Exploration of Human Experience
Experience design is a critical aspect of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and designers strive to create products and services that offer users positive and impactful experiences. Two seminal works in this field are the books Technology as Experience by John McCarthy and Peter Wright, and The Experience of Enchantment in Human-Computer Interaction, both of which are still readily available.
Published in 2004, Technology as Experience presents four threads of experience: sensual, emotional, compositional, and spatiotemporal. The sensual thread emphasises the importance of engaging users' senses deeply, encompassing visual, auditory, and tactile elements. The emotional thread focuses on the need for digital experiences to connect emotionally with users, while the compositional thread relates to the design elements on a page or the sequence of interactions in a user journey, ensuring narrative and aesthetic coherence. The spatiotemporal thread considers the context of use, including how, when, and where users engage with technology, aiming to create experiences that feel natural in these dimensions.
The book also outlines six processes of sense-making: anticipating, connecting (pre-cognitive sensation), interpreting (complex emotions), reflecting, appropriating (interweaving into life), and recounting (telling others). These processes help designers create digital experiences that facilitate clear perception, enable users to form preliminary impressions, support categorisation, highlight important parts, allow users to organise and mentally structure information, and express the meaning or significance of the experience.
Applying these frameworks to digital design can lead to more meaningful and impactful experiences. By blending sensory richness with emotional resonance, crafting journeys that tell a story or express a theme, adapting designs to contexts of use, using clear visual hierarchy and familiar patterns, letting users customise or highlight features, enabling users to structure tasks or data visually and logically, and rendering the experience’s meaning via narrative elements, brand voice, or interaction metaphors, designers can create experiences that engage senses, emotions, context, and cognition effectively.
The Experience of Enchantment in Human-Computer Interaction, another book by McCarthy and Wright, discusses experience design in depth and outlines the same six processes of sense-making. This resource is valuable for those interested in experience design in HCI.
Professor Alan Dix, an expert in the field, recommends Technology as Experience as a foundational text in HCI, focusing on technology as lived experience rather than just utility. These principles are applicable to both digital and non-digital experiences, making them essential considerations for designers in the digital age.
In conclusion, by grounding design decisions through these intertwined threads and processes, digital experiences evolve from mere functionality to rich, user-centric encounters that engage senses, emotions, context, and cognition effectively. This leads to more lasting impact and meaning for users.
Technology as Experience and The Experience of Enchantment in Human-Computer Interaction, both by John McCarthy and Peter Wright, focus on the significance of technology in the realm of education-and-self-development, particularly learning, by providing designers with methods to create technology experiences that are engaging and impactful. The former book, published in 2004, presents four threads of experience (sensual, emotional, compositional, and spatiotemporal) and six processes of sense-making, which when applied to digital design, can lead to rich, user-centric encounters that stimulate senses, emotions, context, and cognition. These principles are applicable not only to digital but also non-digital experiences, making them crucial for designers in the current education-and-self-development landscape.
