{"id":111,"date":"2008-03-15T10:13:49","date_gmt":"2008-03-15T17:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=111"},"modified":"2008-03-21T17:46:46","modified_gmt":"2008-03-22T00:46:46","slug":"part-2-interpretations-of-beauty-as-a-value-of-user-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=111","title":{"rendered":"Part 2: Interpretations of beauty as a value of user experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Second in a series of postings about aesthetics and beauty as they pertain to interaction design, and beyond…]<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

When we think of beauty, certain things come to mind: art, nature, physical and sensual qualities of the human body. But what about the artificial or digital, those interfaces\/services\/systems that are conceived and planned and designed by multi-disciplinary teams? Is it sensible for a digital UI or consumer product to be characterized as beautiful in the same way as a painting or a flower? Doesn’t that depend upon the relation between the user and the value of the user’s interaction (i.e., experience)? Indeed, how should one articulate beauty in terms of design, supportive of technology and business aims, driving new product development enriched with this sense of beauty, or aesthetic imperative? This hints at the broader issue of interpreting beauty as a matter of user experience.<\/em><\/p>\n

But what is meant by experience?<\/h4>\n

I propose that experience involves a subjectively interpreted, continuous stream of psychological and physical phenomena brought into awareness through an interaction or communication<\/em>. This depends upon the following elements: <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 The relationship between a person and an object
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 The process of being drawn to that object and engaged on multiple levels: physical, behavioral, and emotional
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 The value that arises from the attractive encounter <\/p>\n

These elements may be labeled as attention<\/em>, attraction<\/em>, and beauty<\/em>. So beauty\u00e2\u20ac\u201dan emergent value of human attention and emotional attraction\u00e2\u20ac\u201denables designers to plan and craft products that offer a rewarding, memorable encounter. <\/p>\n

I offer a framework to provide ways to understand beauty as an experiential phenomenon, arising from user\/product interactions. What follows is a set of interpretations of beauty based upon the writings of John Dewey, Mihalyi Cziksentmihalyi, David Gelernter, and Walter Gropius (philosophy, psychology, computer science, and architecture, respectively).<\/p>\n

\"beauty_model.png\"<\/p>\n

\n

This model is a tool to guide discussions for interaction designers about a product\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aesthetic value, centered upon user experience thinking. This is not<\/strong> a statement of a grand unified theory for all beauty or aesthetics in nature, but only focused on “the artificial” or human-made artifacts. Please note that no one interpretation is preferred, nor are they exclusive of one another in evaluating a product as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153beautiful\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. It’s not about being “right” or “wrong” or “better” or “worse”…It’s about expanding our vocabulary and ways of looking at the problem of beauty in terms of interaction and experience.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Optimal Flow<\/h4>\n

Csikszentmihalyi is a psychologist who regards human-product interactions as a pathway to personal achievement amid daily concerns for speed, efficiency, and materialism, which may engender a disconnected way of life. His theory of optimal experience\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor flow\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis predicated upon self-directed efforts to focus one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attention. This concern for attention suggests useful design possibilities. Using Csikszentmihalyi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s language and approach, one may consider designed artifacts as systems of interaction, whereby the invitation to participate evokes a harmonizing response. The artifact expresses its \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rules of engagement\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of how to approach and use an object through its form, all directly perceived by one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attention. Such rules may include the visual semantics and product affordances that convey a manner of use. Thus, these rules shape the experience, or attractive relationship, between the user and artifact. The user subsequently enters a process of participation in which flow conditions may emerge, if there is a suitable matching of goals, skills, and feedback for the user. The proper balance enhances the utility, usability, and desirability of the product overall. <\/p>\n

Lifestyle Design<\/h4>\n

John Dewey was a pragmatist philosopher focused on the process of interaction between a conscious being and her environment\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sustaining or frustrating\u00e2\u20ac\u009d conditions that define the activities of a person, such as the tools, spaces, materials, or other people. Dewey shifted the emphasis of interaction from a reflexive communicative exchange\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsuch as flow\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtowards an outward relationship of growth and renewal. Every experience has a structure and pattern, found in a rhythmic \u00e2\u20ac\u0153doing and undergoing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Dewey was especially concerned with recovering aesthetic experiences, which feature a dynamic integration of thought, action, and emotion into a unifying whole, that he termed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an experience\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Dewey avoided the term beauty due to its Romantic origins, but he pursued what may be construed as experiential beauty\u00e2\u20ac\u201da harmonious balance of the maker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intent and the perceiver\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s expectations towards a meaningful consummation of movement of emotion from inception, carried through development, and ending with an artifact that lives in experience.<\/p>\n

Machine Beauty<\/h4>\n

For computer scientist David Gelernter, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153machine beauty\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe union ofpower and simplicity in innovation\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis key to developing products that helps users \u00e2\u20ac\u0153break free\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from the confines of a machine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s internal logic towards a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153creative symbiosis\u00e2\u20ac\u009d between the user and her activity. In other words, the device should be an extension of a user\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intention to accomplish a task, like stapling papers, dialing a phone, washing clothes. A loss of awareness of the structure and mechanics results, leading to a direct engagement of the material, akin to Cziksentmihalyi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153illusion of disembodiment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and a singular unity of being. However, such beauty does not live in the environment of one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lifestyle or absorbing one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attention but in the execution of the logic of the product\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s functions in relation to a user\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s activities. Does the product enable her to perform her task, so that it does not become the burden her attention? To achieve functional elegance, there needs to be a transparency of use and directness of effect, turning the product and ensuing experience into something simple yet empowering.<\/p>\n

Spirital & Cultural Harmony<\/h4>\n

Finally, the fourth interpretation of beauty takes a holistic look at the relationship between a user and her product and how that impacts personal beliefs, cultural values, and even a sense of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spirit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. This is drawn from Walter Gropius\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 idea of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153scope of total architecture\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Gropius, was the influential founder of the Bauhaus, based upon principles of integrating art and design, to inspire industry with clean, rational forms. Gropius described his vision of design planning as “the art of coordinating human activities towards a cultural synthesis,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a reunification of the self with the natural environment, beyond the perils of mechanization. Amid the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153atomizing effects\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of an increasingly mechanized society, there is a segmentation of human lives. Therefore, Gropius\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 approach sought to achieve balance, order, and unity within one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, collectively and personally. There is an internal movement that connects a person to something greater than herself, perhaps ideals that speak of a cultural synthesis. She may feel like a member of a community that elevates what has been experienced into something personally intimate yet outwardly relating to a collective whole. To design products that inspire the human spirit and awaken cultural connectedness is a powerful variation of experiential beauty.<\/p>\n

\n

Aesthetics for Interaction Design<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 1: General thoughts on design aesthetics<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Part 2: Interpretations of beauty as a value of user experience<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Part 3: Towards an integrative aesthetic experience<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Second in a series of postings about aesthetics and beauty as they pertain to interaction design, and beyond…] When we think of beauty, certain things come to mind: art, nature, physical and sensual qualities of the human body. But what about the artificial or digital, those interfaces\/services\/systems that are conceived and planned and designed by … Continue reading “Part 2: Interpretations of beauty as a value of user experience”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theoretical-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}