A Tangibility Approach to Affective Interaction

People use their cognitive, perceptual-motor and affective skills to interact with electronic products. In normal language we could say that interacting with products requires not only knowing and doing, but also feeling. Lately, researchers on human-computer and human-product interaction realized that a one sided cognitive approach will not solve all the complexity of human product interaction. New approaches focus on the aspects of the perceptual motor skills or on the affective skills and are called respectively tangible interaction and affective interaction. Instead of focussing on one type of skill, design has always been about integrating. Therefore this design research thesis integrates the cognitive, perceptual-motor and affective aspects of product interaction. It advocates a tangibility approach to affective interaction to answer the research question. âHow can we design for human product interaction, so that the product gets information about⦠what we âknowâ and how we âfeelâ from the way we âdoâ this interaction, in order to adapt to this information?â This thesis follows a âResearch through Designâ approach which generates new knowledge through the act of designing. The design process is used as a form of research where the results contribute to the design for emotionally intelligent products. The context of the design case for this thesis is a typical every day experience, yet filled with a diversity of emotions, i.e., the experience of waking up. The current accompanying product, the alarm clock, is a perfect example of a product that is completely unaware of, and inappropriate for the many different emotional experiences of the user. The design process is structured along the lines of three design questions: 1. What are relevant emotional aspects for a context for experience? 2. How can a product recognize and express these aspects? 3. How can the product adapt to the person on the basis of this information