COMP1649 - HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION AND DESIGN
Lecture 04: EMOTIONAL INTERACTION
Learning Outcomes: should be able to:
- discuss how emotional interaction is concerned with how interactive systems make people respond in emotional ways
- use well-designed interfaces to elicit good feelings in users and avoid the situation where badly designed interfaces cause frustration for users.
- utilize anthropomorphism to create interface agents and robot pets
- appreciate that designing the moment is an important factor for interaction designers
Overview
- Emotions and the user experience
- Expressive interfaces
- how the ‘appearance’ of an interface can affect users
- Frustrating interfaces - what are they and how to reduce them
- Persuasive technologies and behavioral change
- how technologies can be designed to change people’s attitudes and behavior
- Anthropomorphism - The pros and cons
- Models of emotion
- HCI has traditionally been about designing efficient and effective systems
- Now more about how to design interactive systems that make people respond in certain ways. Example": to be happy, to be trusting, to learn, to be motivated
- Emotional interaction is concerned with how we feel and react when interacting with technologies
Wufoo is a company specialising in building online forms and have transformed what are usually boring and tedious tasks into being more fun. How do the forms below compare with others you have had to fill in? One reason is the way minimalism, balance and aesthetics have been used in the design of the forms. As commented by one of Wufoo’s creators, Kevin Hale: “The inspiration for our color palette did come from our competitors. It was really depressing to see so much software designed to remind people they’re making databases in a windowless office and so we immediately knew we wanted to go in the opposite direction. My goal was to design Wufoo to feel like something Fisher-Price would make. We were determined to make sure Wufoo was fun.”
Emotional interaction
Emotional interaction is about considering what makes us happy, sad, annoyed, anxious, frustrated, motivated, delirious and so on and translating this knowledge into different aspects of the user experience, from when we first want something to when we no longer interact with it or need to replace it. However, it is not straightforward to achieve as people’s moods and feelings are constantly changing. There are also many reasons that might cause someone to be happy or sad, such as the sun shining or someone else winning a game.
- What makes us happy, sad, annoyed, anxious, frustrated, motivated, delirious and so on
- Translating this into different aspects of the user experience
- Why people become emotionally attached to certain products (e.g. virtual pets)
- Can social robots help reduce loneliness and improve wellbeing?
- How to change human behaviour through the use of emotive feedback
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Activity 1 - 15 minutes - Design a social robot like Jibro. Name it and state hơ it would express emotions. Illustrate your answer with drawings.
Consider the different emotions you experience for a common everyday activity – shopping online for a product, such as a new phone, a washing machine or a vacation. Firstly, there is the realization of needing or wanting it, and then the desire and anticipation of purchasing it. This is followed by the joy or frustration of finding out more about what products are available and deciding which to choose from potentially hundreds or even thousands (by visiting numerous websites, such as comparison sites, reviews, recommendations, blogs). This entails matching what is available with what you like or need and if you can afford it. The thrill of deciding on a purchase may be quickly followed by the shock of how much it costs and the disappointment that you can’t afford it. The process of having to decide again may be accompanied by annoyance as you cant find one that is as good as your first choice. You think about other options, such as seeking advice from an expert in a shopping mall, but you have an aversion to sales assistants and don’t trust their advice, because you think they have their own interests (making money), rather than yours, at heart. So you carry on looking, getting more tired and frustrated. When you do make a decision you experience a sense of relief. You click merrily though the various options (such as color, size, warranty) and then the dreaded online payment form pops up. You type in all your details and press the final payment button. A window then appears saying that your credit card number is incorrect. So you type it in again very slowly. And you notice you need to type the 3 number security code in again. Finally, when all is done you let out a big sigh. But as you walk away from your computer doubts start to form in your mind – maybe you should have bought the other one... This rollercoaster set of emotions is what many of us experience when shopping online, especially for expensive products, where there are a myriad of options to choose from and where we want to be sure that we make the right choice.
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Expressive interfaces
A good place to start understanding how emotions affect behavior and how behavior affects emotions is to examine how people express themselves and read each other’s expressions. These include understanding the relationship between facial expressions, body language, gestures and tone of voice. For example, when people are happy they typically smile, laugh and open their bodies up. When they are angry they shout, gesticulate and screw up their face. A person’s expressions can trigger emotional responses in others. So when someone smiles it can cause others to feel good and smile back.
- Provide reassuring feedback that can be both informative and fun
- But can also be intrusive, causing people to get annoyed and even angry
- Color, icons, sounds, graphical elements and animations are used to make the ‘look and feel’ of an interface appealing: conveys an emotional state
- In turn this can affect the usability of an interface: people are prepared to put up with certain aspects of an interface (e.g. slow download rate) if the end result is appealing and aesthetic
Users have created a range of emoticons - compensate for lack of expressiveness in text communication:
- Happy :)
- Sad :<
- Sick :X
- Mad >:
- Very angry >:-(
Also use of icons and shorthand in texting and instant messaging has emotional connotations, e.g.
- LOL, I 12 CU 2NITE
Would you use any of these? What for?
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Activity 2 - 15 minutes - Which one do you refer? Explain
Friendly interfaces
- Microsoft pioneered friendly interfaces for technophobes - ‘At home with Bob’ software
- 3D metaphors based on familiar places (e.g. living rooms)
- Agents in the guise of pets (e.g. bunny, dog) were included to talk to the user: kake users feel more at ease and comfortable
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Activity 3 - 15 minutes - Refer Bob's living room. Do you know this room? Why did it fail? Which point that need to be improve?
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Activity 4 - 10 minutes - Clippy
- Introduced after Bob but why was Clippy disliked by so many?
- Was it annoying, distracting, patronising or other?
- What sort of user liked Clippy?
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Frustrating interfaces: many causes:
- When an application doesn’t work properly or crashes
- When a system doesn’t do what the user wants it to do
- When a user’s expectations are not met
- When a system does not provide sufficient information to enable the user to know what to do
- When error messages pop up that are vague, obtuse or condemning
- When the appearance of an interface is garish, noisy, gimmicky or patronizing
- When a system requires users to carry out too many steps to perform a task, only to discover a mistake was made earlier and they need to start all over again
Amusing to the designer but not the user, e.g. Clicking on a link to a website only to discover that it is still ‘under construction’
Error messages
“The application Word Wonder has unexpectedly quit due to a type 2 error.”
Why not instead:
“the application has expectedly quit due to poor coding in the operating system”
Shneiderman’s guidelines for error messages include:
- avoid using terms like FATAL, INVALID, BAD
- Audio warnings
- Avoid UPPERCASE and long code numbers
- Messages should be precise rather than vague
- Provide context-sensitive help
Website error messages
Which one do you refer? Provide the reason
Should computers say they’re sorry?
- Reeves and Naas (1996) argue that computers should be made to apologize
- Should emulate human etiquette
- Would users be as forgiving of computers saying sorry as people are of each other when saying sorry?
- How sincere would they think the computer was being? For example, after a system crash: “I’m really sorry I crashed. I’ll try not to do it again”
- How else should computers communicate with users?
Persuasive technologies and behavioral change
- Interactive computing systems deliberately designed to change people’s attitudes and behaviours (Fogg, 2003)
- A diversity of techniques now used to change what they do or think
- Pop-up ads, warning messages, reminders, prompts, personalized messages, recommendations, Amazon 1-click
- Commonly referred to as nudging
Nintendo’s Pocket Pikachu
Changing bad habits and improving well being
- Designed to motivate children to be more physically active on a regular basis
- owner of the digital pet that ‘lives’ in the device is required to walk, run, or jump
- If owner does not exercise the virtual pet becomes angry and refuses to play anymore
This use of positive rewarding and sulking can be a powerful means of persuasion, given that children often become emotionally attached to their virtual pets, especially when they start to care for them.
How effective?
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