User Centered System Design; New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction
User Centered System Design; New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction
The human-computer interaction handbook
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This paper reports on two exploratory studies aimed at understanding the extent to which peoples responses to products are influenced by their ideas about the processes from which those products result. The first study involved analysing 400 comments from online discussions of two mobile phone handsets. The second study involved conducting and analysing interviews with 29 members of the public about their own mobile phone handsets. The results indicate that some (but not all) people are prone to view products not just as things that exist, but as the work of agents such as designers, manufacturers or brands. These agents were thought to hold certain beliefs about users and to shape products in the light of those beliefs. The products were also understood to result from motivations that the agents held (e.g. to make a profit) or constraints that acted upon them (e.g. manufacturing costs). Although only exploratory, the studies reveal some phenomena of product experience that are not discussed in the existing literature and they suggest ways in which those phenomena might be further studied.