Interaction Design and Use Innovation for Interactive Products

Product use innovation is a means to facilitate the design-driven innovation approach. We explore how the mode-of-use concept may apply to state-of-the-art product interactions to enhance user experience and provide opportunities for design-driven innovation within the interactive product space. To achieve this we apply taxonomy of interactions to classify interaction styles as along the two dimensions explanatory or exploratory and discrete or composite. Adopting the research-throughdesign approach two interactive mood lamps were developed and expressed as high-fidelity prototypes. These were then used as stimuli to evaluate the influence of interaction style on product experience. Results indicated the touch-free magic interaction style, an interaction providing explorative and composite modes of interaction, was initially considered more innovative in terms of use. However, participants also expressed negative emotions related to dissatisfaction and embarrassment towards the touch-free magic interaction due to an inability to intuitively understand the use functions. Implications for the application of use innovation within the interactive product context are finally discussed