The objective of Natura Campus, the program in which this blog is inserted, is to increase the interaction of researchers with Natura on topics relevant to it. The theme of this blog, Senses and Experience Design, is a broad and multidisciplinary topic, making it difficult to explain in a few words. Senses and experience design still sounds strange to the ears, not so much because of the issue of senses, as it is a concept that ends up being more familiar to all of us who effectively feel, and we are also more familiar with the physiological approach given by neuroscience. No, the difficulty is not in explaining how to study the senses, but rather in correlating them with experience design.
As a first post, some conceptualization may be necessary, and here I will focus on experiences, more specifically on the study and manipulation of these, as well as posing some of the questions to be addressed by this field.
The different relationships between subject and object
This new and promising area that is establishing itself, called "experience design," consists of enhancing the relationship between people, contexts, and objects, trying to better understand this relationship and how to influence it. This may not seem very new, after all, since its origin, the profession of designer has always focused on the relationship between context and object. But, looking back, we realize that the relationship of people with objects or products has never been static.
The beginning of design was characterized by rationality, by concern only with the functionality and utilitarianism characteristic of the modern era, where there was no space for the designer's imagination, and only the function and efficiency of the object were considered, not its interaction with the user. The rationalization of the object gave way to its control exercised over the subject, imposing the same style on everyone, without considering the individuality of users.
This is followed by a new rearrangement in the relationship of the object with the subject, when thanks to advances in production technology, now being much more flexible, it allowed for the production of objects aimed at individual needs and desires. Thus, the role of the user in the development of a product changed, going from indifference to concern for meeting their specific needs and desires.
It is in this context that design begins to care about the relationship between object and user in a broader way, not only considering rational utility but also the emotional reaction of this interaction. It is this emotional relationship that attracts the attention of researchers from various fields of economics, psychology, social sciences, and neuroscience. What is the emotional bond of the user with an object? What kind of experience can an object generate? How to understand the user to create an emotional bond through an object?
Addressing the subject/object/context relationship
Image: Dan Zen http://www.flickr.com/photos/danzen/291548438/
The difficulties in answering these questions stem from what is understood by experience, which can be understood here as the interaction of the person with the product in a given context [1]. The problem is that people and contexts are diverse, each in their own way. People have different life stories, cultural influences, and emotional reactions, and contexts vary according to location, environment, emotional state, and interpretation of the interaction with the object.
One way to start studying these questions would be to focus on the reaction that the object causes in an individual, basically seeking their immediate physiological responses, disregarding the context and the intellectual or cognitive participation of the experience. This would be the study of sensations, perhaps more addressed by neuroscience, but without preventing the approach from other areas. Another way of study would be to address the long-lasting emotional experience, considering the intellectual interpretation of the individual and correlating it to the context in which this experience occurs.
Here arises one of, if not the greatest, questions in the field of experience design: can the characteristics of an object modify or shape an emotional experience?
A simple object can alter an emotional experience
Most authors in this field will say that an object can indeed contribute significantly to generating an emotional experience. The caveat is that it would not be possible, through just the design of an object, to shape an experience to generate a very specific emotional response [2]. The challenge would then be to integrate the various fields that address experiences and emotions in order to study the emotional relationship of the person with objects and services.
It is important to note that when we currently talk about modeling, we are not necessarily only talking about a static and isolated object. The experience of contact with objects and services can also be induced in specific spaces or even in services provided to the subject, contextualizing the experience. The influence of the environment where this interaction with the object takes place is also the focus of a series of studies from various areas of psychology and even architecture, literature, and software development, generating knowledge for the creation of suitable spaces that contextualize the contact between user and object, in order to generate the desired experience.
And not only controlled environments can influence a subject's relationship with an object, but also all information disseminated by the media, which today, through television and the internet, being tools of high penetration, end up being very important in contextualizing the user's experience with an object or product.
Thus, we realize that the concept of experience design is intrinsically multidisciplinary, as it has as its object of study this complex ternary relationship between context, subject, and object; in a game where the first two are highly variable and the player (designer) can only act on the design and context of the latter that is inserted to influence the outcome of this entire relationship.
This was just an attempt to explain experience design in a very general way. The role of this blog from now on will be to bring examples of these various approaches from different fields of knowledge for the understanding of experiences, hoping that it will be the starting point for new ideas for research partnerships in these areas.
References:
[1] FORLIZZI, J.; FORD, S.; HANINGTON, B. 2000. The building blocks of experience: An early framework for interaction designers. In: CONFERENCE ON DESIGNING INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS: PROCESSES, PRACTICES, METHODS, AND TECHNIQUES, 3, New York City, 2000. Proceedings... New York, DIS ‘00. ACM, p. 419-423 [2] FORLIZZI, J.; DISALVO, C.; HANINGTON, B. 2003. Emotion, experience and the design of new products. The Design Journal, 6(2):29-38. FREIRE, K. 2009. Reflections upon the experience design concept. Strategic Design Research Journal, 2(1):37-44
Rafael Bento – Biologist, PhD in biotechnology, postdoctoral researcher in neuroscience, and science communicator
