The Thing and I: Understanding the Relationship Between User and Product

We currently witness a growing interest of the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community in user experience. It has become a catchphrase, calling for a holistic perspective and an enrichment of traditional quality models with non-utilitarian concepts, such as fun (Monk & Frohlich, 1999; Draper, 1999), joy (Glass, 1997), pleasure (Jordan, 2000), hedonic value (Hassenzahl, 2002a) or ludic value (Gaver & Martin, 2000). In the same vein, literature on experiential marketing stresses that a product should not longer be seen as simply delivering a bundle of functional features and benefits it provides experiences. Customers want products "that dazzle their senses, touch their hearts and stimulate their minds" (Schmitt, 1999, p. 22). Experiential marketing assumes that customers take functional features, benefits, and product quality as a given. Even though the HCI community seems to embrace the notion that functionality and usability is just not enough, we are far from having a coherent understanding of what user experience actually is. The few existing models (e.g., Logan, 1984; Jordan, 2000) of user experience in HCI that incorporate aspects such as pleasure are rare and often overly simplistic. In the present chapter, I will propose a more complex model that defines key elements of user experience and their functional relations. Specifically, it aims at addressing aspects, such as (a) the subjective nature of experience per se; (b) perception of a product; (c) emotional responses to products in (d) varying situations. It is a more detailed and further developed version of a research model, I previously presented in Hassenzahl (2002a). I view it as a first step towards a better understanding of how people experience products and a valuable starting point for further in-depth theoretical discussions.