facilitate
the affordances rather than a type of feedback being
anthropomorphic in nature or not
