From UXD to LivXD E-Book
139,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Living eXperience Design - the design of life experiences - is an extension of user experience design (UXD). The context comprises usage and practice in real contexts in which spatial, urban, social, temporal, historical and legal dimensions are considered. Reflecting upon LivXD is to examine the whole experience of a target audience in a variety of situations - and not only in those involving digital technology. This book begins with the definition of LivXD and its associated epistemology, and proceeds to detail field experiments in certain privileged areas: the relation to creation and works, mediation and adult education.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 476
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Cover
Introduction
I.1. References
Part 1: Epistemology and Concepts
1 From UXD (User eXperience Design) to LivXD (Living eXperience Design): Towards the Concept of Experiences of Life and their Design
1.1. Introduction
1.2. The source of UXD
1.3. Beyond digital devices: from experience design to life experience design
1.4. Views on experience
1.5. How can we design experience?
1.6. Conclusion and perspectives
1.7. References
1.8. Webography
2 Thinking and Living “Experience”: Pragmatist Contributions from John Dewey“
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Reading experiences: paths to experience in John Dewey’s work
2.3. John Dewey: a broad, constructed and argued pragmatism
2.4. A social philosophy open to multiple themes and practices
2.5. Conclusion
2.6. References
2.7 Webography
3 Paths Created by an Enactive-relativized Approach to Experience: the Case of Viewing Experience
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Method of relativized conceptualization and enaction
3.3. From percept to concept
3.4. The horizon of relevance
3.5. Conclusion
3.6. Appendix: MRC summary (Boulouet, 2014, p. 30)
3.7. References
4 The Lived Experience as an Alternative to Digital Uses
4.1. Introduction
4.2. A partial review of a scientific production linked to the questions of experience
4.3. The lived experience in i3M Toulon research programs (IMSIC) questioning digital technology at school
4.4. The lived experience in i3M Toulon research programs (IMSIC) questioning immersive environments and industry training
4.5. Assessment: the lived experience and its methodological consequences in research
4.6. Conclusion
4.7. References
Part 2: Experiences of Creation and/or Work
5 Sources of Video Mapping: a “Proto-narrativity” of a Musical Nature?
5.1 Introduction
5.2. Video mapping and narrativity: a musical chord?
5.3. Parent-child interactions and proto-narrativity
5.4. Proto-narrativity and configuration of the temporal experience
5.5. Conclusion
5.6. References
6 In the Minds of Artists? Study of the Situated Artistic Creation Experience
6.1. Creation: between myth and mystery
6.2. Video mapping: a form of support for the study of creative experiences
6.3. REMIND: a method for analyzing the artistic creation experience
6.4. Conclusion
6.5. Acknowledgments
6.6. References
7 Participants’ Experience in an Optical Illusion Installation
7.1. Preamble
7.2. Visual perception and the art of optical illusion
7.3. Receiving visual data
7.4. Mediation in the search for perspective
7.5. The art of optical illusion
7.6. Design examples
7.7. Conclusion
7.8. References
Part 3: Experiences in Mediation and Training
8 The Concept of Experience in John Dewey’s Aesthetic Pragmatism: What are the Consequences for Cultural Mediation in the Museum?
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Aesthetic theory before John Dewey
8.3. John Dewey’s aesthetic pragmatism: the continuity of art and existence
8.4. Towards a descriptive redefinition of cultural mediation in museums
8.5. Conclusion
8.6. References
9 A Step Towards Experience Design in Museums
9.1. Visitor experience and experience design
9.2. Reducing the concept of experience
9.3. REMIND, a method of accessing experience
9.4. Objectifying visitor experience: the Iguane marin
9.5. Objectifying your own experience: the Louise de Bettignies project
9.6. A step closer to experience design?
9.7. References
10 Towards Teaching Focused on the “Bridging Experience”: the Case of Urban Learning through Site Visits
10.1. Introduction
10.2. Theoretical part: experience, and bridging experience in pedagogy
10.3. Application part: two site visits as experiential situations
10.4. Conclusion and possibilities
10.5. References
11 Design Games and Game Design:Relations Between Design, Codesign and Serious Games in Adult Education
11.1. Introduction
11.2. Definitions
11.3. Exploring the links between design and serious games
11.4. The main approaches to designing a serious game
11.5. Conclusion
11.6. References
List of Authors
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 1
Table 1.1. Classification of life experiences by status of the place and the use...
Table 1.2. Methodological grid for designing LivXD
Chapter 6
Table 6.1. The activity signs and its components inspired by Theureau’s framewor...
Chapter 11
Table 11.1. The four main approaches to serious game design
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1. Garrett’s model. For a color version of this figure, please see www....
Figure 1.2. UXD according to CREADS. Source: www.creads.fr. For a color version ...
Figure 1.3. UXD in four steps
Figure 1.4. UXD in eight components. For a color version of this figure, please ...
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1. R – real, and CF – consciousness functioning
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1. Metaphorical interface. For a color version of this figure, please s...
Figure 4.2. Use of tablets in the classroom. For a color version of this figure,...
Figure 4.3. Real-time 3D touch screen manipulation. For a color version of this ...
Figure 4.4. Process for identifying relevant use cases
Figure 4.5. An Immersive Cave scenario (Dallas, USA). For a color version of thi...
Figure 4.6. Focus-group objectification interviews. For a color version of this ...
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1. Advene’s information software (Aubert et al., 2012): the annotations...
Figure 6.2. Claudia Cortés Espejo is equipped with an eye tracker. The red circl...
Figure 6.3. Thomas Voillaume equipped with an eye tracker in his resident worksh...
Figure 6.4. Donato Maniello equipped with an eye tracker, trying to extract text...
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1. The Müller-Lyer illusion. The top line appears to be shorter than th...
Figure 7.2. Ponzo’s illusion
Figure 7.3. “The Chessboard” by Edward H. Adelson. For a color version of this f...
Figure 7.4. Illustration of the phenomenon of chromatic induction
Figure 7.5. Interpretation of the shaded area by the brain. For a color version ...
Figure 7.6. Zöllner illusion
Figure 7.7. Hering illusion
Figure 7.8. Kanizsa’s triangle
Figure 7.9. Titchener Circles. For a color version of this figure, please see ww...
Figure 7.10. Illusion of verticality. For a color version of this figure, please...
Figure 7.11. Rotating snakes by Akiyoshi Kitaoka. For a color version of this fi...
Figure 7.12. Illustration by Robert Laws
Figure 7.13. Felice Varini, orange ellipsis hollowed out by seven discs, 2010. F...
Figure 7.14. Myrna Hoffman, anamorphic art toy by OOZ & OZ. For a color version ...
Figure 7.15. Examples of the use of anamorphosis in road signs and signals. For ...
Figure 7.16. Example of the use of an anamorphosis in advertising on a sports fi...
Figure 7.17. Images from the Cinétique show. For a color version of this figure,...
Figure 7.18. The use of perspective in a public service campaign: a) poster seen...
Figure 7.19. Victor Vasarely, Zebra, 1938
Figure 7.20. Bridget Riley, Fall, 1963
Figure 7.21. Victor Vasarely, Vega-Nor, 1969. For a color version of this figure...
Figure 7.22. Alberto Biasi, Occhio al Movimento, 1964. For a color version of th...
Figure 7.23. Georges Rousse, Icône, 2008: a) not from the artist’s perspective, ...
Figure 7.24. Bernard Pras, Dali, 2004: a) not from the artist’s perspective, b) ...
Figure 7.25a. Felice Varini, Vingt-trois disques évidés plus douze moitiés et qu...
Figure 7.25b. Felice Varini, Vingt-trois disques évidés plus douze moitiés et qu...
Figure 7.26. Felice Varini, Trois ellipses ouvertes en désordre, 2014: a) out of...
Figure 7.27. François Abelanet, Qui croire ?, 2011: a) out of perspective, b) fr...
Figure 7.28. Edgar Müller, The Crevasse, 2008: a) out of perspective, b) from th...
Figure 7.29. Leandro Erlich, Bâtiment, 2004. For a color version of this figure,...
Figure 7.30. Installation plan of Point de Vue
Figure 7.31. View of the installation of Point de Vue outside the point of view ...
Figure 7.32. View of the installation of Point de Vue through the camera’s persp...
Figure 7.33. Overall view of the installation. For a color version of this figur...
Figure 7.34. Examples of spectator reactions in the installation: a) spectators ...
Figure 7.35. Installation plan. For a color version of this figure, please see w...
Figure 7.36. Installation out of perspective. For a color version of this figure...
Figure 7.37. The installation with perspective. For a color version of this figu...
Figure 7.38. The camcorder and screen in front of the installation. For a color ...
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1. The aesthetic experience according to John Dewey
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1. Stimulated revival interview: the young visitor comments his own sub...
Figure 9.2. Entry to the Iguane marin installation. In the foreground, there is ...
Figure 9.3. Touch screen with a frieze detailing characters (Source: Muriel Meye...
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1. Procedure of the experience protocol. Source: the author
Figure 10.2. Modeling of the study results. Source: the author
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1. ATLAS game (source: SimLab, Aalto University (Finland) – ATLAS Proj...
Figure 11.2. Maps of the main themes
Figure 11.3. Codesign method maps
Figure 11.4. Adaptation of the Parchesi game board for asthma treatment training
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Pages
iii
iv
v
xi
xii
xiii
xiv
xv
1
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
267
From UXD to LivXD
Living eXperience Design
Edited by
Sylvie Leleu-Merviel
Daniel Schmitt
Philippe Useille
First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd
27–37 St George’s Road
London SW19 4EU
UK
www.iste.co.uk
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
USA
www.wiley.com
This work was partially funded by the European INTERREG/GOTOS3/C2L3PLAY project.
© ISTE Ltd 2019
The rights of Sylvie Leleu-Merviel, Daniel Schmitt and Philippe Useille to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019930481
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-415-5
Introduction
The 20th Century was one of the significant theoretical and operational developments for the design of artifacts. Its first half saw the creation and/or progress of a significant number of objects that have transformed our lives: the train, the car, then the plane and finally the space shuttle. All have reduced the concept of distance; household appliances have enabled entirely new forms of home management, and mechanization has revolutionized agricultural activity. These are just a few examples of a movement in which no sector has been spared.
The second half of the century was marked by the gradual emergence of cognitive artifacts: information, knowledge, and also communication, culture, entertainment and leisure. The “chatter of the mind”, the television (Missika and Wolton, 1983), has established a sustainable world of flows, a contemporary universe that is constantly evolving and renewing itself up to the recent transformations of the smartphone and connected networks. Control instruments have also impacted many areas, from medical diagnosis to security surveillance. Increasingly sophisticated help systems have been developed to support decision-making, from the most strategic to the most commonplace. Many observers still argue that a new world is opening up, even though the relevance of the statement does not always stand up to rigorous scrutiny (Jeanneret, 2000).
At the epistemological level, constructivism as elaborated by Jean-Louis Le Moigne (1995, pp. 46–66) from the disegno of Jean-Baptiste Vico draws a line of continuity from Leonardo da Vinci to our contemporary designers, in this, our most recent history of design. Recherches en design (“Design research”) (Leleu-Merviel and Boulekbache-Mazouz, 2013) has already outlined its features, particularly in the chapter “Les représentations en conception à l’ère du numérique : vers l’avènement d’un nouveau disegno” (“Design representations in the digital age: towards the advent of a new disegno”) (Mineur, 2013).
Throughout the current century, engineering has been at the center of activity, with the engineer being the one who designs solutions. Through certain activity, an initial question finds a form of resolution through the production of a “suitable” artifact, that is, one that is appropriate. Everything can be accomplished in the closed design circles, without taking into account the user, their habits, desires, pleasures, etc.
If, in a somewhat caricature and coarse way, we can highlight a “turning point” at the turn of the 20th and 21st Centuries, it is that of this new consideration. It is worth discussing quality to begin with, which is defined as “the ability to satisfy expressed or implicit needs”. Even though we continue to think in terms of the functions to be performed, it is now the expectations and presumed uses that constitute the core of the specifications, after converting these “needs” into functions via functional analysis. We then see many “user-centered” approaches flourish, which radically reverses the point of view. The designation is sometimes a sincere desire, as the process remains largely unchanged, providing only a late “seat” to the association users in the methodological process. Nevertheless, a movement is underway.
It is once again epistemology that will provide an unprecedented scope to this inverted point of view. Through enaction, a theory outlined by Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana (1992), it is no longer possible to separate the subject and the artifactual object, because both are co-constructed together by self-possession in an environment where recursive loops and structural couplings are incessant: the interaction is permanent and inextricable. It is then positioned as a “primate”, first to all observable and conceivable, in the so-called Palo Alto school of thought (Winkin, 1981). Based in part on these theoretical foundations, Jacques Theureau (2017) founded an “activity theory” centered on enaction where the gaze moves away from the single artifact and embraces the subject, the object, the environment and the situation to constitute an “analysis of the activity”. “What is the action?” defines the horizon of relevance of this research program, the fruitfulness of which is well-known in terms of design. Today, as Francis Jauréguiberry and Serge Proulx (2011) noted, there are many approaches to studying situational activities by subjects located in an environment equipped with communication and information technologies. They unite to reconsider the conditions for observing uses and user figures.
This book opens another door to a new horizon of relevance: that of experience. When you are sitting alone in a chair and watching a movie, the activity is brief: you are sitting and watching. Yet, we live an existence that can be violent and passionate, unforgettable even. We can come out of this temporary experience forever transformed. By placing experience rather than activity at the heart of the analysis, the scope of possibilities is extended in two ways: first, by taking into account situations where the action is reduced as in the example above; then by integrating artifacts without “objects”. When you listen to a poem by a great actor on the radio, where is the object? In the poem, in its reading, in the radio show, in the radio station itself? It is clear that an object-based approach fails to address a very common situation. On the contrary, thinking that we are creating not an artifact (whether material or symbolic), but an experiential situation offered to the user, raises some of the difficulties encountered.
The notion of experience has a heuristic interest because of its suggestive polysemy. A door opens onto a land where the senses and cognition, subjective experience and the acquisition of knowledge and skills, representations and procedures interact. The experience allows us to think dialectically about what is structuring in a situation, a device, a medium and what the subject invents by also experiencing it for themselves. This notion therefore goes beyond that of “use” and “reception” to extend towards practices and underlines the sensitive, cognitive and emotional dimensions of the construction of meaning. Placed at the heart of our relationship with the world and with ourselves, the experience leads us to reconsider separate research traditions – one on uses and the other on reception – to better understand new issues that transcend academic boundaries.
This is how experience design is born. This expression emphasizes, from the outset, the purpose of the project as a “living experience” (Vial, 2015) and directs attention towards a “human ecology” where the subjects “interact with their natural and artificial environment”. According to the same author, design is undergoing a “semantic shift” that claims a communicative and social dimension. In this perspective, experiential design would aim to create experiential situations that would encourage the production of meaning, thus contributing to “creating the world” at the same time as “making sense”.
The “experience design” research program begins by identifying the principles that govern it. What are the theoretical concepts? And on which ontological assumptions are they based? These are the two questions that run throughout the chapters of the first part of the book. They determine the epistemological horizon of the proposed works and mark out general research areas to be explored.
Secondly, the theoretical support necessary for the rest of the scientific construction is constructed from the fundamental objects established previously. Based on the proposed approach, the methods, tools and the way they are mobilized constitute the methodological framework for a set of specific studies conducted in specific fields.
When it comes to field studies, it becomes clear that experience design knows few boundaries. Indeed, when you drive a car, you certainly move or travel, you drive a vehicle from which you expect an “appropriate”1 performance, but you also receive an experience. The moment you open the door of a store, an experience of the place, the moment, the buying situation begins. In a dwelling, a whole set of actions is carried out, but each of them is associated with one (or more) experience(s). An urban setting, a landscape, a museum, a creation, a book, a show, a festival, a trip, a meal, a vacation, hospitalization, a return to school, a teaching module, etc. everything is subject to experiences created and/or shaped by humans for humans. Their conception is in fact a matter of design. The diversity of situations thus leads to the extension of UXD, User eXperience Design, to a new concept: LivXD, Living eXperience Design, the design of life experiences. The main difference is that life experience does not necessarily include a digital device, and if it does, it is no longer a primary concern.
For each of these distinct fields, it is necessary to determine the observatory set up: protocols, instruments, data collection procedures, analytical methods, etc. Finally, the results and deliverables make it possible to accredit the productivity which results from an experiential approach.
This book is a collective production by the DeVisu laboratory2 (Visual and Urban Design). All the chapters in it have been written by the members of the laboratory and their partners. Following two joint seminars held several months apart on the concept of experience, we invited colleagues from the IMSIC laboratory (Toulon and Marseille) to contribute for two chapters that we have devoted to them. A third chapter has been entrusted to our historical partner, the Paragraphe laboratory at the University of Paris 8.
The common lines of research underlying the various chapters of this book are as follows:
1) How can we define the experience?
2) What characterizes the experience? How do we identify it?
3) What protocols should be put in place to capture the experience?
4) How can we receive feedback on the actual experience in comparison with the anticipated experience?
5) How does the designer’s thought express the future experience they are producing?
6) Do formal project representation tools influence future experience?
7) Can experience design be formalized and/or structured? And if so, how?
8) What significant difference and what new contribution justifies shifting from UXD to LivXD?
I.1. References
JAURÉGUIBERRY, F. and PROULX, S. (2011). Usages et enjeux des technologies de communication. Toulouse, Erès.
JEANNERET, Y. (2000). Y-a-t-il (vraiment) des technologies de l’information ? Villeneuve-d’Ascq, Presses universitaires du Septentrion.
LE MOIGNE, J.L. (1995). Les épistémologies constructivistes. Paris, PUF.
LELEU-MERVIEL, S. and BOULEKBACHE-MAZOUZ, H. (2013). Recherches en design. Processus de conception, écriture et représentations. London, ISTE Editions.
MINEUR, Y. (2013). Les représentations en conception à l’ère du numérique : vers l’avènement d’un nouveau disegno. In LELEU-MERVIEL, S. and BOULEKBACHE-MAZOUZ, H. (eds), Recherches en design. Processus de conception, écriture et représentations. London, ISTE Editions, pp. 131–148.
MISSIKA, J.-L. and WOLTON, D. (1983). La folle du logis. Paris, Gallimard.
VARELA, F. and MATURANA, H. (1992). The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding, Revised Edition. Boston, Shambhala Publications Inc.
VIAL, S. (2015). Le design. Paris, PUF.
WINKIN, Y. (1981). La nouvelle communication. Paris, Le Seuil.
Introduction written by Sylvie LELEU-MERVIEL, Daniel SCHMITT and Philippe USEILLE.
1
That is, suitable.
2
EA no. 2445 from the Polytechnic University Hauts-de-France.
Part 1Epistemology and Concepts
1From UXD (User eXperience Design) to LivXD (Living eXperience Design): Towards the Concept of Experiences of Life and their Design
1.1. Introduction
The consideration of the future user in design begins with quality, which is defined as “the ability to satisfy expressed or implicit needs”. Even though we continue to think in terms of the functions to be performed, it is now the expectations and presumed uses that constitute the core of the specifications, after converting these “needs” into functions via functional analysis.
Quality is defined in several ways. According to ISO 9241-210 (2010), it corresponds to “a person’s perceptions and responses resulting from the use and/or anticipated use of a product, system or service”. In ISO 9000 (2015), quality is the “degree to which a set of inherent characteristics of an object fulfils requirements”. It is sometimes defined as the set of attributes of an object. Compared to the previous definition, the differences are that:
– the term “inherent characteristics” has been changed to the more generic and neutral term “attributes”;
– anticipated use has been removed from the definition;
– the attributes are explicitly associated with any object.
As a result, although it is the first to take into account the future user, quality remains an object- or system-centric design. The first truly user-centered approaches started in the world of IT applications with the UI (User Interface) and UX (User eXperience).
This is where we will begin our journey towards the new LixXD concept, Living eXperience Design, that is, the design of life experiences.
1.2. The source of UXD
1.2.1. From design to user-centered design (UCD)
The term “design” refers to the conception, or even the translation of a concept, of an idea into a project, a drawing, a model or a plan, facilitating the realization or implementation of an object, whatever its nature: product, process, service, space, and network. In general, it can indicate both the purpose (the idea, the intention to achieve something, the project) and the drawing (the transcription and representation of the idea). Most often, the word “design” is followed by a noun or adjective that specifies the nature and purpose of the design (Laudati, 2016a).
According to Findeli (2005), the concept of design, from a theoretical point of view, has evolved in three chronological phases, characterized by their main objectives and by an interpretative paradigm corresponding to a specific disciplinary framework:
– the first phase, dating back to the beginnings of modernism, focused on the aesthetics and constructive characteristics of the object, resulting from the design process. The applied arts and engineering sciences determine the interpretive paradigm of this period;
– the second phase, starting in the 1950s, focused on the logic of design processes and the environments in which products must operate. The disciplines concerned were thus those relating to formal logic and cognitive psychology, the environment, ergonomics, sociology, etc.;
– finally, the third phase, the 1980s/1990s to the present day, focuses on stakeholders, that is, on the actors, in particular on users (UCD, user-centered design). Designers no longer design a simple object, but lifestyles, based on an understanding of user behavior. The user is no longer a simple consumer, but actively participates in the design (service design). Anthroposocial sciences, including information and communication sciences in their interpretative and qualitative capacities, take up these theories centered on actors, their interrelationships and uses.
From a pragmatic point of view, the ISO 13407 standard on design methodology facilitates the implementation of UCD, defining the requirements that a project must meet to be considered human-centered: it must meet the needs and expectations of users and not technological desires.
More recently, user-centered design has been oriented towards user experience design (UXD), which corresponds to users’ responses and perceptions resulting from the use or anticipation of the use of a product, service or system.
1.2.2. What is UXD?
It was towards the end of the 1980s that “user-centered design” appeared in the digital world. It is based on four main principles (Drouillat, 2017):
– the consideration of the user, their tasks and their environment from the product design stage;
– the use of active participation from the design phase, in order to respect the needs and expectations of the task;
– an adequate distribution of functions between the human and the system;
– recursivity in the design process, following a principle of successive iterations until the identified needs and expectations are met.
Donald Norman, promoter of “user-centered design” with Stephen Draper, writes:
I invented the term because I thought human interface and usability were too narrow. I wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with the system including industrial design graphics, the interface, the physical interaction and the manual. Since then the term has spread widely, so much so that it is starting to lose it’s meaning. (Drouillat, 2017)
Based on these premises, Donald Norman, Jim Miller and Austin Henderson, and also Apple, broadened the perspective by introducing the concept of User eXperience (now abbreviated to UX) in 1995, in the article entitled “What you see, some of what’s in the future, and how we go about doing it: HI at Apple computer”. Elements of user experience (Garrett, 2011) articulates, for Web professionals, the notion around five frameworks (Drouillat, 2017):
– the surface, that is, the visual design of the interface;
– the framework, that is, the specific organization of the information and elements of the interface;
– the structure, that is, the organization of pages and navigation at the device level;
– the scope, that is, the functional perimeter;
– and finally, the strategy, that is, the needs and expectations of the users and the objectives of the project.
Figure 1.1 illustrates Garrett’s approach, structured in five layers, from the most superficial to the deepest, and weaves the level of the interface with that of the underlying architectures. This schema is in line with the new job of “User eXperience Architect” promoted by Norman et al. in 1995, at the same time as the term “design” appears incidentally at all levels of the graphic.
Figure 1.1.Garrett’s model. For a color version of this figure, please see www.iste.co.uk/leleu/livxd.zip
1.2.3. The UXD approach in practice
UXD will develop and become very popular, even though it is more often used as a selling point than as a real revision of approaches. Nevertheless, there is a large number of sites, more professional than scientific, that provide practical advice for developers to implement UXD. Let us take, for example, among others, the CREADS website, which is self-positioned as a “design tribe”.
It states that “designing UX” involves answering three questions:
– What is your UX strategy?
– What user experience are you trying to implement?
– How do you think you can do this?
Figure 1.2.UXD according to CREADS. Source: www.creads.fr. For a color version of this figure, please see www.iste.co.uk/leleu/livxd.zip
Therefore, implementing UXD is a four-step process:
– analyze the situation;
– design the user experience promise;
– validate the process;
– develop the solution.
Figure 1.3.UXD in four steps
Figure 1.4.UXD in eight components. For a color version of this figure, please see www.iste.co.uk/leleu/livxd.zip
And UXD development itself is divided into eight components:
– content strategy;
– information architecture;
– visual design;
– interaction design;
– user interface;
– typography;
– usability;
– functionality.
1.2.4. Assessment
The two major revolutions introduced by UXD in the development of computer applications consist of:
– going beyond the UI (interface design) to take into account the whole experience of use more broadly;
– no longer pretending to design a product, object or application, but thinking that you are designing an experience for the user.
However, it is clear from its short history that the founding fathers did not embarrass themselves with theoretical definitions about “experience”, pretending that this concept made sense, and that trying to define it at the very least was quite useless. In fact, there are more practical tips for developers to implement UXD than there are theoretical articles about it.
Moreover, as we can see, the first meanings of UX are strongly linked to the design of digital devices, and they relate to digital interactions as well as the forms, figures and functions of the interface. They are therefore initially reduced to man–machine interfaces1, and take as their objective usability and ergonomics. However, they are rapidly expanding to integrate all aspects of interaction – beyond interfaces – and now extend to considering the user’s reactions, and even their emotions which are felt in the absence of an observable behavioral response, as discussed in the following.
1.3. Beyond digital devices: from experience design to life experience design
As its title, Design visual et urbain (Visual and urban design), indicates, one of the specificities of the DeVisu laboratory is to associate media devices, and in particular digital devices, with the consideration of the places and spaces in which all forms of interaction take place. In this perspective, this means to a large extent integrating places and spaces within the framework of experience designed by UX.
1.3.1. The framework of the experience: spaces and living spaces
We have seen that consumer objects are becoming supports and interfaces, calling more and more for digital technologies. These sensitive objects allow individuals to interact with their social and spatial environments (iPods, ATMs, interactive terminals, maps, interactive plans, etc.). The interface is not only a surface on which information can be exchanged and functionalities activated, but it also represents the structure according to which this information and the functions are organized and provide suggestions for their use in a given spatial environment, thus triggering new practices. The added value of the product or service offered via the interface is not linked to its performance value, but to its ability to evoke unique and memorable experiences in a defined place, whether physical or virtual.
We are therefore witnessing a progressive shift from the concept of experience design through the use of a device (primarily functional use) to experience design through practices in a given socio-spatial context. The practices refer to a “life experience” that translates into different forms of appropriation of this context: not only functional, but also perceptive, cognitive, symbolic, affective, emotional, etc.
It is therefore essential, in order to obtain better understanding of the different modalities of life experience, to understand how the spatial framework in which this experience takes place is constituted and how the reciprocal interaction (individual/space) takes place during the experience. We then formulate the hypothesis of a sensitive (and sensory) experience of space on the part of the user, thanks to or through which mediation takes place, that is, the meaningful connection between the individual and the perceived and/or experienced space. From the moment this space, defined by its ontological and measurable characteristics, becomes meaningful, it becomes a “place”. In other words, a place is a space that is perceived, experienced and felt by the observer, depending on his or her experience of it. This experience can take place in a physical or virtual location.
The spatial experience, whatever the scale of the physical space (room, dwelling, street, neighborhood, city), or the size of the virtual space (extension of the network), is above all a cognitive, then a semantic process, based on a multisensory perception and on a progressive and iterative learning process. This means that through the experience that the individual has of and in space, they acquire knowledge through sight, touch, hearing, smell and wandering. Through perception, the individual acquires the spatial data that he or she conceptually structures in order to be able to interpret and understand them. By “spatial data”, we mean:
– in the physical space, any element (static and/or dynamic) constituting an urban space: buildings, public spaces, people, transport, activities, services, etc.;
– in a virtual space, any element (static and/or dynamic) constituting the informational trace of a navigation space: a geo-referenced point on the territory or on an interactive map (monument, metro station, etc.); a fragment of history; a piece of augmented reality; a virtual room in a museum; a room in a 3D model, etc.
The perceived data are then interpreted as units of meaning, founding the identity of the place. The process of semantization, according to the theories of symbolic interactionism (Goffman, 1959; Le Breton, 2004; Mead, 2006), allows the individual to appropriate the data perceived through their own sociocultural codes at a given time.
The way in which the individual appropriates a situation or a place is reflected in the awareness of a social, cultural and spatial belonging, which has an influence on the behaviors adopted. In virtual space, for example, the sense of belonging to a group, to a community, is much stronger than that of belonging to a place.
Thus, the experience, which can be individual or shared, is informed by the user’s memory, knowledge and expectations, by determining their conduct, actions and practices. Through the actions accomplished, being accomplished or in the planning stage, the meaning of a space for a subject occurs. Experience is not a single, static and fixed process, but is dynamic and continuously renewed, as well as the meaning constructed from each experience.
1.3.2. The practices of the places: living experience and visit experience
We have begun the previously announced shift from experience design through use, to a design of life experience, that is, through all kinds of practice in various places.
However, depending on the user’s status and the status of the place, two types of life experience can be distinguished: the experience of living in the place and the experience of visiting it (see Table 1.1).
Table 1.1.Classification of life experiences by status of the place and the user
Status of the place
Life experience
Public link
Semi-public place
Private place
Physical location
(street, square, garden, etc.)
(museum, library, offices,etc.)
(accommodation,private garden,etc.)
User’s status
Virtual place
Any virtual representation of space (public, semi-public, private)
Continuous resident
Experience of living in it
Occasional visitor
Visit experience
The experience of living in it – in Heidegger’s (1951) sense of being in space and relating to it – takes place in a public, semi-public or private place (whether physical or virtual) when the user has a daily practical routine, regularity and continuity of use that determines a strong emotional appropriation, a feeling of being rooted and a sense of familiarity. In his foreword to Hannah Arendt’s book, Paul Ricœur points out that “the act of living draws the line between consumption and use” (Arendt, 2000/1958).
The visit experience, as will be seen in the following paragraphs, is linked to an occasional practice, by choice or necessity of the user.
1.4. Views on experience
It has already been noted that early work did not bother with theoretical definitions of “experience”. However, it is a necessity if we want to establish the concept and firmly find a basis for the proposals to follow. This part therefore aims to provide a very brief overview of the issue.
1.4.1. Experience according to Dewey
It is impossible to deal with experience without mentioning John Dewey and his seminal work, Art as Experience (Dewey, 2005/1934): it will be used in several chapters of this book, including Chapters 2 and 82. It is therefore not a question of making a thorough exegesis of it here, but of seeing how his approach to experience makes it possible to consolidate the foundations of the scientific construction envisaged. It is not unimportant to note that, as soon as the concept was introduced in the first pages of Chapter 1 of Art as Experience, Dewey chose an architectural example. This obviously reinforces and strengthens the relevance of our cross-fertilization approach between the experience of devices and the experiences of places and spaces.
Indeed, it indicates:
By common consent, the Parthenon is a great work of art. Yet it has esthetic standing only as the work becomes an experience for a human being. And if one is to go beyond personal enjoyment into the formation of a theory about that large republic of art of which the building is one member, one has to be willing at some point in his reflections to turn from it to the bustling, arguing, acutely sensitive Athenian citizens, with civic sense identified with a civic religion, of whose experience the temple was an expression, and who built it not as a work of art but as a civic commemoration. The turning to them is as human beings who had needs that were a demand for the building and that were carried to fulfilment in it; it is not an examination such as might be carried out by a sociologist in search for material relevant to his purpose. The one who sets out to theorize about the esthetic experience embodied in the Parthenon must realize in thought what the people into whose lives it entered had in common, as creators and as those who were satisfied with it, with people in our own homes and on our own streets. (Dewey, 1934, p. 4)
Many of the elements of this quotation open the door to a certain proximity with a “quality” approach: the specific needs of the Ancient Greeks, and the satisfaction of these needs through the building, as they practice it, as users, in the whirlwind of their daily lives. Moreover, this anchoring in the daily life of the passing life is reinforced in the next paragraph, where Dewey very quickly maintains a great distance from art and its works:
In order to understand3 the aesthetic in its ultimate and approved forms, one must begin with it in the raw; in the events and scenes that hold the attentive eye and ear of man, arousing his interest and affording him enjoyment as he looks and listens: the sights that hold the crowd – the fire engine rushing by; the machines excavating holes in the earth; the human-fly climbing the steeple-side; the men perched high in air on girders, throwing and catching red-hot bolts. The sources of art in human experience will be learned by him who sees how the tense grace of the ball-player infects the onlooking crowd; who notes the delight of the housewife in tending her plants, and the intent interest of her goodman in tending the patch of green in front of the house; the zest of the spectator in poking the wood burning on the hearth and in watching the darting flames and crumbling coals. These people, if questioned as to the reason for their actions, would doubtless return reasonable answers. The man who poked the sticks of burning wood would say he did it to make the fire burn better. (Dewey, 1934, pp. 4–5)
The perspective introduced here justifies the use of Dewey’s work to analyze life experience in general, and not just the experience of art. It should be noted in passing that Dewey mentions from the outset a substantial gap between the rational explanation of an action – as can be obtained during an interview – and the part of “fascination” and/or imagination that characterizes the experience of that same moment. We immediately deduce from this that it is necessary to go beyond the usual methods – that is, too rational – to access the experience in its full and complete essence.
1.4.2. The conditions of experience according to Dewey
The broadened discussions that appear in the quotes above make you dizzy. Indeed, if every moment of the “whirlwind of life” is an experience, then what distinguishes the experience from the flow of life itself? This question is decisive in the consistency of the concept of experience and its ability to capture a specific phenomenon, identifiable as such.
Dewey approaches the question by posing from the outset an essential difference in nature between the experience – supposedly continuous and undifferentiated – and an experience. “Experience occurs continuously, because the interaction of the live creature and environing conditions is involved in the very process of living […] Oftentimes, however, the experience is inchoate. Things are experienced but not in such a way that they are composed into an experience” (Dewey, 1987).
Since there is a differentiation between experience and an experience, conditions signify the transition from one to the other. Dewey explains it this way:
We have an experience when the material experienced runs its course to fulfillment. Then and then only is it integrated within and demarcated in the general stream of experience from other experiences. A piece of work is finished in a way that is satisfactory; a game that is played through; a situation, whether that of eating a meal, playing a game of chess, carrying on a conversation, writing a book, or taking in a political campaign, is so rounded that its close is a consummation and not a cessation. Such an experience is a whole and carries with it its own individualizing quality and self-sufficiency. It is an experience. (Dewey, 1987)
We find the very wide variety of examples that potentially justify that any circumstance of life can compose the material of an experience, which is at the very foundation of the LivX approach, Living eXperience and “eXperiences” of life. But a first criterion appears: to form a whole. The whole is seen as a consistent whole with a beginning, middle and an end. For the components to form a whole, a link must exist between them:
For in much of our experience we are not concerned with the connection of one incident with what went before and what comes after. There is no interest that controls attentive rejection or selection of what shall be organized into the developing experience. Things happen, but they are neither definitely included nor decisively excluded; we drift. We yield according to external pressure, or evade and compromise. There are beginnings and cessations, but no genuine initiations and concludings. One thing replaces another, but does not absorb it and carry it on. There is experience, but it is so slack and discursive that it is not an experience. (Dewey, 1987)
The LivXD hypothesis is also that, through experience, there is a strong link between the things that happen and the places and spaces where they happen.
In this organization of snippets of experience, emotion plays a central role. “Emotion is the moving and cementing force. It selects what is congruous and dyes what is selected with its color, thereby giving qualitative unity to materials externally disparate and dissimilar. It thus provides unity in and through the varied parts of an experience”. (Dewey, 1987)
There can therefore be no question of dealing with the experience without taking into account the emotion felt; this will be one of the main axes of the methods and protocols developed to capture the experience.
But conceptualization and action are equally important:
An experience has pattern and structure, because it is not just doing and undergoing in alternation, but consists of them in relation to each other. To put one’s hand in the fire that consumes it is not necessarily to have an experience. The action and its consequence must be joined in perception. This relationship is what gives meaning; to grasp it is the objective of all intelligence. The scope and content of the relations measure the significant content of an experience. (Dewey, 1987)
In fact, Dewey concludes:
It is not possible to divide in a vital experience the practical, emotional and intellectual from one another and to set the properties of one over against the characteristics of the others. The emotional phase binds parts together into a single whole; ‘intellectual’ simply states that the experience has meaning; ‘practical’ indicates that the organism is interacting with events and objects which surround it. (Dewey, 1987)
As we can see, all these components must be taken into account simultaneously to identify the experience in the situation: we will see from the field studies that this constraint is not always easy to satisfy.
However, the two previous quotations highlight the meaning that emerges from the experience, and how the construction of meaning fully contributes to translating the undifferentiated experience into an experience.
1.4.3. The meaning of experience according to Dewey
However, the meaning in Dewey’s pragmatics has little to do with the sole meaning, in the strictly linguistic sense of the term. It encompasses perception, action, relation and the transformation of interaction into participation and communication.
‘Sense’ covers a wide range of contents: the sensory, the sensational, the sensitive, the sensible, and the sentimental, along with the sensuous. It includes almost everything from bare physical and emotional shock to sense itself – that is, the meaning of things present in immediate experience. Each term refers to some real phase and aspect of the life of an organic creature as life occurs through sense organs. But sense, as meaning so directly embodied in experience as to be its own illuminated meaning, is the only signification that expresses the function of sense organs when they are carried to full realization. The senses are the organs through which the live creature participates directly in the on-goings of the world about him. In this participation the varied wonder and splendor of this world are made actual for him in the qualities he experiences. This material cannot be opposed to action, for motor apparatus and ‘will’ itself are the means by which this participation is carried on and directed. It cannot be opposed to ‘intellect’, for mind is the means by which participation is rendered fruitful through sense; by which meanings and values are extracted, retained, and put to further service in the inter-course of the live creature with his surroundings. Experience is the result, the sign, and the reward of that interaction of organism and environment which, when it is carried to the full, is a transformation of interaction into participation and communication. (Dewey, 1934, p. 22)
1.4.4. When Dewey anticipates Varéla
Through this entanglement between the organism and the environment and the importance given to the interaction that unites them, Dewey’s concept of experience is in line with Varela’s vision of self-possession and enaction, and it is anticipated that:
The first great consideration is that life goes on in an environment; not merely in it but because of it, through interaction with it. No creature lives merely under its skin; its substaneous organs are means of connection with what lies beyond its bodily frame, and to which, in order to live, it must adjust itself, by accommodation and defense but also by consquest. At every moment, the living creature is exposed to dangers from its surroundings, and at every moment it must draw upon something in its surroundings to satisfy its needs. The career and destiny of a living being are bound up with its interchanges with its environment, not externally but in the most intimate way. (Dewey, 1934, p. 13)
We will not dwell on this approach in this chapter, as a detailed and in-depth analysis of the enactive paradigm occupies a large part of Chapter 3.
In the network of filiations, links and references that can be discerned by looking at the concept of experience, the passage by Francisco Varéla and the highlighting of the importance of action naturally lead to Jacques Theureau and his work around the course of experience.
1.4.5. Theureau’s course of experience applied to the case of the visit experience
Following Dewey’s book, which strongly contests the principle of the museum – on the grounds that “the objects acknowledged by the cultivated to be works of fine art seem anemic to the mass of people”, thus proceeding from a “separation of art and from the objects and scenes of ordinary experience” (Dewey, 1934, p. 6) – the question of the museum experience has been specially addressed. In particular, John H. Falk is considered to be a specialist in researching what is known as the museum visit experience. At about the same time, the analysis of the museum visit by the course of experience was theorized and instrumented by Daniel Schmitt (2012), who gave it the general name of visit experience. This scientific point of view is linked to the work on Jacques Theureau’s course of experience. According to Theureau (2006, p. 48): “The course of experience is the construction of meaning for the actor of his activity as it unfolds, or the history of the actor’s pre-reflective consciousness, or the history of this ‘showable, tellable and commentable’ that accompanies his activity at every moment”. He specifies: “The course of experience is the construction of the phenomena of activity for the actor. The activity as it emerges from the actor’s experience constitutes a certain level of the material process (physiological and physical) that gives rise to this construction of meaning” (Theureau, 2006, p. 49).
We see that the construction of meaning mentioned above echoes the meaning by Dewey.
This method does not claim to capture all the activity, nor all the meaning of the activity, but a significant part of the activity that gives rise to the construction of meaning from the actor’s point of view (Schmitt, 2013; Schmitt, 2015). So it is really an experience – in the sense of Dewey – that we are talking about. Based on this theoretical basis, the implemented protocols aim to collect observable behavioral data, but also to collect this part of the data which are “presentable, relatable and commentable” – in Theureau’s sense – concerning their visit experience with the visitors themselves (Bougenies et al., 2015).
1.4.6. Françoise Héritier’s identity perspective
Without working theoretically on the concept of experience, the anthropologist Françoise Héritier proposes a particular perspective in this little book, which she considers not as a scientific text, but as “a ‘fantasy’, born through pen and inspiration” (Héritier, 2012, p. 7). The main part of the text is presented as an “enumeration, a simple list”, but it puts at the center what can be broadly grouped under the generic term of emotion:
It is about sensations, perceptions, emotions, small pleasures, great joys, deep disappointments sometimes and even sorrows, although my mind has turned more to the bright moments of existence than to the dark ones because there have been some. To small, very general facts, of which everyone will have been able to experience reality one day, […] I have gradually mixed private memories, lasting, fixed in strong mental images forever, dazzling snapshots whose experience can, I believe, be transmitted in a few words. However, I have the weakness to believe that, speaking of pure sensuality, [my subject] evokes the concrete experience of all human beings. (Héritier, 2012, pp. 9–10)
This is what Françoise Héritier refers to as the sweetness of life, “this little something extra that is given to us all”.
However, we must not be mistaken. If Françoise Héritier speaks of fantasy and lightness, she devotes the end of the book to supporting the “first necessity” of this which is “nothing but witchcraft”. Because experiences shape and mold each individual in his or her own identity, she affirms this forcefully:
Who am I beyond the external definitions that can be given of me, my physical appearance, broad character, relationships with others, professional and personal occupations, family and friendships, reputation, commitments, networks of belonging, beyond these definitions, which are probably fair but also constructed and misleading? Sincerely ‘I’. And this ‘I’ which is our wealth is made up of an openness to the world – an ability to observe, an empathy with the living, an ability to be part of reality. ‘I’ is not only the one who thinks and does but also the one who feels and experiences according to the laws of an ever-changing underground energy. If he were totally devoid of curiosity, empathy, desire, the ability to feel affliction and pleasure, what would it be this ‘I’ who speaks, thinks and acts? I wanted to track down the imperceptible force that moves us and defines us. It naturally depends on our life history, but it is not backward-looking: it is the very essence and justification, although ignored, of all present and future actions. ‘I’ would not be what it is if certain events had not occurred, which directed his life, but also if ‘I’ had not had the opportunity to feel such an emotion, to resonate on such an occasion, to have such an experience with his body. (Héritier, 2012, pp. 83–84)
We have taken the liberty of quoting this rather lengthy quote because it says everything about the issue at stake. By trying to capture the experience as it happens, it is the heart of the intimate and the unspoken of individual feeling that we hunt down, this imperceptible force that moves us and defines us… Taking hold of it scientifically is no small matter, it is quite clear, especially in terms of appropriate protocols.
