Often in the aspect of HCI, we are interested in learning
how to create a system that is of high utility or high usability for the user.
What’s intriguing is that most of the products in the market are already quite usable
and valuable to the user, the only way your product can have an edge over your
competitors is when your product has the power to create positive emotion in
your user!
These days, studies have shifted slightly to more on the
human aspect. For example, research on the importance of human’s emotion in HCI
is only a recent trend (research papers found are mostly published in the year
2000 onwards). In this blog post, we
would give three models of emotion as well as some theories & application
of emotion in HCI.
Models of Emotion
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| Fig 1. Neurological structure of emotion |
LeDoux’s (1996) model stated that generally speaking, every
sensory input first have to pass through the Thalamus which can be interpreted as the middleman to relay the
information to either the Cortex for
high level processing or the Limbic
System. The limbic system in short, is the part of your brain that perceives
the emotion and enables you to feel it. However, what’s interesting to HCI practitioner
is the thalamus-cortex-limbic pathway. This pathway generate emotion is caused
by cognitive thinking and is generally linked to emotion such as frustration,
pride, satisfaction that user feels when using the system.
 |
| Fig 2. Don Norman's three level of brain processing |
The second model is presented by Don Norman, human as the
most complex animal has three levels of processing in their brain. Visceral is
the lowest level, it is how you feel immediately when you make a judgement. Whereas Behavioural and the Reflective level are linked and are of higher level;
cognitive thinking is done before producing an emotion on that particular
product. It affirms to LeDoux’s model whereby emotions can be created by cognitive
thinking as well.
The third and the last model would be of Rafaeli and
Vilani-Yavetz. They presented three dimensions: instrumentality, aesthetics,
and symbolism that would evoke emotions. Instrumentality refer to how well the
product help in accomplishing user task; this is what we have been learning –
the usability aspect. For aesthetics, it is said that the aesthetics quality of
a product influences consumer’s attitude towards the product. For example,
Apple has done a very great job in this particular area; their products strive
for zen-like simplicity in their design. And many has indeed purchased their
product mainly due to how aesthetically pleasing the product is. Lastly
symbolism is the association your product has on the user. For example the
ability to personalize the skin of your product could give a sense of
self-identity for the user.
Theories & application of emotion in HCI
- Thoughts created by emotions tend to dominate cognitive thoughts. Cognitive thoughts are thoughts like thinking how to solve a particular problem (the thalamus-cortex-limbic pathway), whereby emotional thoughts could be “I won’t want to use this system anymore” after being frustrated with a system. In HCI–context, the use of a “beep” sound (beep is associated with sense of urgency) will grab a user’s attention immediately even if the user is focused on cognitive thoughts. Usage of the “beep” sound must be used with care as well, if the user is already frustrated with the cognitive thoughts, the sound would do only harm than good.
- Emotion stimulus events are generally better remembered than those of unemotional. Especially negative events, users are more than likely to recall them. Emotion encoded in a particular mood is also better recalled when in the same mood. Hmm, pretty sure you are capable of listing some products that you really had a bad user experience with, more easily if you are in bad mood now.
- People in positive mood are more effective in their performance. In HCI-context, if your interfaces do not make a user frustrated (Rafaeli and Vilani-Yavetz’s instrumentality), user would naturally feel more positive. And the chances are that the user would better utilize the tools that you have created for the user. An example in our context would be comparison between the various IDE in the market. Imagine you are trying to create object-oriented programs using Eclipse or Blue-J, creating multiple classes of objects in Blue-J would cluster your interfaces pretty quickly, whereby creating objects in Eclipse is a breeze. Definitely, the time taken to finish coding the same software would be different.
- In general, there are 8 basic needs for an individuals, fulfilling either of the need will trigger a positive emotion in the user. They are
- Physiological – hunger, thirst, bodily comfort
- Safety/security – being out of danger
- Social: affiliate with others, be accepted
- Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition
- Cognitive: to know, to understand and explore
- Aesthetic: symmetry, order and beauty
- Self-Actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one’s potential
- Transcendence: help others find their self-fulfillment and realize their potential
- For example, knowing that you are shopping at a secured site tends to let the user feel more at ease compared to one whereby it give no sense of security. Another example would be for education software, when the student has correctly answered the question, appraisal can be given whereby the user would feel a sense of self-esteem – triggering positive emotion.
- There’s this concept of residual emotion, whereby if emotion A was triggered and emotion B is triggered soon after A, the intensity of emotion B would be much stronger if A has not fade away yet. For example when you have just completed a project (sense of accomplishment, emotion A) and you want to upload it to IVLE’s workbin. However, IVLE’s procedure of uploading document keep giving you an error “File type not accepted” with no remedies provided. This would inevitably trigger a much more intensified sense of frustration (emotion B).
- Colors play a key role in the emotion as well. In our past blog posts, there had been 2 posts on the usage of colors. Choosing the appropriate colors would definitely trigger the right emotion! We shall not repeat what’s stated; look back for the 2 posts if you are interested on what kind of colors create what kind of emotions!
Summing it up, we hope that with the models and
theories presented about emotion, it will create a sense of awareness of how
important the role of emotion in HCI is; the kind of effect it would have on
user. Certainly, an application that induces positive emotion would have an
edge over its competitors; assuming usability and function wise are on the same
level.
References
Fishwick, P. (n.d.). Exploring Attributes of Skinas Potential Antecedents of Emotion in HCI. MIT Press.
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