Week 7 - Emotional Interaction

Emotional Interaction
Human and Computer Interaction
Week 7
Learning Goals and Standard
At the end of the lesson the learners will able to:
• Explain how our emotions relate to behavior and user experience.
• Provide examples of interfaces that are both pleasurable and usable.
• Explain what expressive and annoying interfaces are and the effects they can
have on people.
• Introduce the area of automatic emotion recognition and emotional
technologies.
• Describe how technologies can be designed to change people's attitudes and
behavior.
• Give an overview on how anthropomorphism has been applied in interaction
design.
• Enable you to critique the persuasive impact of an online agent on customers.
Emotions and the user experience
• 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
• e.g. 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
Emotional interaction
• 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 behavior through the use of emotive feedback

Expressive interfaces
• 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
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
• Make users feel more at ease
and comfortable
Clippy
• Why was Clippy disliked
by so many?
• Was it annoying,
distracting,
patronising or other?
• What sort of user

liked Clippy?
Frustrating / Annoying 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
Detecting emotions and emotional technology
• Sensing technologies used to measure GSR, facial expressions,
gestures, body movement
• Aim is to predict user’s emotions and aspects of their behavior –
• E.g. what is someone most likely to buy online when feeling sad,
bored or happy
Facial Coding
• Measures a user’s emotions as they interact
with a computer or tablet
• Analyses images captured by a webcam of their

face
• Uses this to gauge how engaged the user is A Screen shot showing facial coding from
when looking at movies, online shopping sites Affdex software
and ads
• 6 core expressions - sadness, happiness, disgust,

fear, surprise and anger
How to use the emotional data?
• If user screws up their face when an ad pops up -> feel
disgust
• If start smiling -> they are feeling happy
• Website can adapt its ad, movie storyline or content to match
user’s emotional state
• Eye-tracking, finger pulse, speech and words/phrases also
analyzed when tweeting or posting to Facebook
Indirect emotion detection
• Beginning to be used more to infer or predict
someone’s behavior
• For example, determining a person’s suitability

for a job, or how they will vote at an election
Persuasive technologies and behavioral
change
• Interactive computing systems deliberately designed to change
people’s attitudes and behaviors (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

Example:
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
Tracking devices
• Mobile apps designed to help people monitor and change their
behaviour (e.g. fitness, sleeping, weight)
• Can compare with online leader boards and charts, to show how they
have done in relation to their peers and friends
• Also apps that encourage reflection that in turn increase well-being

and happiness
Phishing and trust
• Web used to deceive people into parting with personal details
• e.g. Paypal, eBay and won the lottery letters
• Allows Internet fraudsters to access their bank accounts and draw money from them
• Many vulnerable people fall for it
• The art of deception is centuries old but internet allows ever more ingenious ways to
trick people
Anthropomorphism
• Attributing human-like qualities to inanimate objects (e.g. cars,
computers)
• Well known phenomenon in advertising

• Dancing butter, drinks, breakfast cereals
• Much exploited in human-computer interaction

• Make user experience more enjoyable, more motivating, make people feel at
ease, reduce anxiety
Evidence to support anthropomorphism
• Reeves and Naas (1996) found that computers that flatter and praise
users in education software programs -> positive impact on them
• “Your question makes an important and useful distinction. Great job!”
• Students were more willing to continue with exercises with this kind
of feedback
Criticism of anthropomorphism
• Deceptive, make people feel anxious, inferior or stupid
• People tend not to like screen characters that wave their fingers at the user and say:
• Now Chris, that’s not right. You can do better than that. Try again.”
• Many prefer the more impersonal:

• “Incorrect. Try again.”
• Studies have shown that personalized feedback is considered to be less honest and
makes users feel less responsible for their actions (e.g. Quintanar, 1982)
Virtual characters
Disadvantages
• Appearing on our screens in the
form of: Can lead people into false sense of
belief, enticing them to confide personal
secrets with chatterbots
• Sales agents, characters in
videogames, learning companions, Annoying and frustrating
wizards, pets, newsreaders • e.g. Clippy
May not be trustworthy

• Provides a persona that is • virtual shop assistants?
welcoming, has personality and
makes user feel involved with them
Integration
What are the things that you
are doing in order to control
your emotions?. Did you
sometimes ask god for a
guidance to control it? What
is your reflection on the
bible verse about emotions
Assessment
Look at a website that has a virtual assistant, e.g. Anna at Ikea.com,
Jenn at Alaskaair.com and answer the following:
What does the virtual agent do?

What type of agent is it?
Is the agent helpful in guiding the user towards making a purchase or
finding out something?
Would you trust the agent to the extent that you would be happy to buy
a product from it or follow its guidance? If not, why not?
REFERENCES
• HCI: Fundamentals and Practice, CRC Press, 2018-2019
• INTERACTION DESIGN beyond human–computer interaction
Fourth Edition , John Wi l ey & Sons Ltd, The Atr i um, Southern
Gate, Chi chester , West Sussex , PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2015

Week 7 - Emotional Interaction

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Week 7 - Emotional Interaction

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Week 7 - Emotional Interaction

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Emotional Interaction

Human and Computer Interaction

• e.g. to be happy, to be trusting, to learn, to be motivated

• Emotional interaction is concerned with how we feel and react when

• translating this into different aspects of the user experience

• Can social robots help reduce loneliness and improve wellbeing?

• How to change human behavior through the use of emotive feedback

• What sort of user

• When an application doesn’t work properly or crashes

• Aim is to predict user’s emotions and aspects of their behavior –

• Analyses images captured by a webcam of their

• 6 core expressions - sadness, happiness, disgust,

• For example, determining a person’s suitability

• A diversity of techniques now used to change what they do or think

• Pop-up ads, warning messages, reminders, prompts, personalized

• Commonly referred to as nudging

• Designed to motivate children to be more physically active on a regular basis

• Also apps that encourage reflection that in turn increase well-being

• e.g. Paypal, eBay and won the lottery letters

• Many vulnerable people fall for it

• Well known phenomenon in advertising

• Much exploited in human-computer interaction

• “Your question makes an important and useful distinction. Great job!”

• Many prefer the more impersonal:

May not be trustworthy

What does the virtual agent do?

You might also like