New Introduction:

Digital technologies and their social capabilities are reshaping how we, as a culture, work, live, and play. This cultural shift to mobile computing positions users to interact and engage frequently with digitally designed products, referred to as artifacts. The role of the designer in human-computer interaction is that of an experiential guide for the development of artifacts. Current design processes study the usability and the user’s experiences, limited to observable behaviors, with the artifact. This negates a concern, or at best skims the surface, for how a user engages with the data supplied, the actions the artifact supports and how the user’s quality of life is shaped by and through these artifacts.

Using a phenomenological approach to assess the subjective individuality of human experience, the artifact can be viewed less in terms of main purpose and more in terms of a developing product in a constant state of flux based on the user’s subjective experience interacting with it. This flow of interaction and experience becomes the groundwork for proposing adjustments to the form or function of the artifact. This phenomenologically sensitive process of iterations is founded on recurrent interaction with the user. Maintaining that the user’s experience is the most significant fixed point of reference, rather than conventional method signifying the artifact as the fixed point of reference. This framework designs for a memorable user experience through an ease of task accomplishment, which in turn reduces the attention to the artifact. The opportunities for using the phenomenological framework occur only during the early developmental stages as a means to understanding the potential issues or needs as opposed to retroactively fixing the final design solution.

(Please note: this is still in a very informal initial concept phase)

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Photo Credit: www.bryaneisenberg.com