The disenchantment of affect

  • Authors:

  • Phoebe Sengers;Kirsten Boehner;Michael Mateas;Geri Gay

  • Affiliations:

  • Information Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA 14850;Information Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA 14850;Literature, Communication and Culture and College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA 30332;Information Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA 14850

  • Venue:
  • Personal and Ubiquitous Computing
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

In computing design, experience is often broken down, compartmentalized, and engineered: a process that often disenchants the original experience. In this paper, we demonstrate the possibility to design for experience, not by formalizing and rationalizing it, but instead by supporting open-ended engagement and appropriation. We illustrate this approach through Affector, a case study in affective computing, in which we focus on user interpretation and construction of emotional experience over its computational modeling. We derive design and evaluation strategies for enchantment that focus on supporting the ongoing construction and interpretation of experience by human participants over the course of interaction. We suggest that enchanting experiences may be designed only by approaching enchantment obliquely: not by engineering it in, but by providing opportunities where it may emerge.